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The Minister briefed the President on preparations for introducing the Cyrillic domain .рф.

Mr Shchegolev said that there are plans to develop additional services such as .рф-zone e-mail, thus making it possible for all Russian citizens to obtain their own e-mail address to receive replies to their correspondence with official bodies and other official information.

A four-month sunrise period from November 25, 2009 to March 25, 2010, will give priority to government bodies and owners of trademarks so that they may acquire the equivalent domain names in Cyrillic. From April 20, 2010, registration of .рф domain names will be open to everyone.

A recent decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) cleared the way to introducing the .рф domain as an alternative to .ru, and makes it possible to use Cyrillic letters for writing Internet addresses.

Mr Shchegolev also briefed the President on the establishment of the International Russian-Language Broadcasting Association. The decision to establish the association was taken at the start of November at the International Festival of Russian-Language Radio Stations, organised by Voice of Russia radio broadcaster.

The association will cover Russian-language radio broadcasters in tens of countries. There are also plans to develop broadcasting based on modern technology, via the Internet, for example.