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

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

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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