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after two days

February 16, 2010
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after two days of the conference I’m exhausted and yet I can’t sleep. Overall I’ve found the seminars very helpful though sometimes a little compressed, what can you do, trying to get so much accomplished in the limited time we have. I’m going to pass on Lady Gaga, give me more Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters. Here’s two photos from Tuesday’s session along with one I found early Tuesday morning that I thought appropriate for the conference.

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3 Comments leave one →
  1. icfjstaff permalink*
    February 17, 2010 2:24 am

    great photos, Bill! If you upload any to Flickr, please tag them with foeda so we can pull them into the final set. Thanks!

    Reply
  2. rutheglash permalink
    February 17, 2010 4:42 am

    Hey Bill, let us know when put all your photos on line! Can we get copies? Thanks

    Reply
  3. Chiranjibi Paudyal permalink
    February 17, 2010 7:30 pm

    After three days…

    Excellent photos Bill! We know you have taken so many great photos this morning too and hope you will upload those photos once you reach your destination.

    I want to see things positively as I believe that looking things in a negative way is “regression.” “You are always pessimist,” said Deborah Potter, one of our instructors for the five week long online course which was held from December to January, when I was commenting about “Freedom of Expression in Digital Age” today (yesterday).

    And I am leaving Alexandria, the great historic city founded by Alexander the Great, who had conquered almost all Europe and was stopped in Indian sub continent when he was heading to take over Japan, with that pessimistic feelings.

    Three days of partial sleep. We have not slept yet today and preparing to depart to the Alexandria Airport. My wife and daughter from London are calling me at an interval of every hour insisting me “to sleep” at least a few hours. But Sasa and friends insist there is no time even to wink.

    When we talk about freedom of expression in digital age we should not forget the best practices and its achievement for freedom. Despite the censorship and restrictions in mainstream media to publish news and information in Iran, thousands of people came to the streets during the opposition called demonstration. How?

    Because of the social networking like Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and other tools. Some of my Arab friends said ” it has not done anything in the region” while we were returning from the dinner today. But we see changes everywhere. There is the flooding of bloggings in the Arab World.

    I see a lot of achievements in the Arab World. There is so much attention of the world. There is so much pressure to the repressive regimes to be more liberal. More and more people are using these digital tools to express their feelings, views and opinions. Imprisonment, arrest and intimidation to journalists will not be the solution to these repressive and regressive regimes of the region.

    How China and Myanmar among others are being defamed and demoralised? Because of the suppression of voices of the people. Demoralisation of such regimes is also the achievement of social media.

    Alexandria will be the foundation for freedom of expression in the region and the world as we have expressed our commitment to fight for this purpose. Alexandria is also known as the city of friendship, love and peace. And we have added freedom as an adjective to this city. Oh time to depart. We will discuss in the coming days.

    Thank you all of the ICFJ and Alliance for Civilisation for organising such a wonderful programme in Alexandria.

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