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.”

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 (August 20, 2009) – Many developing nations are now using microfinance as a means to reduce poverty.  On Tuesday, September 1, the East-West Center (EWC) will host a public forum on “Microfinance as a Tool for Community Development” in the EWC Gallery featuring presentations by the following international development experts:

HONOLULU (July 23, 2009) – The implications of the current global economic crisis for the Asia Pacific region will be the topic of a luncheon forum hosted by the East-West Center on Monday, Aug. 3.  The luncheon at the EWC’s Hawaii Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall) is open to the public and will feature a panel discussion by leading experts from the Asia Pacific region, including:

• Barbara Weisel, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Weisel is the lead negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership initiative and the U.S. Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Malaysia and Thailand. 

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 (May 29) - A group of 20 undergraduate scholars from Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and Papua New Guinea are currently in Hawai‘i participating in an innovative environmental leadership development program. The program is designed to foster a greater understanding of the U.S. environmental movement and aid in the development of sustainable pathways to environmental stewardship.

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.

Flooded houses. Inundated farmland. A collapsed seawall. Mud-filled roads. Contaminated taro patches. These were among the graphic images of devastating high-tide coastal inundation events in the Pacific that were presented at the annual Pacific Partners meeting of the Pacific Risk Management ‘Ohana (PRiMO), held in Tumon, Guam, on the 18th and 19th of March, 2009.

HONOLULU (April 8) – Weekly video updates about the Khmer Rouge trial proceedings currently underway in Cambodia can now be viewed online at forum.eastwestcenter.org/Khmer-Rouge-Trials .

The films – produced for a prime-time Cambodian television audience, with English subtitles added – endeavor to explain the complex legal proceedings in an accessible and informative manner through the use of trial footage, expert commentary and interviews. Also available on the “Time for Justice, Cambodia” site are written reports on the tribunal sessions prepared by legal monitors from the Asian International Justice Initiative, or AIJI .

HONOLULU (March 17) -- In its continued support of the East-West Center, the Freeman Foundation has awarded a $140,000 grant to the Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP). This is the fourth grant that the Freeman Foundation has awarded to the ASDP, totaling over $2.7 million, since 1996.

The ASDP is a joint effort of the East-West Center and the University of Hawai‘i “to educate educators--that is, to promote literacy on Asian cultures and contemporary issues, and to prepare American educators to bring Asia into the classroom,” states ASDP Co-Director Roger Ames.

HONOLULU (Feb. 10) -- More than 175 graduate students from 63 universities in 27 nations are set to gather this week at the Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center in Honolulu to present their research at the East-West Center’s 8th annual International Graduate Student Conference. The interdisciplinary gathering, planned and organized by EWC students, is the largest of its kind worldwide. All conference sessions are free and open to the public, with the exception of meals and receptions.

 

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. 27) -- A delegation of election observers coordinated by the East-West Center in Honolulu has begun arriving in the Federated States of Micronesia to act as official monitors for the FSM national congressional and Chuuk state elections on March 3. Some 20 observers from a variety of countries in the Asia Pacific region will be participating in the monitoring project, which will focus on learning about local election processes and promoting their integrity and legitimacy.

Among the observers is expected to be U.S. congressional Rep. Eni F. H. Faleomavaega of American Samoa, along with a number of other prominent scholars and diplomats. Teams of observers and translators will be stationed at a number of key polling and vote tabulating locations in Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap.

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.  

Jan. 18-March 22, 2009

East-West Center Gallery, Honolulu

Opening reception: Sunday, Jan. 18, 2 p.m .

Featured artist: Hideta Kitazawa, noh mask carver

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 (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 (Oct. 30) – The application deadline for the East-West Center's Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP) – widely regarded as the premier leadership education program in the Asia region – is December 1, 2008. 

Application forms and detailed information about the program are available on the APLP website.

The APLP is a nine-month graduate certificate program with a minimum five-month residency in Honolulu, Hawaii. The program combines the development of regional expertise with the cultivation of individual leadership capacity.

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 (Sept. 30) -- Nearly 500 scholars, officials, educators and business leaders will gather in Bali November 13-15 for an international conference on the theme of "Building an Asia Pacific Community: Unity in Diversity."

Conference sessions will cover current regional issues, including international relations, security, democracy and Islam, global warming, volunteerism, gender issues, innovation, health, business, and social and cultural issues.

Among the featured speakers will be the new governor of Bali; Indonesia’s ministers of trade, people’s welfare and women’s empowerment; the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia; the governor of Hawaii; the president of the East-West Center; and business leaders.

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.

HONOLULU (Aug. 29) – Four leading China-based journalists will speak on the impact and aftermath of the Olympics on China at an East-West Center luncheon on Friday, Sept. 5., at the Center’s Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center (Jefferson Hall, 1777 East-West Road).
Speaking at the event will be:

HONOLULU (July 17) – The East-West Center provided the venue this week for the Honolulu launch of “ Making the Law Work for Everyone ,” a new report on legal empowerment of the world’s poor by an independent commission supported by the United Nations.

HONOLULU (July 7) – The East-West Center (EWC) received a grant of 450 million Korean won (approximately $435,840 U.S. dollars) as part of an agreement to conduct collaborative research activities with the Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI), South Korea’s national think-tank on energy policy.

The joint project, “Energy Security in the North Pacific,” stems from the Korean government’s newly launched program to strengthen Korea-U.S. relations and establish a partnership on energy diplomacy.  The collaboration between the EWC and KEEI supports that goal by improving the networking and research cooperation between the two countries, assisting in the development of an Asia Pacific energy security framework, and contributing to the design of Korea’s energy security strategy.

HONOLULU (June 16) – The East-West Center (EWC) was awarded a three-year contract from NASA for a projected total of $826,639 to determine the effects of the explosive expansion of rubber cultivation in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) on regional water and carbon dynamics.
 
"Hydrologic change within this region, which comprises approximately half of Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and China’s Yunnan Province, could have serious consequences for the approximately 200 million inhabitants of mainland Southeast Asia’s lowlands and for the climate of monsoon Asia,” according to Jefferson Fox , East-West Center Senior Fellow, and member of the team heading up the project.

SINGAPORE (May 30) -- Inflation in the Asia Pacific is set to rise sharply this year in the face of increased oil and commodity prices, contributing to a substantial downward revision in the overall economic growth forecast for the region, according to a report released today by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC).

HONOLULU (June 12) – The Chief Justice of Indonesia’s Supreme Court has signed a formal agreement with the East-West Center in Honolulu and the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley to expand the human-rights training that the two institutions have been providing to Indonesian law officials for several years through their joint Asian International Justice Initiative.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed at the East-West Center on June 6 details a five-year commitment to conduct training programs for Indonesian judges, prosecutors, police and the National Human Rights Commission in order to “improve knowledge of human rights standards and how they can be implemented and applied by key judicial actors to promote the rule of law and the effectiveness of human rights courts and investigations.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 25, 2008

Media Contact:
Derek Ferrar
Media Relations Specialist
East-West Center
808-944-7204
ferrard@eastwestcenter.org

Symposium Registration:
Stella Kolinski, 944-7583
kolinsks@eastwestcenter.org

Native Hawaiian cultural specialist Ramsay Taum will be the recipient of this year’s Transformational Leadership Award at a free symposium on “Transforming Leaders and Sustainability,” to be presented on Saturday by the East-West Center Leadership Certificate Program.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Derek Ferrar
Media Relations Specialist
East-West Center
808-944-7204
ferrard@eastwestcenter.org

HONOLULU (April 30) -- Zacarias Albano da Costa, Foreign Affairs Minister of Timor-Leste (East Timor), will participate in a free public panel discussion at the East-West Center on the morning of Monday, May 5, along with U.S. Ambassador to Timor-Leste Hans G. Klemm, and Constâncio C. Pinto, acting Chargé d'Affaires of Timor-Leste’s embassy in the U.S.