Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Tom Lantos (in red tie), points to dried fruits and herbs during a tour of a central Damascus market in Syria. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP
If you can’t beat them then join them!
That’s an old saying which President George W. Bush needs to follow to upstage the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s much-publicised trip to the middle east. Sitting and sulking in the White House will not help much.
After her visit to Syria, Ms Pelosi reached Saudi Arabia and met King Abdullah. But first a detailed report about her Syria visit.
“The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, delivered a powerful challenge to the Bush administration’s stewardship of American interests in the Middle East by breaking with its policy of isolating Syria and holding talks in Damascus with President Bashar Assad,” says The Guardian.
“Ms Pelosi’s status as the third most senior elected figure in Washington makes her visit to Damascus the most serious challenge to the Bush administration strategy of isolation in four years. In a further sign of Syria’s re-emergence on the international stage, three Republican congressmen made a separate visit to Damascus this week.
” ‘This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria and we hope to build on this visit,’ said Tom Lantos, the chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs, who accompanied Ms Pelosi.
“The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, accused Ms Pelosi of undermining Washington’s policy of isolation and of rewarding Syria for what he called bad behaviour.
“But behind the scenes the picture is more complicated. An assistant US secretary of state, Ellen Sauerbrey, met Syrian officials in Damascus last month to discuss the flight of Iraqi refugees, and Mr Bush has sanctioned the presence of US diplomats at a regional meeting on Iraqi security, attended by Syria and Iran.”
For a detailed report about Ms Pelosi’s visit to Saudi Arabia please click here… The Saudi King, an old ally of the US, had recently described the war in Iraq as “illegitimate” and called the Arab nations to check the American influence in the region.
China is taking unusually great interest in this visit. For an in-depth story in People’s Daily Online please click here…
There’s another interesting story in The Guardian: “Nancy Pelosi’s Syrian adventure”…Read on…
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.