Hello everyone, Here is the link to the slides that I referred to during the Council meeting earlier today: http://singapore49.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-idn-variant-tld/presentation-id n-variant-tld-26mar14-en.pdf Two fundamental ³takeaways² from the first update today that I hope was clear are: (1) IDN variants will NOT be implemented or introduced into the root zone until all community work on the necessary code point repertoire and on generating the Label Generation Rules (LGR) for the 17 identified scripts is completed; and (2) a sufficient number of technical and linguistic experts (per the calls for such that were issued last year) are recruited from the community to help develop the code point repertoire and LGRs, including integrating them. As noted on the call, we will be scheduling a full primer (introductory, background, issue overview) session on this topic for the GNSO Council and community soon, hopefully before London. As with the regular staff updates, this is another follow up step from the discussions in Singapore. We will be sure to inform the Council and community once we have managed to schedule the primer session. In the meantime, here is ICANN¹s background page on the IDN Variant Project: http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/variant-tlds Cheers Mary Mary Wong Senior Policy Director Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) Telephone: +1 603 574 4892 Email: mary.wong@icann.org * One World. One Internet. *