Re: [ga] Are the Falkland Islands and Bermuda in Europe?

[Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>]

Roberto,

Sorry for the late reply. I see your points. You are right.

Marc

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, at 00:09 [=GMT-0000], Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> Marc,
>
> Two points.
>
> First of all, the change of the allocation.
> As motivated by ICANN, it could seem that the change originated in the
> update by UN of their table. Well, this is a false impression.
> The page referenced by ICANN still shows the Falkland/Malvinas and Bermuda
> in America.
> So, the reason must be a different one. Maybe the old story of the
> unhappyness of France about having .gp and .mq administered separately, and
> not by AFNIC? If this is true, would the move of the colonies to a different
> region be the first step in the takeover of NICs at present independently
> managed?
> This will be a very dangerous move, opening the way to either the
> redelegation of NICs like .gp and .mq to AFNIC, or (even worse) the
> disappearance altogether of those CCs, whose users will be lumped into .fr.
>
> Secondly, the readjustment of the regions, modification of number thereof,
> and so on.
> With such insignificant number of electors in the different regions in
> relation with the population (even with the active Internet user
> population), a change now might only serve the interests of one or another
> country or group, to artificially increase representation without strong
> connection to the active population. It would be different if we had active
> AtLarge members users in the range of the millions: when this would happen,
> it would justify a redesign of the map of the regions to accomodate also a
> concept of number of users. Note that this should not be the sole criterion,
> but it seems reasonable that the "electoral districts" be revised. Until
> then, we are better served by the statu-quo.
>
> In summary, my recommendation (ICANN comment mailbox in copy) is to keep the
> statu-quo, with the territories significantly separated from the "mother
> country" in the region where they have been put by the UNSD. In the same way
> as ICANN has, up to now, stayed away from the definition of "what is a
> country", it should staw away from the definition of "where is a country",
> and refer to UNSD and ISO.
>
> Best regards
> Roberto
>
> >From: Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>
> >To: ga@dnso.org
> >Subject: [ga] Are the Falkland Islands and Bermuda in Europe?
> >Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 16:24:35 +0200 (CEST)
> >
> >The 5 regions used by ICANN to ascertain geographical representation have
> >made me uncomfortable for several reasons. One of these is that they are
> >not nearly of equal size in whatever way you measure that size
> >(inhabitants, internet users, size of territory).
> >
> >A few days ago a revised version of the allocation of countries and
> >territories has been put up on the ICANN website. It will be discussed in
> >Montreal.
> >
> >http://www.icann.org/montreal/geo-regions-topic.html
> >
> >If I understand it, Bermuda and the Falkland Islands are now in Europe.
> >The same is true for some French territories. Please, note that the
> >European Union does think that some of these countries/territories are
> >in Europe and others not. (http://europa.eu.int/abc/maps/index_nl.htm)
> >
> >The reason seems to be the citizenship of the people who live there.  I
> >don't know about Bermuda and the Falklands, but the two former Dutch
> >colonies, which are also in 'Europe' now, elect their own parliament etc.
> >They are independent politically.  The Dutch government does not speak for
> >Aruba or the Netherlands Antilles. It fights with them occasionally.
> >
> >Is this change to the regions not a step back to colonialism?
> >
> >Anyway, what I would really like to see, is a more balanced regional
> >division. Look at the 'facts' (population and territory) of the present
> >regions within ICANN:
> >
> >Asia-Pacific			3798		15,568
> >Africa                           840		11,698
> >Europa				 728		 8,875
> >Latin America-Caribbean		 531		 7,964
> >North America			 319		 7,699
> >
> >(Source: http://www.prb.org/pdf/WorldPopulationDS02_Eng.pdf)
> >
> >The proposed changes don't influence these numbers much as they concern
> >mainly small islands. There is no improvement in them, as far as I can
> >see.
> >
> >Some may find it important to take the number of internet users into
> >account. Here are some data (for what they are worth):
> >
> >Europe          190
> >Asia/Pacific    187
> >US/Canada       183
> >Latin America   33
> >Africa          6
> >Middle East     5
> >
> >(Source: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/)
> >
> >This would suggest 3 regions not 5:
> >
> >America                         216
> >Europe, Africa                  196
> >Asia/Pacific/Middle East        192
> >
> >
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