Assembly Back dotCYM Campaign

Assembly members yesterday backed a campaign to enhance Welsh culture and identify on the World Wide Web.

The house committee of the Welsh Assembly voted to support the campaign to have dotCYM accepted as a domain on the internet.

Success would mean that organisations, companies and individuals could have the option to replace .org with .cym.

The campaign, dotCYM, already have support from a range of sectors including commerce, design, public relations, publishing and the legal sectors.

Assembly Presiding Officer Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, said "I believe that a dotCYM sponsored top level domain could play an important role in promoting Welsh culture and language in the UK and abroad. A well as Welsh language sites it could also be used for sites in other languages which are of Welsh interest.

"Since .cat has been introducted in Catalonia, there has been an increase of 33% in the number of sites using Catalan, so it would it seem that the adoption of .cym would be an effective way of promoting the Welsh language and the Welsh identity."

Meanwhile, a new free office software suite for computer users was launched yesterday by Welsh language minister Alun Pugh.

The Welsh and English dual language dual-language version of the open-office suite used world wide, was created at the Mercator Centre, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

From today's Daily Post (Nov 17, 2006).

See also: Assembly’s House Committee support dotCYM

Comment: Bloody hell, it looks as if the Assembly is actual working in unison for the benefit of Cymru for a change - well, on this issue at least. That's because this isn't a party issue, this is something which will benefit everyone in Cymru.