Ask Slashdot:International DNS Wackiness

Dave Kusters writes in with our first non linux-centric question in a bit. He asks "Top level country domains are assigned by the ISO 3166 Maintainance Agency. When a country's name changes, this organization changes the country's top level domain. For example, when Zaire changed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the top level domain changed from za to cd. My question is, what happens when a large portion of the world does not recognize the new government. For example, when China became the People's Republic of China, the United States and several other countries refused to recognize the PRC. If another non-recognition situation arises, how will the ISO 3166 Maintainance Agency resolve the top level domain? In a related question, when a top level country domain changes, how long does the old domain remain in tact? za was switched over to cd just over a year ago and I can't seem to find any DNS entry in the za domain."