The 11th National People’s Congress in March 2008 completed the transition to the second term of the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao administration, making important changes in China’s party, government and military hierarchies. On April 7, the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University will host a conference to examine what these changes mean for politics and policy in Beijing. When

Monday, April 07, 2008
9:30 AM to 4:30 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Directions

You are cordially invited to a public event:

Fixing the Interior Ministry and Police in Iraq

Date: Monday, April 7, 2008

Time: 10:00 AM- 12:00 PM

Special Location: Renaissance Mayflower Hotel
Georgia Conference Room, 2nd floor
1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036-3011

Overview

In its September 6, 2007 report to Congress, the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq stated that Iraq's Interior Ministry was "dysfunctional and sectarian" and the National Police should be "disbanded and reorganized." The report was consistent with press reports that sectarian militias were in control of the Ministry and the National Police were engaged in sectarian violence.

The Wilson Center is hosting a conference that examines Al Jazeera English (AJE), with specific reference to its operations, prospects, and impacts in Southeast Asia.

Speakers include Veronica Pedrosa (anchor for AJE based in Kuala Lumpur), Trish Carter (former Asia-Pacific bureau chief for AJE), and Marwan Kraidy (Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania).

Event is 1:30pm-5:30pm on Monday, April 7, 2008, at the Wilson Center, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW (Ronald Reagan Building), Washington, DC

RSVPs to asia@wilsoncenter.org by COB April 3. More information (including speaker bios) at www.wilsoncenter.org/asia under "upcoming events."

The Future of Human Rights
Tuesday, April 08, 2008, 8:30am to 4:30pm
Georgetown Law Center, Washington, DC

Keynote addresses:
Honorable Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Featured Panels:
"How Should the United States Deal with Human Rights Abuses of Key Partners and Allies?"
and "Introducing Social and Economic Rights into U.S. Policy"

Book Launch:
The Future of Human Rights: U.S. Policy for a New Era
University of Pennsylvania Press

NATIONAL IRANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL

CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO A POLICY CONFERENCE ON

BREAKING THE US-IRAN STALEMATE
REASSESSING THE NUCLEAR STRATEGY IN THE
WAKE OF THE MAJLES ELECTIONS

TUESDAY, 8 APRIL 2008
1:45 PM – 6:00 PM
325 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING

Refreshments will be served

1:45-2:00 pm
REGISTRATION

2:00-2:15 pm
WELCOMING REMARKS
Dr. Trita Parsi
President, National Iranian American Council

2:15 pm – 3:30 pm
PANEL I: NEW MAJLES, NEW CHALLENGES?
Scott Peterson
Christian Science Monitor

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

Today, in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is taking place on a scale that is almost unimaginable. In the last ten years, hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped - but their suffering goes unacknowledged. Instead, they are invisible, shamed and mute.

This is the story of one filmmaker's crusade to break the silence surrounding this shocking reality, armed with a firsthand connection with the women and men she meets. Winner of a Special Jury Prize (Documentary) at this year's Sundance Film Festival, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo premieres Tuesday, April 8 at 10pm ET/PT.

The Liberia Working Group and the Center for Economies and Conflict cordially invite you to a public event:

GEMAP in Liberia: A Model for Economic Management in Conflict-Affected Countries

Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Reception: 1:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Location: U.S. Institute of Peace
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Get Directions

The Brookings Institution, Saul Zilkha Room, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Moderator
Federiga Bindi
Visting Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe The Brookings Institution

Speaker
Simon Hix
Professor of European and Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science

Respondent
Jeffrey Anderson,
Graf Goltz Professor and Director
BMW Center for German and European Studies (CGES), Georgetown University

The EU seems incapable of undertaking economic reforms and defining its place in the world. At the same time, public support for the EU has declined dramatically in the last decade and throughout Europe citizens feel they cannot influence what goes on in Brussels. What the EU needs, Simon Hix argues in his new book What’s Wrong with the European Union and How to Fix It (Polity, 2008) is ‘limited democratic politics’. More open political competition would promote policy innovation, foster coalitions across the institutions, provide incentives for the media to cover Brussels, and enable citizens to identify who governs in the EU and to take sides in policy debates. The EU is ready for this new challenge. The institutional reforms since the 1980s have transformed the EU into a more competitive polity, and political battles and coalitions are developing inside and between the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission. This emerging politics should be more central to the Brussels policy process, with clearer coalitions and identifiable winners and losers, at least in the short term. For example, there should be a genuine contest for the Commission President. The risks are low because the EU has multiple checks-and-balances. Yet, the potential benefits are high, as more open politics could enable the EU to overcome policy gridlock, rebuild public support, and reduce the democratic deficit.

Southeast Asia Young Professionals DC (SEAYP) is an organization of young professionals whose work focues on or are interested in Southeast Asia. We meet once a month for happy hours or dinners. Our members work at non-profits, government agencies, private sector firms and a few are graduate students at local universities.

We will be having our next happy hour on Thursday April 17 at 5:30pm at Singapore Bistro on 19th St. NW between L & M streets. Come look for us on one of the restaurant's top floors.

We love to add new members to our group and would happy to have anyone stop by!

Misha Glenny on Global Crime
Dear Colleague:

The Stimson Center’s Regional Voices: Transnational Challenges project cordially invites you to attend a discussion with Misha Glenny at the Henry L. Stimson Center on April 18, 2008 from 10:30 am to 12 pm.

Mr. Glenny will discuss his latest book, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, which makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West. Mr. Glenny won the Sony Award for his coverage of the Yugoslavian crisis. He is the author of The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999, The Fall of Yugoslavia (won the Overseas Press Club Award in 1993 for Best Book on Foreign Affairs), and The Rebirth Of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy.

RSVP: https://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/rsvp/index.cfm?Action=View&EventID=1646

A symposium examining the contribution of citizen diplomacy to shaping the role of the United States in the world.

Featuring:

Hon. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
Hon. Mac Thornberry (R-TX)

You are invited to a symposium co-sponsored by Georgetown University and World Learning. The event will draw on World Learning's 75-year history of facilitating experiential education through its Experiment in International Living and the Georgetown University Mortara Center's long-standing commitment to understanding the full range of foreign policy tools. Together with The Aspen Institute's Global Interdependence Initiative, we are exploring citizen diplomacy as an investment in a U.S. foreign policy that both advances U.S. interests and responds effectively to issues that are global in scope. The event will explore "high road," high-quality citizen exchange and diplomacy as an undervalued element of strategic communication, economic development and higher education. The event will kick off with a keynote address and response. Two panel discussions will follow. The first, "What Can Citizens Do? Experiencing High-Road Diplomacy," will pair exchange alumni from several fields with experts on crafting fruitful international exchange programs to explore the outcomes and limitations of such experiences. The second panel, "Democratizing Diplomacy and Development," will bring experts and practitioners from government, academia and the private sector together to situate "high road" citizen diplomacy within larger strategic questions about U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century.

Where: East-West Center in Washington, Second Floor Conference Room, 1819 L St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
When: April 23, 2008, 12:30-2:30pm
What: East-West Center Special Luncheon Seminar

In her groundbreaking new book, The China Price (Penguin, 2008), acclaimed Financial Times correspondent Alex Harney delves deep into China's enormous ecosystem of export-oriented industry to uncover the truth about how China is able to offer such amazingly low prices to the rest of the world. What she has discovered is a world in which intense pricing pressure from Western companies combines with corruption and a lack of transparency to exact an unseen toll on human capital and the environment. Harney's book is a landmark eyewitness exposé of how China's factory economy competes for Western business, and how China will manage the impact of its changing industrial landscape on the global economy.

A Special Briefing Co-Sponsored by the East-West Center and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Where: 385 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
When: April 24, 2008, 9:00-11:00am
What:

Energy security ranks as one of the highest-priority issues in Asia and the Pacific.The East and South Asia region is the fastest growing oil consumer in the world, and because the region has such a small percentage of the world's oil reserves, it is the most highly dependent on oil imports of any world region. In the future, Asia will become even more dependent on imports as its energy needs expand with changing lifestyles and overall economic growth. Fereidun Fesharaki and Kang Wu, two leading international energy experts based at the East-West Center, will discuss the trends and challenges of the region's energy security landscape in a briefing on their new edited volume, "Asia's Energy Future: Regional Dynamics and Global Implications" (East-West Center, 2007), a pioneering study of Asia's role in global oil and energy markets and implications for the environment and the region's overall energy security. Copies of the book will be available at the event.

Thursday, April 24
5:00-7:00 pm

Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century's Political Author Series continues with:
GARY HART
Former U.S. Senator (D-CO) and Democratic Presidential Candidate (1984, 1988)
Discussing his book, Under the Eagle's Wing: A National Security Strategy for 2009

Rosie O'Grady's Pub (lower level)
800 7th Avenue (at 52nd Street)
1 train to 50th Street, B/D/E to 7th Avenue, N/R/Q/W to 49th Street
Books available for purchase and signing on-site.
This event is free.
REGISTER HERE: http://www.dl21c.org/rsvp.php?event_id=257.

Please join the Georgetown Club of Metropolitan New York for a fascinating cocktail hour and reading with acclaimed author, Parag Khanna, as he discusses his new book, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.

DATE:
Thursday, April 24, 2008

TIME:
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. EDT
6:30 – 7:00 Light cocktails and hors d'oeuvres
7:00 – 8:00 Reading, Q&A and book signing

LOCATION:
The Williams Club (24 East 39th Street)

COST:
$25 for members of the Georgetown Club of MetroNY
$35 for non-members

To register, visit https://www.sporg.com/pom/registration?cmd=event_info&event_id=107520.

"Asia Critical Issues" Seminar co-sponsored by the Asia Society and the East-West Center in Washington

Where: East-West Center in Washington, Second Floor Conference Room, 1819 L St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
When: April 29, 8:30am-11:00am
What:

The spectacular rise of China and India has created new geopolitical realities with far-reaching implications for U.S. foreign policy. Kishore Mahbubani-Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore, and former Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations-will discuss these realities as they are laid out in his new book, "The New Asian Hemisphere" (PublicAffairs, 2008), and offer advice to the next American President on how to confront the changing geopolitical landscape in Asia.

Andrew Albertson, YPFP member and Executive Director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, will moderate a panel entitled, Fiscal Year 2009 Appropriations and Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights in the Middle East.

Also on the panel is YPFP Member Stephen McInerney, POMED's Director of Advocacy and a member of the YPFP Middle East Discussion Group.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 10:00 – 11:30 am. Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2200

A Walk to Beautiful

A powerful story of healing and hope for women in Ethiopia devastated by childbirth injuries

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
5 PM – 7 PM
B369 Rayburn House Office Building

*Short preview of the film will be shown
RSVP at http://www.ccmc.org/unfpa/walktobeautiful/invitation.htm

WATCH ON PBS, May 13 8pm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beautiful/

On Saturday, May 3, 2008, the European Commission Delegation and the embassies of the EU member states will open their doors for members of the public to take a shortcut to Europe.

We invite you to join us from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. by taking a rare behind-the-scenes look at the European embassies, many of which are among Washington's historic and architectural treasures. Each embassy offers a unique program featuring the country's cuisine, its music and special events.

Take a Tour of the United Kingdom:
For the first time ever, the British Embassy invites everyone to take a tour past the grand history, old castles, Big Ben, Parliament, fish and chips, haggis, the Giant's Causeway, and Stonehenge to a UK that is now a more modern, innovative and multicultural society.

8:30 – 9:00

Continental Breakfast

9:00 – 10:30

Program

Jaime Daremblum

Director, Hudson's Center for Latin American Studies

(Moderator)

Carol Adelman

Director, Hudson's Center for Global Prosperity

Carol Adelman directs Hudson Institute's Center for Global Prosperity, which produces the annual Index of Global Philanthropy, the sole comprehensive guide to U.S. and other industrialized countries' private giving to developing countries. Adelman is vice chair of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at USAID, and writes regularly on economic development, foreign aid, global philanthropy, and global health issues.