East-West Center in the News

(2012-09-13) Deane Neubauer, of the East West Centre at the University of Hawaii, said there were still significant barriers to cooperation and student and faculty mobility. “We have to find a way to recognise each others’ institutions.”

This included an efficient credit transfer system and “even ASEAN is moving very slowly on this”, said Neubauer, who is also co-editor of Mobility and Migration in Asian Pacific Higher Education, published this year.

Neubauer pointed to significant overlaps between ASEAN initiatives and APEC, and said mutual recognition was as important as measures to set up partnerships.

(2012-09-12) Dr Gerard Finin, who co-directs the Pacific Islands Development Programme at Hawaii’s East-West Centre, agrees.

“It’s mutually beneficial and of critical importance to both Palau and the United States and so that’s why even though there has been this delay I don’t think it alters the fundamental basis for the relationship which has really gone pretty well since the time of Palau’s independence.”

However Dr Gerard Finin says the delay places Palau in a financial bind.

(2012-09-13) Dr. Gerard Finin, who co-directs the Pacific Islands Development Program at Hawaii’s East-West Center, says she is still popular.

“She was elected numerous times to various positions within Palau and has served as their Minister of State or Secretary of State as we call it, Minister of Foreign Affairs, essentially, and so I think she has some chance.”

Finin says the credentials of all three presidential candidates will make it a very interesting race to watch.

-- Also appears in: Marianas Variety

(2012-09-18) Some 70 teacher trainers and government officials will take part in the programme, which is funded entirely by the Brunei government and run jointly by the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and the Honolulu-based East-West Centre. Courses begin with a seven-week module in English proficiency at UBD and continue in Hawaii with a four-week course in culture and leadership, says Terance Bigalke, director of education at the East-West Centre.

"The idea of the English-language proficiency approach is to prepare diplomats and officials for being able to use language effectively in the work that they do," Bigalke says. "For the teacher trainers, the modules deal with education materials and methods of teaching. For the diplomats there are specific courses on leadership and a range of regional issues which we're still ironing out, but which will cover environmental, population health and international relations challenges."

(2012-09-23) "Two rational governments of major countries would not intentionally decide to enter into a major war with each other over a few uninhabited rocks," said Denny Roy, an Asia security expert at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

"But unfortunately, you can arrive at war in ways other than that -- through unintended escalation, in which both countries start out at a much lower level, but each of them think that they must respond to perceived provocation by the other side, both very strongly pushed into it by domestic pressure. That seems to be where we are now and it is difficult to see how countries can get out of that negative spiral."

-- Also appears in: afinance.cn (in Chinese), Asahi Shimbun, AsiaOne, GMA News Online, Gulf Times, Malaysian Insider, Sunday Times Sri Lanka