caviar and free speech

6512 today we had a few more interview presentations, but the primary activity of the day was the excursion to the Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty facilities. first off the place offers 21 different broadcast services in 28 different languages. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty ) while it was originally funded by the CIA to broadcast to the Eastern Bloc, nowadays they work to broadcast radio/tv/webservices to various places around the world, predominantly reporting the news in these countries, as they are generally not liberal with and limited freedom of press/speech. The service covered Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia. Though communism fell, and the US wanted to cut the program, the Czech president, Havel invited the program to Prague because he thought it would still be necessary to fight censorship and tyranny in the newly "free" Europe, also it was cheaper than Munich, and much more appetizing to the US. Things have actually gotten worse in Russia in the past ten years (not surprisingly) Putin has closed many of the news bureaus, and all but 2 of the broadcast stations in Russia have been closed. This is the headquarters, there are 350 journalists here, plus supporting staff the Director of Azerbaijani service came to speak to us my notes from the discussion follow: They have generally unrestricted internet however only around 20% of the population makes use of the internet on at least a weekly basis, but international broadcasters for radio/tv have been kicked out. The government actively tries to control the flow of information, particularly inflow of international news, and heavy censorship of domestic news. he pointed out that human rights and corruption are serious issues, no free elections, rubber-stamp parliament, entire country is run by single family. He first started working for the Russian service of Radio Free Europe, then he went to DC to work in the Radio liberty offices, almost right out of college. He has recently been promoted to the managerial position for the Azerbaijani bureau due to his background and "consistent laudworthy behavior" (as he put it). He believes Radio liberty is important, because there would be no expression of alternative sources, the media is controlled by the state, He further believes that Radio Liberty is important, because the Azerbaijani people get to see that the US is doing good things, helping them out, providing unbiased news, that the US is worried about more than just security and energy. he explained that whenever he goes back to Azerbaijan, he is followed, which is fine, because he has nothing to hide, he maintains transparency, the police will not find that he is doing anything wrong the harder they scrutinize, the more ridiculous they look when coming up with nothing of note. the building itself was very cool, new and modern, and reminded me a bit of the parliament building in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was heavy security and a no photo policy, so you will still be left with only your imagination. i really liked this visit, this was much more like my previous dialogue, going and talking to members of the government and civil society. here we have been speaking to mostly academics, which is certainly interesting, but it is nice to get a glimpse of the application of these concepts we talk about. after class n some chill out time, the girls and i found our way to an (expensive) Czech place for dinner, i split a plate of fried cheese and french fries with the tank, and had a 1/4 of roasted southern bohemian duck, with both potato and bread dumplings, the Budvar beer i had with it cleaned up well. came out to the mest expensive meal so far, but i certainly consumed 20USD worth of food and drink.