HONOLULU (April 11, 2011) -- Participants in the East-West Center’s inaugural Pakistan-U.S. Journalists Exchange began their fellowship in Honolulu last week with lively discussions on the complex U.S.-Pakistan relationship and issues facing the media in both countries. Over the weekend, the Pakistani participants left for their tour to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Columbia, Missouri, while the Americans departed for Islamabad and Lahore, Pakistan. Follow the East-West Center’s Facebook and Twitter accounts for posts and news articles from the participants.

HONOLULU (Nov. 4, 2011) -- EWC President Charles E. Morrison participated today in a videoconference with about 80 students and teachers at Scarsdale High School in New York, focusing on issues related to the APEC Leaders Meetings in Honolulu next week. Also participating in the discussion was Robert Koepcke, Deputy Director of the U.S. State Department's Bureau for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Video of the discussion will be posted soon as part of the launch of a new online school exchange program called "Open Channels," which will connect more than 60 schools in the U.S., Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere.

The EWC’s AsiaPacificEd Program for Schools launched the AsiaPacificEd Crossings Website and educational initiative. This online resource, established just prior to the APEC Summit in Honolulu, has already enabled more than 1,400 K-12 students and educators from 48 schools in eight APEC economies (Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and United States) to explore and connect with the Asia Pacific region. 

Lee Howell of the World Economic Forum presents the keynote address at the International Graduate Student Conference.IGSC co-chairs Apinya Jantunyarux & Asmatullah Junejo (center) with presenter Lee Howell and EWC directors and board members.

By Charles E. Morrison

(Note: This commentary originally appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Sept. 12, 2012)

It may not compare to APEC or the G-20 for global economic weight, but for the Pacific island nations, the annual Pacific Islands Forum summit is the premier regional meeting. It brings together heads of the island nations (including Australia and New Zealand) with representatives of international organizations and “dialogue partners,” including the United States, China, Japan and many others. For the Cook Islands, with less than 15,000 residents, hosting last week’s PIF was a rare event made especially significant by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unprecedented stop to attend the post-meeting partner dialogue ­– the highest level U.S. participation ever.

Ambassadors Thomas Armbruster (Marshall Islands) & Helen Reed-Rowe (Palau), with PIDP Co-Director Sitiveni Halapua. On April 4, 2013 the U.S. ambassadors to the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands participated in an informal discussion at the East-West Center intended to launch a broad-ranging conversation about the future of U.S. engagement with the freely associated Pacific island nations. Participants included policymakers, Pacific island scholars and public intellectuals. Topics included the future of the freely associated states in the regional system, migration, institution building and new paradigms for engagement. 

EWC environment researchers Melissa Finucane and Victoria Keener gave a congressional briefing on Capitol Hill Sept. 17 on the findings of the recent Center-led Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment, which will be included as regional input to the federal government’s upcoming National Climate Assessment. Hawai‘i Sen. Brian Schatz, who co-hosted the briefing, said that “In Hawai‘i and throughout the Pacific, climate change is not an abstract concept –it is already having very real consequences.”

Sen. Schatz speaks at the climate briefing.

Among the major concerns for Hawai‘i and the Pacific Islands that Finucane and Keener discussed are:

By Charles E. Morrison, EWC President

(Note: This commentary first appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Oct. 13, 2013.)

When I arrived in Bali last week for this year’s APEC summit, my van driver asked where I was from. When I told him, his face broke into a huge smile. “Say hello to my brother,” he said enthusiastically, referring to President Barack Obama, who remains enormously popular in Indonesia where he spent several years as a child.

Two days later, the U.S. budget stalemate forced Obama to cancel his trip to the APEC meeting and the subsequent East Asia Summit in Brunei, along with scheduled stops in Malaysia and the Philippines that had already been called off.

APIA, SAMOA (Aug. 29, 2014) -- Youth leaders from 18 Pacific nations have converged in Samoa this week for the second ‘Future Leaders of the Pacific’ conference, organized by the U.S. embassies in New Zealand and Samoa in partnership with the East-West Center and held in connection with next week’s International Conference on Small Island Developing States.

Photo: US Embassy New ZealandThe youth delegates are meeting with more a dozen of the region’s top dignitaries to discuss regional issues such as non-communicable diseases, gender equality, climate change and sustainable development in the Pacific.

Honolulu (October 12, 2015) – Wyatt Gordon, a current EWC degree fellow in in urban and regional planning, recently returned from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he competed in Pidato Antarabangsa Bahasa Melayu , or International Malay Language Speech Championship. The first American to ever to reach the final round of this competition since it was started nearly a decade ago, he took third place overall and won a prize of $3,000 after delivering a speech in Malay on how he found his heritage through language.  The speech contest was broadcast live in front of a studio audience of several thousand people, including the Prime Minister, and was viewed by a television audience of several million viewers across Southeast Asia.

Remarks of East-West Center President Charles E. Morrison

Friends of the East-West Center Annual Meeting
Nov. 9, 2016

Thank you Puongpun, for a generous introduction. I also want to thank the Friends of the East-West Center for inviting me to speak and all of you for coming.