On October 18, FKA's Project Management Director Katrina Kernodle-Walsh attended the Dalai Lama's recent talk at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. hosted by the Asia Society, the Brookings Institution, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies and wrote about the experience for East West Magazine . The full article is available in its original form at www.eastwestmagazine.com. The following excerpts provide some highlights:

…On Thursday morning in downtown Washington, D.C., one day after the 72-year old monk received the Congressional Gold Medal a few blocks down the road, Andrea Koppel simply referred to him as “Your Holiness” at the standing-room-only Park Hyatt hotel ballroom where Washington's politicians, political wannabes and the press corps packed in to hear what the exiled 14th Dalai Lama had to say to Richard Armitage, Strobe Talbott and Richard Holbrooke…

…In response to the first question posed by former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage regarding whether or not the Dalai Lama believes the Chinese Congress may acknowledge requests someday for Tibetan autonomy in light of recent conciliatory dialogue with Taiwan, the exiled monk paused before offering his first words …“I don't know.”  In a town so often filled with long-winded and meandering answers, the honesty and brevity bordered on astonishing…

…The exiled Buddhist leader told the crowd to “keep your ancestors' principles of democracy, freedom and rule of law [for] in the long run these principles are very important. The United States is the most powerful democratic country, India is the most populated democratic country…these two together are very important...”

For additional information on the Dalai Lama's discussion, visit www.asiasociety.com.