[registrars] Daily Yomiuri story about "TLD Name Constituency".

["Robert F. Connelly" <rconnell@psi-japan.com>]

Dear Colleagues:

The morning's Daily Yomiuri (English) has a section on "Cyberworld" (a 
weekly feature on Tuesdays).

Duane was struck by the headline, "Thailand picked to head TLD".  Story 
reads as follows:

BANGKOK (AFP-Jiji)  Thailand has been chosen to head an international 
organization that manages Internet domain names, reports said last week.

"Thailand has been elected to act as the interim secretariat to a world 
body which manages domain names on the Internet," the Nation daily said.

The organization, called Top Level Domain Name Constituency (TLD) sets up 
guidelines for assigning and overseeing domain names, it said.

TLD is part of a United States-based body called the Internet Corporation 
for Assigned Names and Numbers that looks after the global standard of 
Internet domain names.  A permanent secretariat for TLD will be decided in 
November.

Though Thailand has lower Internet penetration than other newly 
industrializing Asian states such as Malaysia and Singapore, Internet use 
has risen sharply in the past year in Thailand.

According to a report published last week, Thai teenagers spend so much 
time surfing the Internet they only have as little as two hours a day for 
"pre-cyberspace" pastimes.

Many Thais do not own computers, but they have easy access to the World 
Wide Web at Thailand's numerous Internet cafes.

End of story.

Do we have an Eighth Constituency -- or is this some kind of Fifth Column?

Regards, BobC