25-28 September 2011 - Liverpool

The Foreign Policy Centre is hosting a programme of three fringe events at this year's Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. Please click below to download the flyer. There is no need to pre-register, however attendees WILL need Conference accreditation, as all FPC events are taking place inside secure Conference venues.

Download Foreign Policy Centre events - Labour Party Conference 2011 (100 kilobyte PDF)

18-20 September 2011 - Birmingham

The Foreign Policy Centre is hosting a programme of four fringe events at this year's Liberal Democrat Party Conference in Birmingham. Please click below to download the flyer. The events are open to all and there is no need to pre-register or to obtain Conference accreditation.

Download Foreign Policy Centre events - Liberal Democrat Conference (110 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Monday 7 March 2011

Time: 6.00-8.00pm

Venue: Wilson Room, Portcullis House

Speakers:

• Elay Ershad — Member of Parliament, Afghanistan
• Shinkai Karokhail — Member of Parliament, Afghanistan
• Dr Habiba Sarabi — Governor of Bamyan Province, Afghanistan (the first female Afghan Governor)
• Asila Wardak — Director of Human Rights and Gender, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan

Closing remarks:

• Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Labour Leader and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development

Chair: Martha Kearney, Presenter, The World at One, BBC Radio 4

2011 is the centenary of International Women's Day (8 March). To mark it's 100th anniversary, the Foreign Policy Centre, in partnership with ActionAid, is hosting an event to explore some of the local challenges to and opportunities for promoting women's rights in Afghanistan and beyond, in today's global age of uncertainty.

This is an invitation only event and invitations are not transferrable. For more information, please email: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Women in Afghanistan & beyond: What have we achieved…? (160 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Thursday 25 November, 1.00-2.15pm, (lunch available from 12.45pm)

Venue: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Room (off Westminster Hall), Houses of Parliament, Westminster

Speakers:

• Jacqueline Hale, Senior Policy Analyst, Caucasus and Central Asia, Open Society Institute - Brussels
• HE Kairat Abusseitov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan
• Dr Bhavna Dave, Chair of the Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, SOAS
• Saule Mektepbayeva, Regional Director, Central Asia, Penal Reform International

Chair: Lord Anderson of Swansea

As world leaders prepare to meet in Astana (1-2 December) for the first OSCE summit of the millennium, hard questions need to be asked about the future of the institution. This new FPC seminar will look back at Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE, in particular to its performance against the Madrid human rights commitments its leaders made on being offered this global leadership role. Kazakhstan's chairmanship provides the backdrop for a wider debate about future of the OSCE, to try and identify what role it should play in the modern world. In particular the seminar will explore the future of the OSCE's human dimension, in light of attempts to undermine the importance and independence of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the troubling picture of declining human rights standards in many OSCE member states.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP by email to: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Kazakhstan and the Future of the OSCE (100 kilobyte PDF)

26-29 September, Manchester

The Foreign Policy Centre will be hosting a programme of four fringe events at this year's Labour Party Conference in Manchester, with speakers including: Gareth Thomas MP, Shadow DfID Minister; Emily Thornberry MP, Shadow DECC Minister; and Rt Hon Lord Paul Boateng, amongst others. Please see the flyer below for further details about speakers, themes and venues. The events are open to all (though some venues may need Conference accreditation - please check the flyer) and there is no need to pre-register.

Download FPC Fringe Programme - Labour Party Conference 2010 (130 kilobyte PDF)

3-5 October, Birmingham

The Foreign Policy Centre will be hosting five fringe events at this year's Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, with speakers including: Lord Jonathan Marland, DECC Minister and Stephen O'Brien MP, DfID Minister, amongst others. Please see the flyer below for further details of speakers, themes and venues. The events are open to all (though some venues may need Conference accreditation - please check the flyer). There is no need to pre-register.

Download FPC Fringe Programme - Conservative Party Conference 2010 (150 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Thursday 3 June, 4.30-6.00pm

Venue: Committee Room 3, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW

(use Cromwell Green Visitors' entrance)

Speakers:

• Dr David Tickner, Head of Freshwater Programmes, WWF-UK
• Dan Smith, Secretary General, International Alert
• Claus Conzelmann, Vice President for Health, Safety and Environment, Nestlé S.A.
• Bernice Lee, Director of Research, Energy, Environment & Resource Governance, Chatham House

Chair: Mike Wooldridge, BBC World Affairs Correspondent

With opening remarks and a vote of thanks from Baroness Margaret Jay, FPC Co-President

This new FPC publication will be launched to mark World Environment Day (5 June). The pamphlet will aim to stimulate discussion and debate amongst a wide ranging audience in an effort to promote the centrality of water on today's foreign policy agenda, particularly in light of the increasing environmental shocks and stresses presented by climate change and global population growth. In an increasingly interconnected world, where cooperation is no longer an option but an imperative, how can foreign policy inform and provide a more effective response to improving the management of freshwater while ensuring reliable and sustainable access?

Contributors to the pamphlet include: Rt Hon William Hague MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Professor J.A. Tony Allan, King's College, London and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS); Richard Black, BBC News; Belinda Calaguas, Director of Policy & Campaigns, ActionAid; Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, The Financial Times, Dr Bruce Lankford, University of East Anglia; Bernice Lee, Research Director, Energy, Environment and Resource Governance, Chatham House; David Nussbaum, Chief Executive, WWF-UK; Dr Letitia A. Obeng, Chair, Global Water Partnership (GWP); Dan Smith, General Secretary, International Alert; Dr Martin R. Stuchtey, McKinsey & Company Inc.; Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); and Stephen Twigg MP, former Director, Foreign Policy Centre.

For more information, or to register, please email: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Publication launch invite - Tackling the world water crisis (260 kilobyte PDF)

Dr Emma Wilson's presentation

Download Dr Emma Wilson's presentation (620 kilobyte PDF)

Tuesday 4 July 2006, 4.00pm to 6.00pm

Venue: Committee Room 20, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA (Access via St Stephen's entrance)

On the first anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, the Foreign Policy Centre will publish "Born in the UK": Young Muslims in Britain, a pamphlet investigating the real lives and opinions of young British Muslims.

To launch the pamphlet, a panel of experts will discuss the changing attitudes of young Muslims towards radical Islam and the "war on terror". Why do Muslims living in the West, and in Britain in particular, feel alienated from society, and what steps can the British government take to re-connect with young Muslims? The seminar will examine the dilemma facing many young people: are they British Muslims or Muslims in Britain? How does this affects their views of a UK foreign policy carried out in their name?

Speakers:

Sadiq Khan MP

Shiv Malik, New Statesman(tbc)

Parvin Ali, Fatima Women's Network

Yasmin Alibhai–Brown, The Independent

Imran Khan, Solicitor and Civil Rights Campaigner (tbc)

Hugh Barnes, The Foreign Policy Centre (Chair)

Please RSVP to Josephine Osikena, intdev[at]fpc.org.uk

T +44 20 7388 6662 or F +44 20 7388 8896

Copies of "Born in the UK": Young Muslims in Britain" will be available at the seminar.

Book Launch

A discussion on the future of progressive foreign policy to launch Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews (Edited by Alan Johnson, Preface by Michael Walzer and published by The Foreign Policy Centre / Democratiya)

Date: Monday 21 April, 6-8pm

Venue: Committee Room 3a, The Palace of Westminster (St. Stephen's Entrance), London SW1A 0AA

Speakers:

• Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Chair
• Alan Johnson, Democratiya.com, Editor of Global Politics After 9/11
• Denis Macshane MP, Labour Foreign Office Minister 2001-2005
• Michael Moore MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesman for International Development, tbc
• John Lloyd, Financial Times and Reuters Institute, Oxford
• Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development
• Ladan Boroumand, Research Director, The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran

There will be a question and answer period. Copies of Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews will be available at a specially reduced price of 7.99.

RSVP is to Julie Utting Julie.Utting@JohnSmithTrust.org All press enquiries, and questions aside from RSVP related to the launch to Alan Johnson Alanjohnsonlfiq@aol.com. Places are strictly limited and will be allocated on a first to reply basis.

Sponsors: The Foreign Policy Centre, The John Smith Institute, Democratiya.com, The Henry Jackson Society, Progress and Engage.

b> Russia, the EU and Gas

On New Year's Day, Vladimir Putin marked the beginning of Russia's presidency of the G8 group of leading industrialised nations by declaring a new "cold war". He briefly cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine and therefore much of Europe, brandishing Russia's vast energy reserves as his Soviet predecessors once flaunted nuclear rockets. The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute served as a wake-up call for the European Union, which obtains a quarter of its gas from Russia. (The EU is likely to import up to 75% of its natural gas requirements by 2020.) Russia is destined by virtue of its wealth of natural resources to become a pivotal player on the global energy chessboard in the coming decades. As world energy demand grows, particularly because of China's explosive rise as an economic force, Russia's wealth and potential power are certain to grow as well.

Launching a new FPC pamphlet, Coby van der Linde, head of the International Energy Programme at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands, and one of the world's leading gas experts, assessed the threat the EU's reliance on Russian gas will pose to its energy security and suggest that only Russia's transformation into a modern, technologically advanced and responsible producer of energy will safeguard European interests in the coming decades.