Abu Dhabi - The United Arab Emirates launched Saturday its first web address in Arabic letters, to become one of the first four countries worldwide to use Internet domain names in their mother tongue. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, launched the website of President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan - "Khalifa.emarat." The ministry said that the UAE domain "reflects the country's pride in the Arabic language" and that it will "also convey to the world the progress being experienced by the UAE," the official news agency WAM reported. In January, the Internet Corporation Assigned for Names and Numbers (ICCAN) granted permission for an entire domain name to appear in Cyrillic for Russia and Arabic for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Earlier in May, Egypt launched its first internet domain name ".misr" to try to boost e-services and the number of people online in the country.
