Posted by Michael on Tuesday March 27, 2001, @02:11AM

Jordan's King Abdullah II will inaugurate the Arabic Internet Names Consortium (AINC) at a meeting March 31st in Amman, Jordan, according to a press release issued by i-DNS.net.  AINC will seek to coordinate "efforts to develop and deploy Arabic Domain Names system and applications," and "empower users with the ability to use the Arabic language and its standard character set to navigate the Internet." AINC plans a second meeting in Cairo, in September.
 
Here's part of the text of the PR:
CAIRO, Egypt, March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- US-based i-DNS.net International (i- DNS.net), the world's leading Multilingual Internet Solutions provider, today announced its participation in the Arabic Internet Names Consortium (AINC) as a Founding Member.
The inaugural meeting will be held under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II, on March 31-April 1st 2001 in Amman, Jordan and is organized on behalf of the Arabic Working Group of Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) by Talal Abu-Ghazaleh International (TAGI).
AINC is dedicated to the internationalization of the Internet for all Arabic-using people. By coordinating efforts to develop and deploy the Arabic Domain Names system and applications, AINC seeks to empower users with the ability to use the Arabic language and its standard character set to navigate the Internet.  It is expected that government representatives from several Arab countries will attend this meeting, along with key business institutions.
"i-DNS.net is proud to contribute its expertise and experience to this effort," said Wael Nasr, i-DNS.net Director of Business Development (Middle East), founder of MINC Arabic Working Group and its co-Chairman.
"It is only through a concerted global effort such as this, can a standardization of regulatory and operational procedures be possible to bring even more people online."
AINC's second meeting will be held in Cairo next September.