[Foundation-l] FYI: Welcome to this years Wikimania site: Egypt, the land with cultur ministers with special taste in history, culture and all the good things

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 10:51 PM, Harel Cain <harel.cain at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's a matter of convincing people to disregard their own government's
> formal travel advisory (which as I said is very clear about Egypt at
> this time; would Americans for example travel to  a country that the
> State Department strongly advises to avoid?). I know of two local
> wikipedians who are still planning to go. We tried organizing a bigger
> group at our local village pump but people are naturally rather
> hesitant to go to a place where they (justifiably?) feel they might be
> at risk, or just feel very uncomfortable or unwanted.
> Israel's biggest newspaper Yedioth Ahronot runs an article today about
> an organized tour to Egypt of Israelis of Egyptian origin, which got a
> very "cold shoulder" from Egyptian authorities.
>
> I don't want to turn this into a political debate about the
> intricacies of the Israeli-Egyptian cold peace, though. I just wanted
> to put the Egyptian minister's expressions in context.
>
> I still hope to make it to Alexandria.
>
> Harel

Harel,

Thank you for the information. When was this latest warning posted?
(sadly, my Hebrew is lacking). As you say, originally I thought there
were plans for many people from Wikimedia Israel to come over, and of
course that was one of the hopes for having it in Egypt -- that many
people from the region could attend. It will be really sad if you are
unable to :(

-- phoebe