Manana Aslamazyan, a media and television expert who has worked with Russian journalists for more than 15 years, is Executive Director of Internews Europe based in Paris.

Aslamazyan and Alexei K. Simonov launched Russia's first freedom of speech organization in 1991, the Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF). In 1992, Aslamazyan began to work with Internews Network to organize events for newly formed independent TV stations around the former Soviet Union. She became its first foreign staff person and by 1994, was managing the Russian operation, which in 1997 registered as a fully independent Russian non-commercial organization. In 2006, in response to changing legislation and its increased focus on training, Internews Russia re-organized as the Educated Media Foundation (EMF).

As director, Aslamazyan led Internews Russia/EMF in the creation of numerous innovative and ambitious projects. Aslamazyan's constant drive to respond to the changing needs of Russian media led to the launch of Internews Russia/EMF's month-long Journalism School, the News Factory newsroom automation project, and the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue. Internews Russia/EMF was forced to shut down in 2007 following a raid on its Moscow headquarters and filing of criminal charges against EMF and Aslamazyan that were widely seen as politically motivated. In 2008, the Constitutional Court of Russia ruled that the charges against Aslamayan had no legal basis.

Aslamazyan has served as an expert to the Russian Duma Committee on Information Policy, and from 2000 to 2004, she was one of three representatives of civil society on the influential Federal Competition Commission of Ministry of Press, TV Broadcasting and Mass Media. She is a board member of the prestigious Academy of Russian Television and served for three years as a Vice-President of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters (NAT).

Aslamazyan serves on the boards of several Russian nonprofit organizations, Internews Network, and Internews International, which unites local Internews organizations around the world.

Co-sponsored by CREES and Internews Network

Soon we will be able to say about old Beijing that what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn't eradicate, the market economy has.  Nobody has been more aware of this than Michael Meyer. A long-time resident, Meyer has, for the past two years, lived as no other Westerner in a shared courtyard home in Beijing's oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan, on one of its famed hutong (lanes). There he volunteers to teach English at the local grade school and immerses himself in the community, recording with affection the life stories of the Widow, who shares his courtyard; coteacher Miss Zhu and student Little Liu; and the migrants Recycler Wang and Soldier Liu; among the many others who, despite great differences in age and profession, make up the fabric of this unique neighborhood.

Their bond is rapidly being torn, however, by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital's first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.         

Weaving historical vignettes of Beijing and China over a thousand years through his narrative, Meyer captures the city's deep past as he illuminates its present. With the kind of insight only someone on the inside can provide, The Last Days of Old Beijing brings this moment and the ebb and flow of daily lives on the other side of the planet into shining focus.

Michael Meyer first went to China in 1995 with the Peace Corps. A longtime teacher, and a Lowell Thomas Award winner for travel writing, Meyer has published stories in Time, Smithsonian, the New York Times Book Review, the Financial Times, Reader's Digest, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. In China, he has represented the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations, training China's UNESCO World Heritage site managers in preservation practices.

Dr. Yan will discuss the economic modernization policies of the current CCP leadership.  What achievements have been made since Deng Xiaoping instituted economic reforms nearly 30 years ago?  What short and long term development goals have been set for the future?

Dr. Shuhan Yan is a Senior Advisor to CPC Chairman Hu Jintao and Dean of the Department of Scientific Socialism Studies of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,  also known as the Central Party School (CCPS, or the School), the highest institution to train officials of the Communist Party of China.

Despite early talk of being able to “decouple” itself from the U.S. financial crisis and accompanying credit crunch, the damage has spread to Asia. Collapsing export markets, currency instability and stock market collapses are plaguing all of Asia, not least China, Japan and South Korea. At the same time, China and Japan are major financiers of the United States federal government and newly nationalized financial firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Two leading economic experts on Japan and China will discuss the impact of the U.S. financial crisis on Asia. Does Japan’s experience with banking collapse bear any lessons for the United States today? Will China continue to finance the United States government? How will a U.S. recession affect the prospects for economic growth in Asia?

Richard Katz has taught about Japan’s economy as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the New York University Stern School of Business. Previously, and as a Visiting Lecturer in Economics at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.  Mr. Katz is the author of two books on Japan's economic trvails; The System That Soured--The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Economic Miracle (M.E. Sharpe 1998) and Japanese Phoenix: The Long Road to Economic Revival (M.E. Sharpe 2002).  He has twice testified about Japan and Asia before Congress, in 1998 and 2005. Both times the hearings were held by the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee. In the year 2000, he served on the Council of Foreign Relations' Task Force on the Japanese economy.  Having received his B.A. degree in History from Columbia University in 1973, Mr. Katz went on to obtain his M.A. in Economics at New York University (NYU) in 1996.
 
Mark Spiegel served as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at New York University.  He has served as a visiting professor in the Economics Department of U.C. Berkeley, as well as a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.  He has also served as a consultant at the World Bank, as a visiting scholar at the Bank of Japan, and as Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Committee on International Economic Analysis.  Dr. Spiegel received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles and his B.A. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.  Dr. Spiegel has published numerous articles in both academic and policy-oriented journals on international financial issues and on economic issues associated

Abstract: In this age of increasing "Global Transparency," commercial satellite imagery has now made it possible for anyone to remotely peer "over the fence" and view what heretofore had been otherwise impossible...clandestine nuclear facilities (most significantly, those capable of producing fissile material suitable for use in nuclear weapons). The synergistic combination of readily available tools: personal computers, the internet, three-dimensional virtual globe visualization applications such as Google Earth, and high resolution commercial satellite imagery has gone beyond what anyone could have imaged just a few years ago. The downside of all this is that those who want to keep their clandestine nuclear facilities and associated activities from being either detected, identified, and/or monitored, are becoming more adept in their use of camouflage, concealment, and deception.

Iran is one such case where it has followed a steep learning curve of adapting to the threat that overhead observation can pose. After repeated dissident group revelations about Iran's clandestine nuclear facilities, together with confirming media broadcast of commercial satellite images of those facilities followed by verification inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the government of Iran has become increasingly aware of this threat and gone to greater and greater lengths to try and defeat it. Iran's cover-up tactics have improved with time...from concealed infrastructure and false cover stories (Natanz)...to refurbishment and sanitization of facilities following removal of incriminating equipment (Kalaye Electric and Lashkar Abad), to the wholesale razing of facilities together with the removal of dirt and vegetation to defeat IAEA forensic environmental sampling (Lavizan).

While the international community continues to debate the issue of whether or not Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceful in nature (helping it to stay an "open case"), Iran is defiantly pursuing its goal of fissile material production. Syria, on the other hand (evidently together with North Korea), was also quite aware of the overhead observation threat, taking great pains to conceal its plutonium production reactor at Al-Kibar. Syria disguised the true function of the facility by employing minimal site security (no fences or guard towers), having minimal support infrastructure (with non visible powerlines and only buried water lines), not installing a telltale reactor ventilation stack or cooling tower, hiding the reactor building in a ravine (terrain masking), and finally camouflaging the facility with a false façade to make it appear as a byzantine fortress. Nonetheless, despite all those steps, a leak of ground-level reactor construction and interior photographs, which formed the basis for the subsequent bombing of the facility by Israel, successfully thwarted that effort (the "closed case?"). Rather than confessing the truth about al-Kibar, the Syrian government rushed to remove all traces of the destroyed reactor and supplant it with a new larger footprint building for as yet unknown purposes while continuing to claim it was previously only a disused military warehouse. The IAEA asked d Syria for permission to inspect not only the Al-Kibar site, but reportedly up to three other sites thought to be associated with it. The Syrians refused access to all but the now heavily sanitized Al-Kibar location. We must now all await the IAEA report on the findings of that singular onsite inspection.

Frank Pabian is a Senior Nonproliferation Infrastructure Analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has over 35 years experience in the nuclear nonproliferation field including six years with the Office of Imagery Analysis and 18 years with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "Z" Division.  Frank also served as a Chief Inspector for the IAEA during UN inspections in Iraq from 1996-1998 focusing on "Capable Sites." In December 2002, Frank served as one of the first US nuclear inspectors back in Iraq with UN/IAEA. While at Los Alamos, Frank has developed and presented commercial satellite imagery based briefings on foreign clandestine nuclear facilities to the International Nuclear Suppliers Group, the IAEA, NATO, and the Foreign Ministries of China and India on behalf of the NNSA and STATE.

Sponsored jointly by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

This event - the final in a series of 4 film screening which will be followed by a discussion with director Clint Eastwood - is part of the second phase of a three year research effort to compare the formation of the divided memories in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. We will conduct a comparative study of popular cinema dealing with historical subjects focusing roughly on the period from 1931-1951.

Letters From Iwo Jima Synopsis

Sixty-one years ago, US and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, several hundred letters are unearthed from that stark island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them.

The Japanese soldiers are sent to Iwo Jima knowing that in all probability they will not come back. Among them are Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a baker who wants only to live to see the face of his newborn daughter; Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an Olympic equestrian champion known around the world for his skill and his honor; Shimizu (Ryo Kase), a young former military policeman whose idealism has not yet been tested by war; and Lieutenant Ito (Shidou Nakamura), a strict military man who would rather accept suicide than surrender.

Leading the defense is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), whose travels in America have revealed to him the hopeless nature of the war but also given him strategic insight into how to take on the vast American armada streaming in from across the Pacific.

With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics transform what was predicted to be a quick and bloody defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic and resourceful combat.

Almost 7,000 American soldiers were killed on Iwo Jima; more than 20,000 Japanese troops perished. The black sands of Iwo Jima are stained with their blood, but their sacrifices, their struggles, their courage and their compassion live on in the letters they sent home.

This is the second phase of a three year research effort to compare the formation of the divided memories in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.  We will conduct a comparative study of popular cinema dealing with historical subjects focusing roughly on the period from 1931-1951.

This is the third in a series of 4 film screening which will be followed by a discussion of the audience.

Yamato Synopsis

During late World War II, the Japanese army starts loosing the battle.  Special junior officers including Kamio (Kenichi Matsuyama) board Yamato and meet officer Moriwaki (Takashi Sorimachi) and Uchia (Shidou Nakamura).  However, this battle marks the virtual end of the combined fleet of the ikmperial Japanese Navy.  Then in April 1945. Yamato is ordered to carry out a suicide mission and sets out tot he waters of Okinawa...

This is the second phase of a three year research effort to compare the formation of the divided memories in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.  We will conduct a comparative study of popular cinema dealing with historical subjects focusing roughly on the period from 1931-1951.

This is the first in a series of 4 film screening which will be followed by a discussion of the audience.

Devils on the Doorstep synopsis

Renowned actor Jiang Wen directs this sweeping look at a small Chinese village located near the Great Wall during the closing days of WWII. As Japanese soldiers march up and down the village's main thoroughfare, Ma Dasan (Wen) is making love with his widowed lover Yu'er (Jiang Hongbo). Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and a gun at Ma's head. He is informed that for the next week he is to house two gagged and bound prisoners, one a fanatical Japanese soldier, the other a Chinese translator -- and to interrogate the pair. The village elders uneasily question the two, while the translator intentionally mistranslates the epithets and insults from the soldier. When the Chinese resistance fighters do not return to pick up the prisoners, the villagers panic and order Ma to execute them. Ma, in turn, panics and tries to hide the cantankerous duo in the Great Wall -- that is until the villagers discover his ruse and almost lynch him, despite a strongly worded defense by Yu'er. Six months later, the villagers become increasingly worried about boarding these prisoners, lest they all be branded collaborators. This film won the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

This is the second phase of a three year research effort to compare the formation of the divided memories in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.  We will conduct a comparative study of popular cinema dealing with historical subjects focusing roughly on the period from 1931-1951.

This is the second in a series of 4 film screening which will be followed by a discussion of the audience.

Blue Swallow synopsis

An aspiring Japanese aviator longing to take flight from Japanese-occupied Korea enrolls in Tachikawa Flight Academy in director Yoon Jong-chan's lavish look at the life of pre-World War II aviatrix Park Gyeong-weon. Raised in the Korean countryside but longing to embrace her Korean heritage, Park Gyeong-weon (Jang Jin-yeong) longs to take to the sky "like a swallow." Park is convinced that she has what it takes to soar through the clouds, and in 1925 she begins to pursue her dreams by enrolling in the Tachikawa Flight Academy. An amiable cab driver by day, the tomboyish aeronaut eventually strikes up a close friendship with fellow Koreans Kang Se-gi (Kim Tae-hyeok) and Lee Jeong-heui (Han ji-men) while entering into a tenuous romance with handsome student Han Ji-hyeok (Kim Ju-hyeok). High up in the sky Park attempt to hold her own against airborne Nipponese nemesis Masako Gibe (Yuko Fueki), and as tensions begin to heat up between Japan and Korea the skillful pilot plans a high-profile "friendship" flight to Manchuria in hopes of encouraging peaceful relations between the two countries. - Jason Buchanan,