holy cripes !
The US fought like hell to keep control during the UN meeting in tunisia in 11/2005. Any transition wouldn't take place for 5 years or more.
This turnaround is stunning - though no target dates are mentioned.
Last year, the US IIRC agreed to allow an international or multinational body to have an "advisory" role re: names, etc, while retaining ultimate control over servers. In short, window dressing to placate midnless multilateralists while retaining real power. Hopefully thta's still true.
I do recall that at the time of the 2004 election, a UK media outlet-can't remember if it was the Guardian, the Times, or the Telegraph-announced that the Democratic party had added slavery reparations to its platform-not as an object of discussion, but as an actual fund to be paid out to those qualifying! I knew that was false, and I fired off an e mail to the article's author and to the site's editor, asking for more details. I never heard back from either, and of course the story was false.