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ICANN Prepares for Annual Meeting ‘ICANN59’ In Africa

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Göran Marby, President of ICANN
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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is set to hold its annual meetings ‘ICANN5’ at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg on 25-29 June 2017.

ICANN is expecting around 1500 participants at the global event, bringing together various regional and global stakeholders from government, business, civil society, non-government organizations, research institutions, technical communities and others.

Speaking on the importance of Africa in the digital world and for ICANN, Buket Coskuner, the Global Communications Coordinator, told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek that with the world now rapidly moving to full scale digitization, the Internet has become universal, making it a critical resource platform that needs governments and the private sector across the world to invest in its reliability and sustainability.

She said that ICANN has embraced an all-inclusive process through its multi-stakeholder model. An ICANN ‘stakeholder’ refers broadly to anyone who has an interest in using the Internet. “With respect to this model, it is important for ICANN to increase the African voice. Implementation of the Africa strategy remains key to help leapfrog the DNS industry, by facilitating capacity development and conditions for the emergence of an Africa grown domain name industry and business,” Coskuner said.

Interestingly, ICANN has made frantic efforts to show its desire for the growth of internet community in the region:

Participation of Africa in the Internet Governance
The Africa strategy was the first regional strategy for ICANN to be developed in 2012, as a tool for engaging with the continent.

The strategy itself was crafted by the African community. It called for better participation of Africa in policy development at ICANN, and an effective presence of ICANN in Africa.

Also, the strategy indicated capacity building as a key factor in transforming African DNS ecosystem into a thriving one which supports the Internet economy and uptake in the continent.

.Africa
A recent development for the Internet sphere in Africa has been the delegation and launch of .africa domain name.

This delegation has helped toward molding an Africa identity in the Internet and also was widely covered in the media both regionally and globally, drawing attention to the business opportunities created within and through the DNS marketplace.

ICANN wishes to see more of these partnerships in the continent, helping develop Africa’s participation both economically and socially in the Internet.

Multilingual Internet
ICANN has also spearheaded a project for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) to enable people in Africa to use domain names in their local languages and scripts.

As part of this ongoing project, ICANN has been organizing IDN workshops throughout Africa to assist in the development and promotion of a multilingual Internet.

Report on the Africa Domain Name System
During ICANN59, there will be a public presentation launching the final report of the Africa Domain Name System market study commissioned by ICANN.

The report highlights the strengths and weaknesses in the Domain Name Service (DNS) sector in Africa and develops recommendations on how to advance the industry to better utilize the opportunities available and address identified challenges.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces of the Internet, ensuring the network’s stable and secure operation.

 


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E-Business

Transcorp Hotels Delivers Stellar H1 Results, Declares Over ₦1Bn Dividend

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Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.

The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.

In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.

Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.


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Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

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Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.

Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

 

China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.

The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.

“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.

The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.

It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.

Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.

Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.

Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.

A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.

“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.

Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.

Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.

It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.

Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.

 

 

 


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NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

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National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.

NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.

NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”

The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.


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