EWI this week released a new policy paper arguing for joint action by the United States and China to support the energy security of Africans. Despite the visible tensions over Sudan, China and the United States have far more energy interests in common in Africa than generally assumed. This is no zero-sum game. Their bilateral cooperation needs to open up new horizons in Africa.
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On October 23rd and 24th the EastWest Institute will team-up with Zero Nuclear's four Statesmen [Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry], IAEA's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and Joseph E. Robert, Jr., Chairman of Business Executives for National Security, to recognise their achievements in combatting nuclear proliferation and to advance EWI's work on creating a new global consensus on Weapons of Mass Destruction.
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Can the major global policy think-tanks of the world focused think together about the challenges facing humanity? From July 14-17, the East West Institute convened more than a dozen think-tanks from Beijing to Brasilia to address this timely question. The think-tank leaders gathered in Oxford, England, where they developed an eight-point plan for collaborative action and agreed to form a “Global Leadership Consortium” to implement this plan.
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The work of EWI's Countering Violent Extremism Initiative to build a media leaders group to enhance the role of this important actor in efforts to stem the tide of extremism received a welcome and important boost at a recent conference held in Mumbai, India. EWI co-organized a panel on the role of the media in crisis prevention, peace, and intercultural understanding.
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NEW YORK July 7, 2008 — Upon invitation of the Chairs of the UN Group of Friends on Conflict Prevention (Group), Ambassadors Thomas Matussek (Germany) and Peter Maurer (Switzerland), a Task Force information meeting was held at the German mission in New York. The meeting was attended by Ambassadors and representatives from the more than 40 UN Group of Friends member states, as well as representatives from UNDPA, UNDP, UNDESA, and the UN Inter Agency Framework Team for Preventive Action. EWI President John Mroz also participated at the event.
More | Task Force July Update

From May 19 to 23, 2008, EWI led a delegation of top American security experts to Beijing for the second round of the U.S.-China High Level Security Dialogue with senior Chinese security and military specialists from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) and other Chinese institutes.
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The EastWest Institute (EWI) convened a roundtable of international policymakers and academic experts on April 17, 2008, to evaluate the need for a more consistent and permanent regional security apparatus in the Middle East. Seeking to address the critical deficiencies of past structures—which been largely ad hoc and excluded key actors—Mr. Sundeep Waslekar, president of the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) made the case that as the region continues to fragment, it will become ever more difficult to arrive at universally amenable arrangements. It is therefore urgent and imperative that an inclusive, sustainable, and open-ended security mechanism be created if the further deterioration of the region’s security is to be stemmed.
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EWI’s International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy recently published two proposals to establish an International Panel on Conflict Prevention and Human Security and a Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.
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On June 4, 2008, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre delivered an exclusive briefing to EWI’s Board of Directors on the state of Norway’s efforts to promote greater regional cooperation in the High North (the seas north of the Norwegian mainland) and the environmental challenges and economic opportunities facing the region.
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A Declaration on Cross-border Cooperation in Natural and Other Disasters and Natural Resources Management was signed in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on May 5, 2008, at a conference organized by the Croatian government. The signing of the declaration is a major breakthrough for regional cooperation and represents the culmination of years of efforts on the part of EWI and other regional actors.
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Jon Mroz, project manager of EWI's Countering Violent Extremism Initiative, offers commentary on the July 2nd bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem in which three people were killed. He notes the difficulty in countering violent extremists operating as lone wolves and draws a distinction between violent extremism and terrorism, arguing that this incident was not a terrorist attack.
More | Commentary: Lone Wolf Attacks

On July 14, 2008, the EastWest Institute, in cooperation with Brussels based think tanks The Centre, The Egmont Institute, and The Institute for Environmental Security hosted the launch of “Globalization and Environmental Challenges. Reconceptualizing Security in the 21st Century,” the third volume of the Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace.
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EWI and leading Turkish and Belgian politicians called for more innovative thinking about the EU-Turkey relationship. During a conference co-sponsored by the Eastwest Institute, Dr. Greg Austin, an EWI vice-president, stressed that "the EU should be more creative in how it approaches Turkey for its contribution as a peace-broker and economic engine in the West Asia region." He added that "Turkey is very important for Europe. Turkey has the world's 17th-largest economy, and it has a very dynamic population. Europe cannot ignore Turkey."
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On Thursday, May 1, 2008, the Countering Violent Extremism Initiative (CVEI) of the EastWest Institute hosted an event entitled “Building a Virtual Platform for Moderates: Reconciling Traditional and Religious Wisdom with Public Life in the 21st Century.” CVEI brought together members of the diplomatic, entertainment, business, policy, and academic communities to discuss the portrayal of violence in the media.
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GENEVA July 4, 2008 — Following a recent round of high-level advocacy meetings with core group member countries to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, EastWest Institute Vice-President and Task Force Chair Ambassador Ortwin Hennig was invited to attend the signatories’ 7th core group meeting in Geneva on July 4 to present on the EastWest Institute’s International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy (Task Force) initiatives.
More | Task Force July Update

By invitation of Yale University and its World Fellows program, the EastWest Institute held the fourth Core Group meeting of its International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy at the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, April 13-15, 2008.
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The EastWest Institute (EWI) convened a roundtable of Middle East experts on April 16, 2008, to discuss the Arab Islamic Renaissance Initiative, a project led by the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), to formulate a strategy to restore the intellectual and economic prominence of the Middle East on the world stage. The initiative highlights the necessity of finding a strategy rooted in the region’s own cultural and historical traditions and that addresses the threat of an emerging ‘dignity gap.’
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The EastWest Institute’s 5th Worldwide Security Conference (WSC5), held in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the World Customs Organization, was a great success. WSC5 gathered around 750 leaders from business, civil society, governments and academia at the World Customs Organization Headquarters in Brussels from February 19 through February 21, 2008.
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