ambassador to maldives. i am deeply grateful to the president and to secretary clinton for their confidence in my abilities. if confirmed, i look forward to working with the committee and interested members of congress to represent the american people and top advance u.s. goals in sri lanka and maldives. my 30 years in the u.s. foreign service, i have been posted as u.s. ambassador to the united arab emirates and u.s. ambassador to lebanon. as you noted, mr. chairman. i also have considerable experience in south asia having served in india and pakistan and as principle deputy assistant secretary for the south asia region. the united states has important interests in both sri lanka and maldives. sri lanka is located along the busiest shipping lanes in the indian ocean. a region emerging as a strategic arena in which america's enduring interests are increasingly at play. sri lanka has also been a contributor to u.n. peacekeeping operations. the united states, thus, recognizing the importance of having a broad

. -- maldives. there may be some opportunities for the united states and china to work together. >> and that was the former ambassador talking to me. this week, the world market 23 years since the chinese crackdown in tiananmen square. following, and undisclosed number of people were arrested, but others escaped. a tiananmen square veteran now lives in the united states, and more than two decades after the event in beijing, he is demonstrating for a different cause. we have this story. >> from the occupation of tiananmen square in 1989 to last year's occupation of wall street, his life has been one forged in protest. >> the events of 1989 have shaped the rest of my life. there is a strong energy inside me to connect to social justice. that is when when -- occupy wall street started to take shape, i joined them. >> when he joined the student movement in beijing 23 years ago, he and his fellow protestors had little notion of what lay in store. >> and movement of love and trust, and also rising expecta

when the people of the maldives are forced to abandon a place they've called home for hundreds of years it is a stain on you are a our collective conscience and a challenge to each of us. when our own grandchildren risk growing up in a world we don't recognize and don't want to, then clearly, urgently, profoundly we need to do better. frankly, those who look for any excuse to continue challenging the science have a fundamental responsibility that they have never fulfilled. prove us wrong. prove us wrong. show with some science how this theory in fact is not being borne out. prove that the pollution we put into the at most fear is not having the harmful effect that we know it is and that the science says it is. tell us where the gases go and what they do if they don't do what the scientists are telling us they do. pony up one single coagents, legitimate, scholarliages sis. prove that the ocean isn't actually rising. prove that the ice caps aren't melting, that deserts aren't expanding, and prove -- prove, above all, that human beings don't have anything to do with it. i till you here rig