[kictanet] Fwd: information on .africa and the lies surrounding an individual's push

Thu Aug 19 10:24:33 EAT 2010

I really dont know who this lady is - other than having seeing her at the Kenyan IGF where she also pushed for the dot.Africa initiative. Indeed as Pierre mentions elsewhere, there's a parallel push @ http://www.dotafrica.org/home.html which I believe has the support of AfNOG, AfrNIC, AfTLD (the  Af* organisations).

However and I stand to be corrected -  I think the ICANN process is quite open and transparent and we therefore cannot stop any bidder pushing to have a top level domain like dot.Africa (free for all approach that ofcourse has had its advantages and disadvantages).

So whereas I support and understand the need have dot.africa under the family and philosophy of Af* organisations, we really have no control over other bidders trying to get there first. Maybe we should just up our game and get the domain before the competition.

walu.
disclaimer: comments shared are personal and not the view of the organisations I am affiliated with. 

--- On Wed, 8/18/10, Solomon Mburu Kamau <solo.mburu at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Solomon Mburu Kamau <solo.mburu at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Fwd: information on .africa and the lies surrounding an individual's push
To: jwalu at yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 11:34 PM

@ Njenga,
It's not really about who is onlist or not, but during the just concluded EAIGF in Uganda one 'iron lady' has been claiming to speak on behalf of AU and that there are some endorsements made that she presented to this regional forum, which turned out to be a sham!

I hope Brian my explanation is right.

On 18 August 2010 18:24, Njenga Gathecha <njenga.mkenya at gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all. I think the best thing to do is to have all the members listed somewhere and then in case of doubt, listers can consult the list. This would ward off cons who may seek to exploit innocents.

Thanks for pointing this out now.

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

Just received this. Apparently she has formally been propagating lies about being on the ICANN board etc.... and even put up counterfiet letters on her website - this verges on criminal! What is her interest?

Brian

------------------------

Brian,

here is some info for you.. she constructed this whole thing on lies. you can judge for yourself. I did not want to spam all but I sent this to a few key people.  check this:

- there is no African Union Authority!!!! do you really believe that the
 Chairman of the AU Commission will have claimed to write on behalf 
of a non existent authority and 
give her a letter in that sense? so maybe she should explain to people 
why she has a 'weird' letter on her website. Check her website and you will see.

- here is an email that tells you how 
she lies! she actually took me to the ombudsman at ICANN in 2007, complaining that I
 was 
preventing her from doing dot africa, copied the whole board at the time --- all her claims were immediately dismissed when
 I sent the letters and emails to the ombudsman, of the same 
caliber as the below that she
 had been sending to regional organisations and bodies. My fault was to 
have written to all organisations, as the Regional Liaison, to dismiss 
her claims of ICANN endorsement of dot africa and her being on the 
board.

- she keeps saying ICANN is endorsing dot africa! how can ICANN endorse a
 TLD?? how can ICANN be judge and party???? she is supposed to have been at the GNSO council and ICANN and
 understand what she is talking about!!!! she has been in the ICANN 
process for the past 5 years and still has no idea how all this 
functions.

I let you judge. The woman does not have her wits together I think.

Cheers

  Sophia
  Bekele <sophiabekele at yahoo.com> 

  30/08/2006
  01:48 PM 

    Subject

    Re:

Hello <name removed>, 

I hope your vacation is going well.  As per discussion, I thought I would
convey someof what is on my plate that may be of mutual interest. 

Presently, other than my private projects/business interests, I also serve on
the board of ICANN, the international internet governance organization. 
At this stage, I have outlined few projects in addition to an initiative that
could quickly put under incubation.  Any or all of these could serve as a
basis for mutual collaboration. 

Generally speaking the projects span ICT, public sector governance, regional
integration, internet governance etc.. 

The priority project I mentioned to UN Undersecretary General was that of dot.africa
(.Africa) which he expressed great
interest.  Thus, there will be a need to synergize and align strategies of
possible project collaboration.  

Dot.Africa
is an initiative supported by ICANN,  that aims at unifying and
consolidating the African Information Society and presence within the Internet
as distinct from other Continental communities.  As such, there now exists
dot.EU (.EU),  dot.Asia.(.ASIA)
and dot.LatinAmerica (.LA) as similar ongoing
initiatives.  The present paradigm is to halt Africans marginalization in
this age of globalization.  This is actually one of the goals of NEPAD,
which of course is an initiative that is already endorsed b the UN.  There
are no prices for guessing what would happen if dot.Africa is not also initiated and implemented
at the same time that other Continental  communities on the net have been
put in place. 

To get this of the ground, it appears from the experiences of the others, a
minimum of 13 countries in Africawould have to come on board.  The
endorsement for UNECA would of course be helpful.   This initiative
would require a proposal to be distributed to the potential participating
countries.  UNECA’s help would be crucial in communicating who might wish
to participate.  Countries that have already have ongoing National
policies that relate ICT as a strategic tool for National development would be
the primary candidates.   Being something that would turn into a
Continental initiative, it is rewarding at best for the UNECA to play an active
role in this initial stage. 

As an African representative on ICANN board, I have taken the initiative to
coordinate and see the successful implementation of the project.  I
believe therefore, we should have a meeting to progress this further.  I
suggest we meet ASAP to get this moving, as time is of essence to the extent
that the application for the domain name must be submitted before January 2007.

However due to our travel schedules, we should arrange a teleconference meeting
that is mutually convenient for all within the next two weeks. 

Regards, 

Sophia

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