Gayle Smith is a renowned expert on African politics and economics. She has worked on failed states, post-conflict management, and transnational threats in Africa for over 20 years. She served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council under the Clinton Administration. Smith negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda in 1999 and won the National Security Council's Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the negotiated peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. She has travelled extensively in active war zones and published pioneering analyses of political emergencies and humanitarian interventions in Africa in particular.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard's government has strongly reaffirmed the ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-US) alliance and his country's cultural ties to Europe. Critics have replied that these policies impede the development of Australian relations with Southeast Asia, especially now that the US is so unpopular in much of the region. How valid is the critique? And how will likely trends in Southeast Asia and the outcome of the American presidential election affect Australia's search for a balance between its proximity to Asia and its alliance with America? In addition to addressing these questions, Dr. Engel will argue that in making foreign policy, identity politics need not be sacrificed to or precluded by pragmatic interest. In Southeast Asian international relations, rhetoric and realism hardly rule each other out.

Dr. David Engel's responsibilities at the Australian Embassy in Washington include policies toward Southeast Asia. He has directed the Indonesia section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2001-03) in Canberra, served in Jakarta (1998-2001) and Phnom Penh (1993-95), and worked on Australia's relations with Vietnam and Laos as well. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1989.

This is the Forum's 1st seminar of the 2004-2005 Academic Year

Japan Brown Bag seminar.

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Seth Faison spent 12 years living in and writing about China. He went to China as a 25-year-old looking for adventure. He spent two years studying Chinese in Xian, attaining fluency. He became a reporter in Hong Kong, and then a correspondent in Beijing, where he covered the events at Tiananmen in 1989. He joined the New York Times in 1991, covering New York City. He opened the newspapers bureau in Shanghai in 1995 and wrote about social and economic change, earning a reputation as a writer with a knack for capturing the moods and flavors of China.

China Brown Bag seminar

Co-sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies

C. Kenneth Quinones has been involved with Northeast Asia since 1962 as a soldier, scholar and diplomat. He has lived and worked in South and North Korea; ten years in the South and nearly one year in the North, and in Japan for three years. As a U.S. dip-lomat, he witnessed South Koreas struggle to democratize during the 1980s and then, during the 1990s, played a role in the opening of North Korea to the outside world. After retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1997, he worked with U.S. humanitarian organizations to arrange educational and agricultural exchanges between the United States and North Korea.

Dr. Quinones is the director of Korean Peninsula Programs at the recently organized International Action (successor to International Center), a non-profit Washington, D.C. research institute. He recently organized a new forum on the internet, the International Forum for Innovative Northeast Strategy, to encourage international dialogue about innovative strategies to promote a durable peace in Northeast Asia.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by 5:00 p.m., Monday, November 1 to Debbie Warren at dawarren@stanford.edu or at 650-723-8387.

Born in Chennai, Aruna was an IAS officer at Delhi until 1974. She resigned from the IAS to join the Social Work and Research Center in Rajasthan, set up by her husband Sanjit Bunker Roy.

Aruna Roy is a leader in the movement for "Right to Information". Aruna showed the poor rural people of drought-ridden Rajasthan how information could give them power to stop corrupt officials from siphoning off funds allocated to dig wells and how to demand the wages that were due to them.

In 1990, Ms. Roy set up the "Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana". The MKSS built a grassroots movement that triggered a nationwide demand for the public's right to scrutinize official records. The "Right to Information Bill", was adopted by nine states including Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, and the "Freedom of Information Act 2002" was adopted by the Parliament.

In 2000 Aruna Roy was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and International Understanding. She put the award money into a trust to support the process of democratic struggles.

Ms. Roy's talk is co-sponsored with the Association for India's Development, PrajaNet, and Sanskriti. For more information, please contact Ramani at 408-833-8494.

Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa received his MD degree in 1962 from the University of Tokyo Faculty of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Kurokawa serves as president of both the Science Council of Japan and the Pacific Science Association. He is also adjunct professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology of the University of Tokyo and of the Institute of Medical Sciences of Tokai University. He is professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo and serves as a member of the Committee for Science and Technology Policy of the Cabinet Office and several committees for Prime Minister Koizumi's office.

Co-sponsored with the Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.

Assistant Professor of Political Science and CDDRL Faculty Associate, Jeremy Weinstein, will present a paper on whether or not states embroiled in violent conflict are better able to emerge with a stable peace when left to their own devices as opposed to receiving aid from the international community. Weinstein's research has focused on civil war and insurgencies in Africa in particular. He is the author of the forthcoming book manuscript, Inside Rebellion: The Political Economy of Rebel Organization.