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The latest Quarterly Stakeholder Update for the quarter ending 30 June is now available. Click on the button below view the materials.

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LACNIC: Celebrating 15 Years of Regional Excellence

Chairman’s Blog: ICANN Congratulates the Internet Society on Turning 25

Chairman’s Blog: Previewing the Montevideo Workshop

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News and Announcements

Apply Now for the ICANN61 NextGen Program

NextGen@ICANN61 application round open

ICANN has opened the application round for anyone interested in participating in ICANN61 through the NextGen Program. The meeting takes place from 10–15 March 2018 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. To be considered for this round, apply before the 20 October 2017 deadline. Click the link above to learn more.  

ICANN 2017 Nominating Committee Announces Selections

ICANN | NOMCOM Nominating Committee

The ICANN 2017 Nominating Committee is pleased to announce its selections for eight leadership positions within ICANN. Those selected will take up their positions after the end of ICANN’s Annual General Meeting, which will take place during ICANN60 in Abu Dhabi. Click the link above to view the selections.

Ready for the Root Zone KSK Rollover on 11 October?

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ICANN is planning to roll the top pair of cryptographic keys used in the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) protocol, commonly known as the Root Zone KSK. This will be the first time the KSK has been changed since it was initially generated in 2010. Click the link above to find out more about the upcoming Root Zone KSK Rollover.

APAC Regional Office 4th Anniversary Report Now Out

Read the APAC Regional Office's 4th Anniversary Report

The Asia Pacific (APAC) regional office has produced a report to celebrate its 4th anniversary. It showcases the journey and collaboration between the regional office and the APAC community. It also includes the community’s growth and presence in ICANN, and looks at the numerous capacity-development workshops and trainings in APAC. Click to read.

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."