It is incredible, but true at 0.01 level of significance. I was invited to present a paper at an International conference in Yokohama, Japan between the 5th to 8th December, 2008. Click to visit the conference website. The workshop was organized by the International Association of Statistical Computing, IASC, an association to which I belong. It was organized such that one stone was to kill more that one bird at the same time. On that note it was more than just an international conference, but also a joint meeting of the 4th world conference of IASC and the 6th conference of Asian regional section of IASC on computational statistics and data analysis.

But alas! The officials at the Japanese Embassy in Uganda, visa section denied me a visa. How i wish i was told the reason as to why i was denied a visa to travel to Yokohama, Japan to present a paper despite presentation of all the documentation required including, inevitably an invitation letter, hotel booking, travel arrangements throughout my course of stay and these were sent through mail to me to be delivered to the Japanese Embassy in Uganda! I didn’t have any intention to disappear or stay in Japan beyond the prescribed visa period! Let alone, I had my return air ticket, thanks to the generosity of the Civil Aviation Authority, Uganda for the sponsorship.

The paper programmed for presentation at the International Association of Statistical Computing conference is titled Statistical Models for Air Traffic Management: case study Entebbe International Airport. See programme for paper number 54.