Jul 11, 2008

Dear Operators,    

This is an announcement
to postpone the operators' meeting part of the upcoming AI3/SOI-Asia meeting in Kathmandu, which is currently planned on Sunday, May 31st.

This is jointly proposed by the secretariat team and the program committee including TU members and agreed by Directors of AI3 and Steering committee of SOI Asia.

We will plan operator's meeting (physically or remotely) within a few month.

Please kindly read following explanation carefully.

Reasons are as follows:
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As we explained to you several times, we have two concerns for Kathmandu Meeting and we were to review the situation on May 15th and 20th.

One concern is Swine Influenza situation and the other is Kathmandu condition of public safety.

Let us review the situation one by one.

(1) Swine Influenza

Now, as you know, in Japan (Osaka and Kobe area, west side of Japan), the flu is going around and number of patiant is biggest in Asia. Therefore, it is not good timing to have an international meeting including Japanese participants. We assume each of us has to follow thei own organization's policy on swine influenza and some may not be able to come. Due to this reason, we will guess that the total number of participants will be smaller than normal time.

(2) Kathmandu public safety

The Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has announced his resignation. New prime minister has not been appointed yet, and there was a storm in partliament.
According to TU team, Kathmandu town is normal and calm. However, it will not provide any guarantees about safety in town during our meeting. So, to avoid unpredictable troubles and in order for easier and more flexible respond to the situation, we would like to minimize participants number this time Again, all of us need to consult to each one's organization policy and need to attend the meeting with accepting the possible risks by their own responsibility. In case of Keio University, we have decided not to send students this time as it is difficult to gurantee their safetyness in this unpredictable situation.

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Given the above two factors, the following policy to the upcoming meeting was decided.

1) Postpone the operators meeting part to later time, some other place to minimize the number of young participants at Kathmandu and maximize the involement of students to the operators' activities.

2) Not inviting outside speakers to avoid the risks and make this meetings to concentrate on the directors and steering members discussion.

3) Try best to support the members who can not come to the meetings by - setting up remote participation environment - following up the discussion after the meeting within 4 weeks by other means.

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Thank you very much for your understanding.

2009 Spring meeting Program Committee AI3 and SOI Asia Secretariat