FIRST NON-LATIN COUNTRY DOMAINS LAUNCHED

PanARMENIAN.Net
May 7, 2010 – 16:14 AMT 11:14 GMT

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced
the launch of the first country-code domain names written in non-Latin
script. The three new top-level domains are CaÓÚæÏíE. ("Al-Saudiah"),
CãCÑCÊ. ("Emarat") and ãÕÑ. ("Misr"). All three are Arabic script
domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left.

In a conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, Internet Society
NGO chairman Igor Mkrtumyan characterized creation of national domains
as a political issue, rather than technical necessity.

"Theoretically, creation of Armenian domains is a feasible, though
time-taking procedure. Surveys we conducted among Armenian users
prove Armenian domains to be unnecessary," he said.

ICANN began testing internationalized domain name (IDN) back in the
Fall of 2006, and tested 11 languages – Arabic, Persian, Chinese
(simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish,
Japanese and Tamil.

"ICANN staff are still finishing the processing of these domain’s
delegations, but now that they are visible in the root zone it is
fair to say these are mostly formalities. The remaining tasks include
final technical verifications, updating the IANA WHOIS database
and publishing the delegation reports," the ICANN blog said on May
5. "Now the hard work happens in the countries which have their new
IDN ccTLDs. They will now commence their own processes to launch the
domains in a way that gives their communities access to put them to
day-to-day use."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress