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

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

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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