Toronto, June 26 (IANS) ‘Met with David Cameron. Have agreed that we’ll continue to speak in person, not just online @number10gov…” It is no buddy chat online, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweeting about his day’s engagements with world leaders at the G-8 summit Friday.
The Russian head of state, who was huddled with other G-8 leaders on the first day of the summit, perhaps decided not to bank on the newspapers and TV networks to put across his message delivered at the summit.
On his twitter account www.twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E, he was giving the world news from Huntsville – the venue of the G-8 summit. Not through words, but also pictures the president snapped himself.
With more than 26,000 people following him on Twitter, the Russian president was also keeping his flock posted about his talks with other leaders and even what they ate.
‘Attended first meeting of the G8 summit and a working lunch,” said one tweet by the Russian president.
‘Encouraged G8 leaders to set an example of responsible budget policy,” read yet another tweet by him.
The Russian President’s craze for Twitter left many among the 3,500 journalists here from around the world covering the twin summits amused.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, is also putting Twitter to a great use by dishing out the latest news from official sources.
‘I know that many journalists around the world use Twitter. For summit updates, feel free to add me, I’m at PmoSoudas,” he says in a message to accredited journalists.
In fact, when a Pakistani journalist who failed to get a visa contacted Soudas, he was simply told follow the summit on Twitter.
Syed Asfar Imam of Aaj TV in Islamabad says he got himself accredited for the G-20 summit but was denied a visa by the Canadian authorities. Imam, who has travelled around the world to cover major events, including visits to the US and Britain, told the Canadian media from Pakistan that he was told by the Canadian high commission that he will have to wait for three months for his visa.
Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
