Sada-e-Watan Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
Pakistani community organizing a dinner with US diplomat
Pakistan Australia
Association has arranged a dinner with Consul General United States Mr. Stephen
Smith, Commonwealth commissioner for community Respect Lucy Turnbull and Assistant Commissioner NSW Police
to enhance Pakistani community relationship with the mainstream community and
international communities.
This dinner will be held on 2 February 2007 at 7.00 pm at Crown Plaza Norwest.
Above three personalities will be key note speakers, participants will be
allowed to ask questions directly from the speakers.
President PAA Ejaz Khan notified Sada-e-Watan that Pakistani community settled in Australia have their own
unique identity. In this day and age they are required to show the world that
they are peace lover and law abiding citizens.
At the same time they should use their democratic rights to convey the
authorities that they have reservations about their policies towards certain
groups of people in the society and countries by peaceful and intellectual
manners. We need to open dialog with the administration and engage the main
stream community to create better understanding among each other. Ejaz said that
we should accept that we now are Australians and obliged to abide by the rules
of the state and respect the cultural values. Australians and authorities should
respect do the same. We should show our fellow Australians the valuable social
and cultural assets we have developed as a nation over the years. We should work
together against the prejudice and ill treatment of each others not only in our
own community but other communities to lead them to a harmonies nation after all
we are the real Ambassador of Pakistan.
Ejaz praised and thanked Mr. Kashif Amjad director Slimtel and official
spokesman of PAA to facilitate this opportunity. He said Mr. Amjad is a young
dynamic and thoughtful person who wishes to see better understanding and harmony
among all Australian communities particularly Pakistani Australian community.
Consul General USA Mr. Stephen T Smith
Stephen T. Smith has been
in the Foreign Service of the United States since 1976.
He was born in Laramie, Wyoming, USA, and spent his early years on his family's
cattle ranch in Western Nebraska. He grew up in the state of Washington, and was
graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a Bachelors Degree
in Political Science in 1965. After graduation he entered the Peace Corps, where
he taught English as a second language to junior high school students in
Kandahar, Afghanistan.
After two years in the Peace Corps he joined the U.S. Navy, where he served for
four years at U.S. Navy facilities in San Diego, California; Key West, Florida,
and Asmara, Eritrea.
After his military service he then returned to graduate school, and was
graduated with a Masters of Arts degree in Public Administration in 1975 from
the University of Oklahoma. While in graduate school he met his wife to be,
Monica E. McKnight, who was in law school at the time. They were married in
1977, and consider suburban Washington, D.C., their home. In 1994 he was
graduated from the U.S. National Defense University's Industrial College of the
Armed Forces with a Master's Degree in National Security Affairs with a focus on
energy policy.
In addition to several assignments to Washington, D.C., Steve has had overseas
postings in Tehran, Iran; Manama, Bahrain, Colombo, Sri Lanka; Tunis, Tunisia;
Amman, Jordan; Cairo, Egypt, and most recently at the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. He assumed his duties as Consul General at the U.S.
Consulate General in Sydney, Australia in October 2004. Steve speaks Farsi,
Dari, and French.
Lucy Turnbull Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding
Lucy was selected as part of a Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding. The Commission is chaired by Professor Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate and Harvard University Professor. The Commission will present their report to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this year as a request from the 2005 CHOGM. Lucy is the former Lord Mayor of Sydney, a Board Member of Melbourne IT, Deputy Chair of the Committee for Sydney and Administrator of Tweed Shire Council and is involved in many businesses, charitable organisations and philanthropic pursuits. She is married to the Federal Member for Wentworth and Parliamentary Secretary on Water, The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull.
