An Arabic TV channel, Al-Arabiya, has aired a video claiming to show one of five Britons captured in Iraq eight months ago. A BBC report says: “The five men were seized from Baghdad’s Finance Ministry by gunmen wearing police uniforms on 29 May 2007 without a shot being fired. He (the hostage) asks Prime Minister Gordon Brown to free nine Iraqis in exchange for the release of the Britons.
“The kidnappers appeared to have mellowed their tone since the release of a previous tape in December 2007. The fact that they are holding these men and appear to be keeping them alive, reasonably well fed, not chained up, and that they haven’t apparently executed any of them after more than eight months is encouraging.” More here…
The Times of London says that Al-Arabiya TV station that showed one of the hostage making an appeal to the British Prime Minister,was launched five years ago and has become “the alternative Arab station to Qatar-based al-Jazeera, which has broadcast videos of Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda figures. Al-Arabiya has the financial backing of investment groups in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.