Dear Jon (and others),
during last week's RIPE meeting the question of start up toplevel domains
has been discussed in the local registry working group. The concern (spawned
by the situation in Lebanon) is that when first starting it is difficult
to find a registrar acceptable to the community within the country and
this could delay things very much.
The RIPE NCC was asked and accepted to offer a temporary TLD registry service
for start up TLDs in and around Europe as necessary. The procedure would be
to wait for about a dozen registrations and then have the registered
organisations agree on a local registrar.
I hereby offer this service whenever you may think it is appropriate.
Please note that we still feel that having a local registrar accepted
by the local community is much preferrable to an external registrar.
This offer is intended only to speed up the creation and population
of new TLDs where necessary and appropriate.
Regards
Daniel