Who: The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) was established in 1997, as Asia’s first regional network of civil society organizations. It strives to promote and support democratization at national and regional levels in Asia.

What: Twenty-two COMELEC-accredited international election observers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, arrive in Manila for a briefing-orientation prior to being fielded to all provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), in collaboration with the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), 16 partner Muslim civil society organizations, and the Assembly of the Darul Ifta of the Philippines coordinated the international election observation mission. ANFREL’s effort is being conducted with support from The Asia Foundation and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). On August 1, ANFREL will be formally presented to COMELEC Chairman Jose A. R. Melo and will hold a press conference.

Where: Ballroom B, Crown Regency Hotel, 1026 Arnaiz Avenue, San Lorenzo Village, Makati City
Tel. +63 2 845.0211 to 15

RSVP: Ms. Tatine G. Faylona +63 919 6301376 or Mr. Mark Guevarra +63 927 7162441

For other information on ANFREL, please visit www.anfrel.org which also contains reports on various other ANFREL works in Asian countries

Hosted by USAID, The Asia Foundaiton, and The Institute for Bangsamoro Studies.

Where:     Estosan Garden Hotel, Cotabato City, Mindanao, Philippines
Phone +63 82 235 0888

What:    The Forum on Aceh and the Mindanao Peace Processes is a venue for comparative learning between the Aceh (Indonesia) and Mindanao peace processes. Specifically, it aims to do the following:

“¢    identify factors that contribute to the success of the implementation of the 2005 Helsinki Agreement for Aceh;
“¢    describe the role of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) in the initial implementation of the agreement;
“¢    suggest recommendations that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) can consider in the ongoing peace talks from both the Aceh Peace Agreement, and locally, from the experience of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) when it forged the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) with the GRP in 1996

Speakers: Mr. Wiratmadinata, the Forum’s principal speaker, is The Asia Foundation’s William P. Fuller Fellow in Conflict Resolution for 2007-2008.  He will be joined by Major Haroun-Al-Rashid Jaji of the Philippine Army assigned with the 6th Infantry Division in Cagayan de Oro City in Northern Mindanao and Prof. Abhoud Lingga, Executive Director of the Institute for Bangsamoro Studies. Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema will give the opening remarks.

RSVP : Cris Cayon, The Asia Foundation: ccayon@asiafound.org, or Mobile: +63 (920) 916-8711.

By Allen Choate

Allen Choate is the Vice President for Partners in Asia Development at The Asia Foundation. He is based in Hong Kong and can be reached at achoate@asiafound.org.

In Chinese folk culture, “8″ is the luckiest and most auspicious of all numbers. So it’s no accident that the Beijing opening ceremonies for the 29th Olympiad will kick off at exactly 8 PM on the 8th day of the 8th month of the year 2008. The five mascots for the Beijing Olympics are cute and kitschy, as all previous Olympic mascots have been. But the Beijing mascots also are suffused with Chinese symbolism, with four animals (panda, swallow, fish, Tibetan Antelope) and the flame representing the five traditional Chinese “elements” — sea, forest, earth, sky and fire — and having names that can be combined to express fellowship in Mandarin. While the program for the opening ceremonies remains a closely guarded secret, there are rumors that the dragon and the phoenix will be making appearances. Both of these mythical creatures are associated with a resurgent and ascending China.
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By Kye Young

Kye Young is the Grants Manager for Corporate and Foundation relations at The Asia Foundation. He is based in San Francisco, but is currently working in the Foundation’s Beijing office.

On a recent weekend, I visited the center of Beijing’s international art scene: the 798 Art District. This area, once a site of numerous electronics factories, has been transformed into a vibrant community of art galleries, shops, cafes, and restaurants. Each time I come to 798, I notice something different. Whether it’s a new modern gallery space, or a quaint teahouse, the district’s continuous evolution has made it a requisite stop on every trip I make to China’s capital city.

During this most recent visit, I was struck by the starkly contrasting themes at work in many of the pieces of art. From oil paintings to prints, and from sculptures to stylized photography, many artists seem to reference China’s rocket-like trajectory towards modernization and to cleverly juxtapose it against more traditional Chinese images. There were charcoal drawings depicting historical Chinese scenes of Guilin hills shrouded in clouds, but the ancient hills were replaced with skyscrapers, antennas, and cranes. Another included a sculpture exhibit that presented photos of present-day migrant laborers embossed on bricks and arranged in a formation reminiscent of the terra cotta warriors in Xi’an. A third, stirring example incorporated gloves actually used to construct the city’s new Olympic Stadium.
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By Thomas Parks

Thomas Parks is The Asia Foundation’s Regional Director for Governance and Conflict Programs. He is based in Bangkok and can be reached at tparks@asiafound.org.

At a recent conference on violent conflict in Asia, an Asian civil society leader said to me: “If we want to be serious about reducing violence in conflict-affected corners of Asia, how can we ignore the role of security forces?” In another conversation, a senior military officer from Southeast Asia explained to me that they are completely re-thinking the way they conduct internal security, including a significant new focus on conflict management training, sensitization to local context and customs, and addressing the critical needs of conflict-affected communities. For obvious reasons, I cannot share their names. However, these comments are indicative of some important new thinking.

How should civil society interpret this new thinking? And is there an important role for civilian actors?
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The below is an excerpt from a July 25th opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, authored by Roderick Brazier, The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Cambodia. The entire article can be read here.

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party will win a thumping victory in the July 27 national parliamentary elections, the fourth held since 1993. Outside one-party states, rarely can an election result be foretold with such confidence, but in Cambodia, the CPP’s continuing — indeed strengthening — grip on power is assured. At elections that observers expect to be broadly free and fair, the CPP will easily win enough seats to stay in power for the next five years. Read more…

By Nina Merchant

Nina Merchant is the Assistant Director of Economic Programs at The Asia Foundation. She can be reached at nmerchant@asiafound.org.

On a recent afternoon in Hanoi, I found myself sitting in a crowded conference room sipping tea and munching snacks with a young team of researchers, sifting through stacks of completed surveys looking for small coding errors in the data. Anyone watching would have been hard pressed to imagine we were putting together one of the most highly-anticipated economic policy reports of the year, but that is exactly what we were doing.

The Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) rigorously assesses and ranks all 64 Vietnamese provinces on a broad range of characteristics of their economic governance. First developed in 2005 by The Asia Foundation and its local partner, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) — under the USAID-funded Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative (VNCI) ” the goal of the PCI is to create a tool to measure year-to-year changes in standards of economic governance in Vietnam’s provinces from the perspective of private sector development.
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This week in Bangkok, The Asia Foundation and its partners, the Institute of Southeast Asian Maritime States Studies at Prince of Songkla University’s Pattani Campus, published the first Thai to Pattani-Malay/Pattani-Malay to Thai dictionary. Until today, the Pattani-Malay language existed only in spoken form and presented barriers in communication between the majority Thai-language speakers and the Thai-Malay minority population, who speak Pattani-Malay live primarily in the conflict-affected southern region of Thailand.

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By Steven Rood

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundations Country Representative in the Philippines. His past analysis of events there can be read here. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is the only region in the Philippines with elected officials above the provincial level and the election for its regional government is scheduled for August 11th. Since the last election in 2005, the Governor, Vice Governor, and members of the Regional Legislative Assembly have served their full three-year terms and many led by Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan are now running for re-election. However, efforts to reach a political settlement with a Muslim separatist revolutionary group may lead to delay in these elections. On Tuesday, July 22nd ” less than 3 weeks before election day ” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced that she would support postponement of the ARMM elections per the request of the negotiating panel of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

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By Neil McCulloch

Neil McCulloch is the Director for Economic Programs at The Asia Foundation in Jakarta. The below is an excerpt and link to the full article in The Jakarta Post.

Which local governments govern best? That is the central question addressed by the Local Economic Governance report launched on Tuesday by KPPOD (Regional Autonomy Watch) and The Asia Foundation. The report ranks 243 districts across Indonesia on the quality of their local economic governance based on a survey of over 12,000 businesses in 15 provinces, one of the largest surveys of its kind in the world. It provides the most comprehensive picture yet of the successes, and failures, of regional autonomy. Read more in the The Jakarta Post.