National Media Conference-Day Two

Today is a recovery day for all the staff at GI as they handled quite proficiently the two national media conference that did not end until 6:30 last night.  I am now at the office of GI because my WIFI went out at the apt, so I hoofed it to the office to make this report about yesterday.

First of all, may I say to all of you on behalf of my wife who hails from Boston and the Sutherland family and especially her Dad who suffered through many, many years of frustration to see the Sox come close but never win:  SOX WIN,  SOX WIN!!! for the third time in this new century.

Now, on to business.  The first pic above is of the other three media experts after as we decompressed after the event  at the Blue Sky Hotel at the Signature Room dining on European cuisine at its best (thank you Don for this).  The fellow on the left Michael Unland from Vienna Austria and he is Senior Adviser for the Office of Freedom of the Media and like the others travels all over the globe promoting free press and speech.  In the middle is Michael Karanecola of Halifax, Nova Scotia and he is the Legal Officer for the Centre for Law and Democracy located there.  He is our son Michael's age (40) and he has been doing this work here and other places for several years.  He has had the most interesting travel as he has visited North Korea for ten days, and a much linger time in Iran as well as considerable time in South Korea.  He said from Canada he has no problem getting into N. Korea but told us horrible stories about his time there and how his handlers who were assigned to him fared after he left because of the displeasure of the government in what he was told by the handlers (pretty mild comments really).  The female assistant was "disappeared" and no one of course will say exactly what happened.  He also had some real negative stories about Iran and some of his friends were treated by imprisonment for a lengthy time as hikers who came across into Iran at a border where there were not guards there to give entrance papers.  They waited for three hours and no showed up so they became impatient and entered anyway.  Of course when they were asked later for their entry papers they were found out and incarcerated.

The third fellow is Sig Sorenson of New York, who formerly was with the multi-national and prestigious law firm of  Baker McKensie which I believe is the largest law firm in the world.  Because of conflicts, he is now with a boutique firm in NY of something like 6 lawyers and enjoying the freedom that gives him.  Maybe later I will tell you something about the conflicts. Sig has been here 4 times and he and I have become good friends in the interim.  He is also an adjunct professor of media law at St. John's University School of Law.

The other pic is of me giving my second lecture on how to avoid liability if you are the host of a website or place content on such websites.  The lady to the left is Burnee' who is one of the lawyers with GI, and the lady to my right is Allison who is the Special Asst. to the U.S. Ambassador here in Mongolia. The U.S. Ambassador herself addressed all of us at lunch yesterday. 

We experts spent the day yesterday lecturing mainly on media law and what needs to be done to improve free press and speech in the government and in the courts.  Those present from the government indicated their approval  and several asked if I could help instruct their employees on, for example, how to handle a freedom of information request and get the document to the public or reporter in a timely way.  Unfortunately, I may run out of time over here to do that.  Tomorrow I lecture again at  another journalism school.  And so it goes...