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Ship explosion takes ICANN gear out of action

Kevin Murphy, October 3, 2016, Domain Tech

An explosion and fire aboard a cargo ship has caused hardware destined for the ICANN’s upcoming meeting in Hyderabad to be impounded.
A welding accident caused the explosion aboard the mega container vessel as it was docked in Hamburg, on September 1 according to reports.
The resulting fire took four days for firefighters to put out, according to ICANN.
ICANN had two containers — a 40-footer and 20-footer — on the ship, moving gear from June’s Helsinki meeting to next month’s ICANN 57 in India, ICANN said.
The smaller of the two containers was close to the fire and has been “detained” in Germany where it may not be released for months or years.
It held “printers, remote participation computers, camera kits, digital signage equipment, and all network hardware and wireless equipment, including over 5 miles (8 km) of cabling”, ICANN said in a blog post.
While replacements have been secured for much of the equipment — likely at a cost of many thousands of dollars — some of the gear cannot be replaced in time for Hyderabad.
The main impact of this will be that remote meeting hubs will not be able to broadcast live into the Hyderabad venue, according to ICANN.
On-site participants may also experience slower than expected downloads due to the unavailability of the Akamai content delivery network servers the meetings usually use.
ICANN ships about 100 tonnes of kit to each of its meetings.
ICANN 57 will run from November 3 to November 9 at the International Convention Centre.

ICANN diverts from Puerto Rico to India to avoid Zika

Kevin Murphy, May 17, 2016, Domain Policy

ICANN has confirmed that its 57th public meeting will not be held, as originally planned, in Puerto Rico.
Instead, it is asking community members to instead head to Hyderabad, India, this November.
Those Las Vegas rumors turned out not to be true. However, on the up-side, those Las Vegas rumors turned out not to be true!
The decision was to relocate made to the a “state of emergency” being declared in Puerto Rico due to the Zika virus.
Zika is spread by mosquitoes and male sexual partners and can cause devastating birth defects in kids.
Latest figures from the US Center for Disease Control put infections in US territories at 701, three of whom were travelers.
ICANN said in a blog post this evening:

This decision was based on available research and information and the fact that Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency due to the ongoing Zika virus outbreak. We believe that the Zika virus poses a significant enough threat that we need to postpone going to Puerto Rico for the health and safety of our community and our ICANN team, just as we had to postpone ICANN52 and relocate from Marrakech to Singapore due to the Ebola virus outbreak in 2014.

It’s the second of this year’s meetings to be relocated due to Zika. June’s Panama meeting has been moved to Helsinki.
ICANN said that the new venue for ICANN 57, which takes place from November 3 to 9 this year, is the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.
It’s said that ICANN will take a seven-figure hit to its bank balance in order to cancel the PR meeting.

Helsinki tipped as next ICANN venue

Kevin Murphy, March 9, 2016, Domain Policy

ICANN is expected to be heading to Helsinki, Finland, for its next meeting.
Director Chris Disspain dropped the name of the host city during a session at the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, today.
Apparently it’s common knowledge among attendees that the Finnish capital is being lined up as a replacement for the original ICANN 56 venue, Panama City.
Panama was cancelled due to fears about the baby-deforming Zika virus, which is running rampant in South and Central America right now.
There’s no word yet on whether ICANN 57, currently planned for San Juan, Puerto Rico in October, is going ahead.
Puerto Rico is reportedly having its own Zika problems right now.
ICANN 56 is scheduled to kick off June 27 this year. Helsinki is expected to be confirmed by the ICANN board in a resolution tomorrow.