No, it's not quite what it seems and it certainly isn't another ETU/TcE style issue but it does look as though the ITU is getting its own back on a number of countries by reducing their membership of the ITU to "provisional". A total of 17 federations; Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Liechenstein, Yugoslavia, Ireland, Israel, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Cook Islands, have been informed that they won't have voting rights at the Congress in Edmonton this week. The reasons vary from being $10 short on the payment to the ITU to not having made constitutional changes that the currently disputed Perth Congress asked them to. Of course, some countries have constitutions that require their members to vote on changes so it would be impossible for those changes to have been made in the time...

As far as we can tell this does not affect athletes taking part in the World Championships, it's just another political manoeuvre by the ITU's executive to make sure that they stay in control.