WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan.18, 2011) — A collaborative research project between the East-West Center (EWC) and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) has resulted in a special issue of Contemporary Southeast Asia , ISEAS’ internationally refereed journal on the politics, international relations, and security-related issues of Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic environment. The collection of articles by American and Southeast Asian specialists featured in the journal’s recently released December 2010 issue focus on the topic of America Re-engages Southeast Asia .

HONOLULU (Jan. 19, 2011) -- The East-West Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program will be hosting a high-level dialogue on Pacific island issues January 25-26 at the Center’s campus in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.

HONOLULU (October 13, 2010) -- East-West Center education programs have been awarded three grants totaling $869,704. The recent awards are:

• $239,594 from the U.S. Department of State to support the Study of the U.S. Institute for Student Leaders on Global Environmental Issues . The institute aims to develop young leaders with the ability to build and maintain resilient communities in light of global environmental challenges. Through field study in Hawai‘i and Washington D.C., participants gain a better understanding of sustainability and create a clear action plan addressing an environmental concern upon their return home.

HONOLULU (October 7, 2010) – The East-West Center’s AsiaPacificEd Program for Schools has been awarded two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for teacher professional development programs focusing on legacies of World War II in the Pacific.

The first grant, an $180,900 award, is to conduct a three-week institute on “Southeast Asia: At the Crossroads of World War II.” The second grant, an $180,000 award, is for an NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop titled “Pearl Harbor: History and Memory Across Asia and the Pacific.” Both workshops are conducted in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, where the Center’s main campus is located.

HONOLULU (September 24, 2010) -- The East-West Center has been awarded funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to serve as the lead institution in the Pacific Regional Integrated Science and Assessment program, which is designed to help island and coastal communities cope with the effects of climate change.

Travel and dialogue program is designed to deepen public understanding of the two countries and their relationship

HONOLULU (June 17, 2010)

HONOLULU (June 10, 2010) – An estimated 800 Asia Pacific and U.S. scholars, officials, educators, business leaders and other professionals – most of them alumni of East-west Center programs – will gather in Honolulu July 2-5 for the Center’s 50th Anniversary International Conference at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

The gathering will provide an opportunity for alumni from more than 35 countries who have participated in Center programs over the last five decades to reunite, renew friendships, and reminisce.

Free public discussion on March 30 will focus on the
rising importance of cities in setting policy on global issues

HONOLULU (March 22, 2010) – Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann and four metropolitan leaders from Asia will present a free public forum on the growing global role of cities Tues. March 30 at the East-West Center. The forum, titled “Cities Rising: The International Role of the Metropolis Today,” will start at 5:30 p.m. at the Center’s Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall, 1777 East-West Road.)

HONOLULU (March 25) – The East-West Center Participants Association is hosting its 2010 cultural celebration, East-West Fest, on Saturday, April 10th from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm at the Center's Hawaii Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall) on the East-West Center campus.

Admission is free and open to the public. Parking will be available on the UH Manoa campus.

This year's fest, themed Connecting Diversities, will also celebrate the East West Center’s 50th anniversary. Students from throughout the Asia Pacific region – many dressed in colorful national attire – will present cultural performances, activities and displays. Highlights of the performance lineup include dances, songs from Bangladesh, USA, China, The Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Nepal, Italy, Iran, Pacific Islands, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, and many more.

Media Contacts:

Derek Ferrar
East-West Center
Hong Kong Mobile: (+852) 6256-5774
Email: ferrard@eastwestcenter.org

Ms. Kylie Chan
HKU Journalism and Media Studies Centre
Mobile: + (852) 2219-4416
Email : kyliec@hku.hk

HONG KONG (April 23, 2010) – More than 250 journalists and media experts from across the Asia Pacific region and the U.S. will gather in Hong Kong April 25-28 to discuss the latest news and media-industry issues in the region.

Conference on “Reporting New Realities in Asia and the Pacific” to be held in Hong Kong April 25-28

Shifting power dynamics and changing economic landscapes. China’s growing impact and Obama’s developing foreign policies. Challenges in security, climate and health . Emerging media models. Journalists today are faced with an astonishing range of new realities to report, and nowhere are these more evident than in the world’s most dynamic region -- the Asia Pacific.

HONOLULU (March 9, 2010) – East-West Center Senior Fellow and prominent energy market analyst Fereidun Fesharaki has established a fund to help Iranian and other participants attend the East-West Center’s Asia Pacific Leadership Program.

Under an agreement recently signed with the Center, Dr. Fesharaki has pledged to donate his full monthly take home EWC salary, which will exceed the $25,000 necessary to establish a scholarship fund. The Fesharaki Scholarship Fund will be used to fund awards of at least $1,000 each year for one or more students, with a preference for (but not limited to) Iranian students from Iran or elsewhere outside the United States. Awards will be granted based on financial need, leadership experience, educational achievement, and funding availability.

HONOLULU (Feb. 18, 2010) – The East-West Center has received a grant of $225,000 from the United Nations Democracy Fund to help strengthen Pakistan’s recently restored democracy. The project will reinforce electoral and parliamentary processes and enhance civil society’s capacity to promote accountability and transparency.

“Pakistan is a Muslim country of 164 million people, and a nuclear power,” said project leader Shabbir Cheema, Director of the East-West Center’s Asia-Pacific Governance and Democracy Initiative. “But a weak Parliament, lack of trust in electoral processes and weak civil society institutions have constrained the deepening and consolidation of democracy in the country.”

Two-week professional workshop in Indonesia during May will focus on “Internal Conflicts in the Asia Pacific Region”

HONOLULU (Nov. 19) – Applications are being accepted through Jan. 1 for the third annual Summer Institute in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Human Rights. Organized by the Asian International Justice Initiative – a collaboration between the East-West Center and the University of California-Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center

President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Daughters Among the Honored Guests

Multi-article Journal Cover Story Highlights Economics, Security, and Foreign Affairs in Southeast Asia

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Oct. 27) — The Fall 2009 edition of Global Asia , the East Asia Foundation’s journal on international affairs, has just been released, highlighting the multi-article cover story “In the National Interest: Economics, Security and Foreign Affairs in Southeast Asia.”

HONOLULU (Nov. 14) – President Barack Obama’s selection of Honolulu as the site for the annual APEC Leaders Meeting in November 2011 means that Honolulu will both open the U.S. year of hosting APEC with an agenda-setting conference, as well as close the year with the huge Ministerial and Leaders meetings.

President Obama announced Hawai‘i’s winning bid today at this year’s APEC Leaders Meeting, currently being held in Singapore. Honolulu had already been selected to host the first event, an academic and government officials’ conference and an informal senior officials meeting to be held at the East-West Center in December 2010. Several other smaller ministerial and senior official meetings will be held in other U.S. cities.

REPORTING NEW REALITIES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Hong Kong
April 25-28, 2010
EastWestCenter.org/mediaconference

An East-West Center 50th Anniversary Event

As part of the East-West Center's 50th anniversary events, the Center's Asia Pacific Center for Journalists and local co-sponsor the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre have announced plans for the EWC’s the  at the East-West Center's second biennial international media conference .

HONOLULU (Aug. 21) – Dr. Satu Limaye, director of the East-West Center’s Washington office, was selected by Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the Special Staff for the President as the sole U.S. representative to the recent Presidential Friends of Indonesia Conference (PFoI). Distinguished guests from 13 countries participated in the program including top government officials, journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, and artists. During the conference, from August 13-19, participants witnessed first-hand Indonesia’s progress and development.  

HONOLULU (Sep. 1) – The East-West Center (EWC) was awarded a three-year grant for $1,398,380 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate the impact of development-based environmental change on avian flu transmission.  The project, “CNH: Coupled Natural-Human Systems and Emerging Infectious Diseases," will examine the interaction of urbanization, agricultural change, and habitat alteration with outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry in Vietnam.

HONOLULU (Sept. 8) – East-West Center Senior Fellow and energy expert Fereidun Fesharaki will discuss the “Outlook for Global Energy Markets after the Great Recession: With Perspectives on China and Iran” at a public forum co-sponsored by the East-West Center in Washington and the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at 3 PM. 

HONOLULU (July 22) -- East-West Center President Charles E. Morrison and Director of Education Terance W. Bigalke will be among the delegates of a U.S. higher education leaders’ mission to Indonesia July 26-31. Mission organizers have said that the delegation’s scheduled visit will not be altered by the recent hotel bombings in Jakarta.

HONOLULU (June 23) - More than 20 graduates of an East-West Center-administered scholarship program for accomplished young scholars from Pacific island nations are back in Hawai‘i this week to attend a special seminar on addressing issues and envisioning futures in the region.

The former students are all graduates of the United States-South Pacific Scholarship Program (USSP), which is funded by Department of State and administered by the East-West Center. Among the attendees are graduates who are now working in public health, communications, finance, planning, education, government, scientific research and more. Participants have travelled from as far away as the UK, Norway and across the Pacific to attend the seminar.

HONOLULU (June 25) – The Mayor of Hiroshima, the Honorable Tadatoshi Akiba, will commemorate 50 years of the sister-city relationship between Hiroshima and Honolulu at a special luncheon presentation on Wednesday, July 8.

In addition to the mayor’s presentation, there will be Japanese musical entertainment and a special photo exhibit centering on Sadako Sasaki, the young Hiroshima atomic bombing victim who famously folded 1,000 cranes for peace before she died from radiation-induced leukemia.

HONOLULU (June 10) – The East-West Center has received a two-year grant of $94,747 from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership to support the Japan-United States Journalist Exchange .

This 12-day exchange program, co-sponsored by the East-West Center and Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (NSK), sends six to seven Japanese journalists to the United States and an equal number of U.S. journalists to Japan to broaden the journalists’ knowledge of the relationship and challenges faced between the two countries.

HONOLULU (April 16) -- This year’s annual, student-organized Indonesian Conference and Cultural Event (ICCE 2009) will be held on Friday April 24, from 2 - 9 p.m. at the East-West Center’s Hawaii Imin International Conference Center. Admission to the conference and cultural celebration is free and open to the public.

The topic for this year is ‘A Decade of Reform 1998-2009’; looking at changes after the end of the Soeharto regime in 1998. The underlying force guiding these changes has been a spirit of reformation promising democracy, equity and justice among Indonesia’s people. However, after a decade of reform, Indonesia’s ability to provide equal democratic rights and access to every citizen has still been questioned.

HONOLULU (Feb. 27)  In 2010, the East-West Center (EWC) will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a national institution created by the U.S. Congress to promote better relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States through cooperative research, education, and exchange activities.  

As part of the 50 ^th anniversary celebrations, a series of special events will be held throughout the year, including lectures, publications, and a large international conference in Honolulu during the first week of July, 2010.

To commemorate this milestone, the EWC plans to create a special promotional logo for all EWC materials and activities associated with the Center’s 50 ^th anniversary. 

HONOLULU (Feb. 6) – The application deadline for the East-West Center's new Norway-Pacific Islands Scholarship Program (NPISP)— created for students from the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu to pursue a master’s degree in anthropology, Pacific islands studies, or political science at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa— is March 15, 2009. Study will begin in August 2009.  Scholarship provisions include tuition, residence hall fees, book allowance, living stipend, health insurance, and round-trip airfare. 

Application forms and detailed program information are available at: http:// EastWestCenter.org/studentprograms .

HONOLULU (Dec. 11, 2008) – The East-West Center (EWC) received a grant of $414,952 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development to support on-going research in Japan on family change. The multi-year study, “Innovations in Early Life Course Transitions,” focuses on the interplay of structural societal change, individual behavior and attitudes, and the emergence of an altered family institution in Japanese society.

HONOLULU (Dec. 23) – East-West Center Senior Fellow Fereidun Fesharaki has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman to serve on the National Petroleum Council (NPC). The Council is a self-funded advisory body to the Secretary of Energy whose members represent all sectors of the oil and natural gas industries and related interests.  

Applications Currently Being Accepted

HONOLULU (Dec.15) -- The East-West Center has been awarded a three-year grant totaling $275,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to provide renewed support for the Korea-United States Journalists Exchange program.

HONOLULU (Nov. 14) – As part of its biennial alumni conference, being held this year in Bali, Indonesia, the East-West Center honored several alumni at a luncheon today for their outstanding personal accomplishments and service toward the Center’s mission of helping to promote better relations and understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and the United States.

Three individuals received the Center’s biennial Distinguished Alumni Award:

 

HONOLULU (Nov. 18) -- The East-West Center (EWC) received two grants of $496,000 from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to support the U.S.- Timor-Leste   (USTL) and U.S.- South Pacific (USSP) Scholarship Programs. These programs aim to develop a corps of leaders who will contribute to political, economic, and social development in their home countries and strengthen relations with the United States.

HONOLULU (Dec. 5) -- The East-West Center’s AsiaPacificEd Program for Schools has been awarded a $150,000 “Landmarks of American History and Culture” grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to conduct teachers workshops on “ Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, and Memorial .” These workshops are co-sponsored by the Arizona Memorial Museum Association, the National Park Service, and the Japan American Society and will be held at the East-West Center during the summer of 2009. This is the fifth Landmarks grant that NEH has awarded to the East-West Center for the Pearl Harbor workshops.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 10) – It’s well known that Asia has key relationships with the United States in a variety of important measures, including overall trade, U.S. exports, immigrant populations, international students and more.
For example:

HONOLULU (Nov. 13) – An international conference of scholars, officials, educators and business leaders got underway Thursday in Bali, Indonesia, with welcoming remarks by the Governor of Bali, the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia and the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare, followed by the conference’s keynote address by East-West Center President Charles E. Morrison.

The Honorable Aburizal Bakrie, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare, told the more that 500 assembled scholars, officials and business professionals – most of whom are Center alumni – that the current global economic crisis serves as a powerful reminder “of the need to improve our cooperative efforts, of our bonds together, of the common mechanisms that we can use to solve our problems.”

HONOLULU (Oct. 8) – Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador John K. Veroneau will offer an update on U.S. trade policy at a breakfast briefing on Wed., Oct. 15, at the East-West Center’s Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall, 1777 East-West Road).

Cost for the event is $14. Registration begins at 8 a.m., with the breakfast program commencing at 8:30. Reservations are requested by Tues., Oct. 14. To make a reservation, contact (808) 944-7111, or ewcinfo@eastwestcenter.org .  For media coverage of the event, please contact Derek Ferrar at (808) 944-7204 or via email ferrard@EastWestCenter.org .

HONOLULU (Oct. 20) – Groups of educators from Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia will be spending the next two weeks visiting schools in 11 U.S. states as part of an East-West Center program designed to foster mutual understanding between the United States and Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world.

HONOLULU (Sept. 19) – Former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Kim Beazley will speak on “Political Change and Alliance Continuity in U.S.-Australia Relations” at an Australian American Leadership Dialogue luncheon address on Wed., Sept. 24., at the East-West Center’s Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall, 1777 East-West Road).

Ten months ago, the Australian Labor Party under Kevin Rudd defeated the decade-long conservative coalition government of John Howard.  This November, the U.S. election will bring in a new American president.  These political transitions bring a new era to U.S.-Australian relations.

HONOLULU (Sept. 29) – East-West Center President Dr. Charles E. Morrison will speak on “U.S.-Asia Policy in Transition” at a luncheon meeting of the Friends of the East-West Center on Thursday, Oct. 2, at the Halekulani Hotel’s Hau Terrace, 2199 Kalia Road.

Dr. Morrison will review critical issues, challenges and opportunities in U.S. relations with the Asia-Pacific region as we face an election and new U.S. leadership. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

Cost for the luncheon is $36, inclusive of service charge, tax and parking. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., with the luncheon program commencing at noon. To make a reservation, contact (808) 944-7111/ 944-7691, or Friends@eastwestcenter.org .

HONOLULU (September 17) The East-West Center (EWC) received a grant of $350,000 from the U.S. Department of State to support a new six-week institute on environmental stewardship for undergraduate students from Southeast Asia.

The EWC, working in partnership with more than 20 organizations including the University of Hawaii’s Environmental Studies Program, Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Nature Conservancy, will host and facilitate this program in May-June 2009 for approximately 20 students from non-traditional and underserved groups in the region.