East-West Center in the News

(2012-12-20) A spokesperson for Hawaii’s East-West Centre says the state is in a challenging position as it looks to replace its two long serving senators in Washington.

The Director of External Affairs, Karen Knudsen, says this week’s death of Senator Daniel Inouye who represented Hawaii for 50 years, combined with the retirement of Senator Daniel Akaka, is a real loss of political seniority.

She says she doesn’t think Hawaii will be left out in the cold but it’s unlikely to enjoy the same opportunities it had under the two senators.

“I do think that the country will not forsake Hawaii completely. However, we will not enjoy the same amount of federal funding, federal programmes, coming into the State as we have in the past with Senator Inouye and his position.”

Karen Knudsen says Hawaii will now be represented by two women, Mazie Hirono and the vacancy left by Mr Inouye’s death is due to be filled in the next few days, possibly by Colleen Hanabusa.

(2012-12-25)"The boom in gas and unconventional oil extraction may generate a significant number of new jobs," said Dieter Ernst, an economist with the East-West Center. "It reduces one of the main cost factors for petrochemical products such as plastic, which could accelerate investment in a broad range of domestic industries."

-- Also appears in: Equities.com

(2012-12-26) "Due to the large amount of distance between Pacific islands and their diverse cultures, environments and economies, collaboration and communication about climate knowledge and fragile water resources across the region is essential," said East-West Center environmental researcher Victoria Keener, the project's principal investigator. "There are no existing formal analyses that track the flow, sources, and quality of this information across the Pacific islands region, so this project will help address the blind spot researchers and agencies currently have as to which communities and stakeholders may be not be getting access to key knowledge."

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(2012-12-18) “Some students involved with the program are from New Zealand, China, United States, Myanmar and Thailand,” said Scott Macleod, the director of the Asian Pacific Leadership Program, from British Columbia, Canada.

“They need to find the strengths and benefits of each person on the team to function at the highest productivity level.”

(2013-01-04) Philippines analysts like Jerry Finin, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, expressed perplexity at the government’s apparent plans to shutter the commission when much remains to be repatriated.

“I don’t know if it’s a lack of political will or if they feel there are other individuals in government who can do the job more effectively,” Finin said, noting that the Justice Department would be assigned to take over pending legal cases if the commission folds its tent.

Finin said he found it “ironic” that the current president seems to have acquiesced to shutting down a mission begun by his mother in pursuit of justice and accountability for crimes by a regime widely believed to have orchestrated the killing of his father.

“It sends a very bad signal,” Finin said, “not only to people in the Philippines but to populations under authoritarian regimes around the world, that there are very limited consequences for their actions.”

-- Also appears in: Stars and Stripes