Colleagues who are followers of IG matters may be interested in the latest developement regarding ICANN's JPA which is scheduled to end next month. The JPA or Joint Project Agreement is an agreement that gives the US Government oversight authority over ICANN. Now Congress has written to the DoC calling for the JPA to be made permanent http://domainnamewire.com/2009/08/05/congress-create-permanent-tie-to-icann/. For preceeding Congregational disquiet on the performance of ICANN see http://domainnamewire.com/2009/06/04/congress-beats-up-icann-part-1/ It may be recalled that the genesis of the IG debate was the management of the so-called Critical Internet Resources - a euphemism for ICANN and its activties, Some countries - such as China and Russia - have since set up their own national TLD Systems which have limited availability to the outside world as they cannot be seen by IANA Roots; maybe a pointer to the "Internet" of the future. Waudo