WASHINGTON--C-SPAN's Washington Journal will profile the United States Institute of Peace from 8:00–10:00 am on Thursday, December 11. The program will focus on the work of the Institute in conflict areas around the world, and specifically on programmatic plans for peacebuilding in Iraq. Featured will be Institute President Richard H. Solomon, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who has overseen the Institute's growth into a center of international...

WASHINGTON—The Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) and the United States Institute of Peace are co-hosting a conference on Information and Communications Technology and Crisis Management in Hotel Kämp, Helsinki. The conference will explore practical steps toward improving information sharing, coordination, and cooperation from headquarters to the field, and between and among the various organizations responding to crises. The conference participants will include high-level representatives of i...

WASHINGTON—The United States Institute of Peace is pleased to announce the selection of its 2003-2004 Peace Scholar dissertation fellows, each of whom will receive a $17,000 stipend. The funding will support research addressing conflict in Colombia, Rwanda, Sudan, China, the countries of West Africa, and elsewhere. The Peace Scholar fellowship recipients represent a diverse array of academic disciplines—political science, architecture, journalism, anthropology, and others—and a cross-section...

WASHINGTON—Roy Gutman, a correspondent in Newsweek's Washington bureau and a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, recently returned from a research trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he interviewed Pakistani officials, former Taliban supporters, journalists, and NGO representatives about al Qaeda infiltration of the Taliban and the record of human rights violations during the civil war. He spoke recently on the gaps between what is now known about Afghanistan before September 11...

The U.S. Institute of Peace is pleased to announce the launch of its redesigned web site. The product of three years of research, consultation, and implementation, the new site provides an invigorated presence on the World Wide Web as part of the Institute's ongoing efforts to increase its reach to audiences around the globe. The new site features improved navigation and graphic design, and expanded content across the site. The launch was spearheaded by web developer Amy Bucci and web edit...

WASHINGTON—American-led reconstruction efforts in Iraq have intensified, but the current focus on internal issues neglects the important role Iraq's neighbors will play in determining the ultimate success and stability of postwar Iraq. Neighboring governments in Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have complex interests at stake in Iraq and varied concerns about the U.S. military presence. The United States faces a two-pronged political challenge in Iraq: not only creating ...

WASHINGTON—Amatzia Baram, a distinguished professor of Middle East history at the University of Haifa, has begun a one-year fellowship, his second, at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Professor Baram is particularly well-known and highly regarded for his expertise in Iraqi history, politics, and society. As a senior fellow, he will concentrate on state-mosque relations in Iraq. Before commencing his fellowship, he was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he focused on political...

WASHINGTON—Since 9/11, two major U.S. national security priorities have been to prevent further terrorist attacks against U.S. targets, and to disable terrorists with a demonstrated or potential global reach. Among the stated purposes of the Iraq war was to expunge a supposed connection between the government of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to states and terrorist groups. While few have denied the benefits of a Hussein-less...