President Bush invites bloggers from across the world to White House, mark Human Rights Day

VOA News has a story regarding President Bush inviting activists and bloggers from across the world to a meeting at the White House. Part of the discussion will revolve around how blogs are being used worldwide as tools to spread democracy and freedom. Here are some of the highlights from the VOA News article.

• U.S. President George Bush is meeting with an activist from Sudan’s troubled Darfur region and bloggers from China, Burma, Egypt and other countries Wednesday to mark Human Rights Day.

• A White House spokesman says Mr. Bush will first meet in the Oval Office with doctor and writer Halima Bashir to get what the spokesman called a first-hand account of what is taking place in Darfur. Bashir is the co-author of a memoir about living in Darfur, Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur, and has spoken out internationally about the atrocities committed there.

• Mr. Bush will also hold a teleconference with bloggers from Egypt and Venezuela, while bloggers from Burma, Iran, China, Cuba, and Belarus will join the president in person at the White House.
  
  
• At the United Nations today, the General Assembly is marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and will award the U.N. Prize in the Field of Human Rights.