East-West Center in the News

(2012-12-12) "A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponised missile," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

"But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry."

-- Also appears in: ABS-CBNNEWS, CNBC, CNews, derStandard.at, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Irish Independent, New Europe, phillyburbs.com, Reuters via Yahoo! Maktoob News, The Star, TVNZ

(2012-12-13) The Director of the Pacific Islands development programme at Hawaii’s East West Centre, Gerard Finin, says the law will have positive long-term benefits on the language and ensure people keep speaking it formally.

“It’s always important to anticipate that without support for a language it can wither over time. In my experiences in Palau it’s still widely used, however the levels of sophistication, reading and writing, certainly are aspects of the language that need to be emphasised.”

(2012-12-14) Meanwhile, East-West President Center Charles Morrison said the program is "to provide leadership training for young Pacific Island leaders and to help them become more effective in their future jobs leading their countries."

The program is open to any Pacific Island entity, he said.

Asked about the cooperation with Taiwan, Morrison said the nation has great experience in the region working with many Pacific Island governments and societies.

It is also important for Pacific Island leaders to learn about Taiwan's experience in the areas of economic development, protection of resources and governance, Morrison said.

One of the purposes of the program is to help the participants better understand issues important to the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world, he said.

Taiwan can share its experience of relations in the region, including the Taiwan-China issue, he added.

-- Also appears in: Focus Taiwan News Channel