Dear Jean-Jaques, thank you very much for conveying the position of ALAC again. I had hoped that ALAC would take note that several ICG members have expressed a different interpretation of what has in fact occurred at our London meeting. It is unfortunate that we do not have agreed minutes we can refer to; however re-reading the transcript re-enforces my own perception that in fact the proceedings were merely exploratory and no decision in the matter was taken at that meeting. It is unfortunate and not at all helpful that ALAC has decided to re-iterate its firm position in the light of a compromise emerging. I fear that this matter will have to be resolved at a face-to-face meeting unless ALAC chooses to change its position in the direction of the emerging compromise. We now face a number of operational challenges: we have to agree on who prepares and chairs the August teleconference. It is my perception that there is consensus that Alissa do so for us. It would help if we could hear explicit opinions from the ICG membership about this. More seriously we have to agree who prepares and chairs our September f2f meeting. Since I understand that Alissa will not be available to chair the meeting we will have to find another person for that role, at least until we decide on definite chairs. The only practical solution I can see is to engage an external chair for this purpose. We need to come to agreement on this soon if we care about the image of this group. Amicalment Daniel