The silly season: the week ahead

Both the British and Americans view mid-August as the "silly season" as everyone is away on vacation, or should be. Nevertheless, some hearty souls remain in the Capital.

SOUTH KOREA AND LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM: THE MIDDLE POWER THEORY REEXAMINED. 8/15, 3:00-4:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Jongryn Mo, Executive Director, Hills Governance Center at Yonsei University, Professor of International Political Economy, Yonsei University, Senior Research Fellow, ASAN Institute for Policy Studies; Comments, Scott Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, Council on Foreign Relations.

IRAQ AND THE POLITICS OF OIL. 8/16, 3:00-4:45pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: The Middle East Institute. Speakers: Naufel Al-Hassan, Commercial Councilor, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq; Raad Al Kadiri, FC Energy; Brett McGurk; U.S Department of State; Denise Natali, National Defense University; Moderated by Allen Keiswetter, Middle East Institute.

FOREIGN-POLICY MAKING UNDER THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN. 8/21, 9:30-11:00am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. Speaker: Weston Konishi, Director of Asia-Pacific Studiesnstitute for Foreign Policy Analysis.

THREE ELECTIONS THAT MIGHT CHANGE THE WORLD. 8/21, Noon-1:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Center for National Policy. Speakers: Richard Bush Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution; Wei (Victoria) Hongxia, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment's Asia Program; Anil Mammen, Fellow for American Government and Politics, Center for National Policy. In 2012, elections in the United States and Taiwan, along with the leadership transition in the PRC will all take place in less than a year's time. What are the prospects for continuity and change in the complex triangle that is the US-PRC-Taiwan relationship?

INDONESIA'S PERFORMANCE AND PROSPECTS. 8/28, Noon-2:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Speakers: James Castle, founder of CastleAsia, an executive advisory firm specializing in Indonesia; William Wallace, senior adviser at the World Bank in Jakarta specializing in decentralization, governance, and climate change; Vikram Nehru, senior associate in the Asia Program and Bakrie Chair in Southeast Asian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment.

SOFT POWER IN A HARD TIME: A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS. 8/28, 12:30-1:30, Washington, DC. Sponsors: The Sigur Center for Asian Studies at The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University and The Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution. Speaker: Lung Yingtai, Minister of Culture for Taiwan (ROC).

GREEN URBANIZATION IN ASIA. 8/29, 9:00-10:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsors: Asian Development Bank in collaboration with the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the US, the Asia Program, the Comparative Urban Studies Project, and the China Environment Forum. Speakers: Douglas Brooks, Assistant Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank; Moderator: Blair A. Ruble, Comparative Urban Studies Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.