I hear EU certification is almost done. To quote the latest OLPC  
community news letter:

"Safety Certification: Behind the scenes another team (from UL,
Quanta, and OLPC) has been quietly working for nearly two years on XO
safety certification. The XO laptop is now fully compliant with UL
safety requirements and has been thus certified. We have also been
awarded radio, power, and system certification at national levels in
several countries. We can now legally ship in US, Canada, Uruguay, and
Peru, as well as many other countries. EU-wide approval is due in
approximately a week. We are still in the process of applying for
certification in countries on each continent with the most stringent
safety standards.

Among many tests, we have passed Ul/IEC 60950-1 (notebook computer),
ASTM F693 (electronic toys for children), UL 1301 (mechanical assembly
requirements, including larger face dimension requirements for child
safety) and UL 2054 (batteries), as well as a passing UL on-site
inspection of the Quanta's factory. We have formal RoHS (low toxicity)
certification from Quanta, and independent testing of RoHS compliance
by UL. Also, we have been safety approved for lap use—XO is the first
"laptop" approved for usage on one's lap in many years. (The reason
that most laptops are now called "notebook computers" is that they run
too hot for safe lap use.)"

Also, it may be possible to order via a mail-forwarding service. See

http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/g1g1/give_one_get_one_globally.html

- Bert -

On Nov 12, 2007, at 17:40 , Cees de Groot wrote:

> Ah. Makes sense.
>
> damn.... :P
>
> On Nov 12, 2007 5:19 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <yoshiki at vpri.org> wrote:
>>> A colleague of mine is trying to order one (err... a pair ;-)),  
>>> but it
>>> seems that the Give One, Get One program is only geared towards
>>> US&Canada?
>>>
>>> Dying to get my hands on one...
>>
>>   What I heard was that to distribute such a unit, you need to get
>> radio device approval and other kind of approval (for instance,  
>> the AC
>> and (I think) the battery need government approval in Japan.)  It is
>> not as simple as sending units to overseas customers...
>>
>> -- Yoshiki
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a
> universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. " -
> Death, in "The Hogfather"
>