Surprising nobody, ICANN calls off Oman meeting
The bad news: ICANN has cancelled its meeting in Oman this October. The good news: you’re all going to Bali instead!
The ICANN 87 Annual General Meeting will now take place at the conference center attached to The Westin Resort Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, from October 17 to 22. Those are the same dates as the scheduled meeting in Muscat.
While ICANN scrupulously avoided explicitly laying the blame at the feet of Donald Trump, from whom the Org has been cowering since his second term as US president began, the relocation of the AGM is not unexpected and certainly due to the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.
While the timing may be coincidental, ICANN’s announcement came less than a week after an increasingly unpredictable Trump threatened to bomb Oman, which has been acting largely as a neutral mediator to date.
But ICANN merely said:
The decision to relocate the meeting was made in consultation with the meeting hosts and local partners in Oman, with a shared focus on ensuring that the AGM can proceed on schedule and support broad global participation.
…
Accessibility, travel reliability, and the ability to participate, both in person and online, are essential to its success. In light of recent developments affecting regional airspace, ICANN has taken this step now to provide certainty for participants and ensure the meeting can move forward as planned.
Bali is of course a popular tourist destination in the Asia-Pacific region — and the beachfront Westin looks gorgeous — it is a long slog for ICANN participants from North American and Europe. But the risk of accidentally getting shot down is much reduced.
It’s the second time in less than a year ICANN has postponed a meeting in Oman due to regional instability.






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