September 2012 by The Washington Diplomat

■ INSIDE: EDUCATION

A World of News and Perspective

AND LUXURY LIVING SPECIAL SECTIONS

EDUCATION ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM

■ VOLUME 19, NUMBER 9 UNITED NATIONS

U.N. General Assembly: Diplomatic World Series of Wrangling While long-winded speeches are a mainstay of the U.N. General Assembly, the ministerial sessions at the annual confab are a kind of diplomatic World Series where a huge amount of business actually gets done behind the scenes, as heads of state and lowly officials wrangle over schedules and agendas. PAGE 10

inVESTinG in HAiTi

At U.N., Susan Rice Mends Fences But Plays Hardball At the United Nations, Susan Rice has been instrumental in carrying out President Obama’s foreign policy while also bringing the United States back into the multilateral fold with an approach that mirrors her boss’s — willing to work with the U.N., but unwilling to sacrifice U.S. interests. PAGE 12

PEOPLE OFAWORLD INFLUENCE

KINg’s

Vision

Flawed U.N. Still Better Than No U.N. At All ■ INSIDE: Ross Lewis ups the

international ante at the University

of Maryland. PAGE 30 ■ Americans aren’t speaking

September 2012

EDUCATION

Thanks to Scholarship, Saudi Students Return To U.S. in Droves

by Suzanne Kurtz

the same language when it

comes to global competitiveness.

PAGE 34 ■

The Washington Diplomat

Page25

UNITED STATES

‘Drug Czar’ Advocates Third Way

culture

There is something hauntingly human about the animals captured in Charlotte Dumas’s empathetic lens. PAGE 46

■ SEPTEMBER 2012

Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the structural limitation of the U.N. Security Council, epitomized by the impasse over Syria, “was basically the price of creating it” — but nations still need the U.N. as much as ever to ensure global stability without the staggering costs of doing it alone. PAGE 6

UNITED NATIONS

Charlotte Dumas’s Animal Attraction

■ September 2012

That’s what Paul Altidor, a successful economist, is doing: investing his time and faith in Haiti by forgoing private sector opportunities to serve as a first-time ambassador.

And he says that’s exactly what the perpetually battered nation needs most — investment, not pity. PAGE 15

American “drug czar” R. Gil Kerlikowske says the drug debate is too narrowly confined to legalization at one end of the spectrum and the clichéd war on drugs at the other. “The Obama administration is committed to a third way forward,” he says. PAGE 8

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September 2012

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September 2012

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Foreign ambassadors, diplomats and executives from foreign corporations

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September 2012

CONTENTS THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

September 2012

10 U.N. General Assembly

25 Saudi students in the U.S.

[ news ] 6

PEOPlE Of WOrld iNfluENCE

iNTErNaTiONal affairS R. Gil Kerlikowske admits there “are no simple answers to the global drug issue,” but he adamantly rules out one proposed answer: legalization.

diPlOMaCy

The U.N. General Assembly is filled with plenty of tedium and the occasional silliness, but behind the scenes, some important diplomatic work actually gets done as well.

diPlOMaCy

COvEr PrOfilE: haiTi Paul Altidor takes on his first public sector job as Haiti’s new envoy, but he’s looking to the private sector to rebuild his quake-ravaged homeland, whose future he says depends on business and investment, not handouts and pity.

diPlOMaCy

MulTiliNgualiSM

vaNTagE POiNT Nikos Chrysoloras argues that Greek society is at the breaking point and if it snaps, the pain will be felt throughout the eurozone.

PhOTOgraPhy From the stray dogs of Palermo to the horses of Arlington Cemetery, Charlotte Dumas captures the inner lives of animals and man’s complex relationship with them.

arT “Outward Reach: Seven Jamaican Photographers and New Media Artists” breaks through all kinds of boundaries, from the geographic to the artistic.

diNiNg Since its opening 20 years ago, La Côte D’Or has undergone many changes, though it’s stayed true to the classic bistro formula that’s underpinned its success.

filM rEviEWS An Iranian violinist makes beautiful music but plenty of mistakes in a life marred by unrequited love and regret in the poignant “Chicken with Plums.”

bEauTy

[ culture ] 46

Want your personal genome sequenced? All you need is a few hundred bucks, some spit and an Internet connection.

ThEaTEr As the Shakespeare Theatre Company gears up for another innovative season, the theater is also embroiled in a real-life drama that, if staged, might rival one of the Bard’s sagas.

[ luxury living ]

Even though political ambitions in D.C. run high, the buildings do not. The city’s famous skyline is dotted with monuments and not much else, thanks to strict height restrictions that have — until now — kept the city from building up.

MEdiCal

dEvElOPMENT

MuSiC The Diplomats at the Embassy of Hungary make beautiful music together — and they’re always on the lookout for a few good members.

Some eight in 10 Americans speak only English, while the number of U.S. schools teaching a foreign language is in decline. But the exact opposite is happening among America’s economic competitors abroad.

Beauty has no bounds — or borders, as stylish foreign transplants help Washingtonians look their best using some tricks of the trade they learned from home.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is set to become D.C.’s newest embassy enclave in the next few years.

uNivErSiTy Of MarylaNd As its new head of international affairs, Ross Lewin wants to make the University of Maryland the “best globally networked university in the nation.”

Saudi arabia The number of Saudi students in the U.S. has rebounded since the 9/11 attacks, thanks largely to a scholarship program that’s preparing the next generation to modernize the kingdom.

After the acrimony of the Bush years, Susan Rice has mended fences at the U.N., but the undiplomatic diplomat has also been unapologetic in championing U.S. interests.

Jamaican photography

[ education ]

Syria is a painful reminder of the limits of U.N. power, but Stewart Patrick argues that’s no reason to abandon the world body, however imperfect it may be.

filM fESTivalS With 140 films from around the world, the 2012 DC Shorts Film Festival isn’t short on things to see and do.

CiNEMa liSTiNg

EvENTS liSTiNg

diPlOMaTiC SPOTlighT

WOrld hOlidayS / aPPOiNTMENTS

ClaSSifiEdS

rEal ESTaTE ClaSSifiEdS

COvEr: Photo taken at the Embassy of Haiti by Jessica Latos.

P.O. Box 1345 • Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345 • Phone: (301) 933-3552 • Fax: (301) 949-0065 • E-mail: news@washdiplomat.com • Web: www.washdiplomat.com Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Victor Shiblie director of Operations Fuad Shiblie Managing Editor Anna Gawel News Editor Larry Luxner Contributing Writers Talha Aquil Martin Austermuhle, Michael Coleman, Rachel G. Hunt, Stephanie Kanowitz, Kaitie Kovach, Suzanne Kurtz, Ky N. Nguyen, Dave Seminara, Gina Shaw, Gail Sullivan, Gary Tischler, Lisa Troshinsky, Karin Zeitvogel Photographer Jessica Latos account Managers Jerry Grant, Chris Smith, Patrick Thomas graphic designer Cari Bambach The Washington Diplomat is published monthly by The Washington Diplomat, Inc. The newspaper is distributed free of charge at several locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. We do offer subscriptions for home delivery. Subscription rates are $25 for 12 issues and $45 for 24 issues. Call Fuad Shiblie for past issues. If your organization employs many people from the international community you may qualify for free bulk delivery. To see if you qualify you must contact Fuad Shiblie. The Washington Diplomat assumes no responsibility for the safe keeping or return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other material. The information contained in this publication is in no way to be construed as a recommendation by the Publisher of any kind or nature whatsoever, nor as a recommendation of any industry standard, nor as an endorsement of any product or service, nor as an opinion or certification regarding the accuracy of any such information.

September 2012

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PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Stewart Patrick

CFR Scholar : U.N. Remains Relevant, But Syria Impasse Reveals Flaws by Michael Coleman

hen the United Nations convenes Sept. 18 for its annual General Assembly in New York, the world will be watching to see what — if anything — the international governing body’s Security Council will do with respect to war-torn Syria.

Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said those hoping for decisive action are likely to be disappointed. “Syria is a very stark example of the fact that effective action within the U.N. Security Council really can only come about when there is consensus or at least acquiescence on the part of all five members,” Patrick said in a recent interview with The Washington Diplomat. Stewart knows of which he speaks. Widely regarded as one of Washington’s foremost experts on the United Nations, he has served at the State Department with lead staff responsibility for U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and a range of global and transnational issues. More recently, from 2005 to 2008, he was a research fellow at the Center for Global Development, directing the center’s research and policy engagement on the intersection between security and development, with a particular focus on the relationship between weak states and transnational threats, as well as the challenges of building effective institutions in fragile settings. He was also a professorial lecturer in international relations and conflict management at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Patrick graduated from Stanford University and received a doctorate in international relations as well as two master’s degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author, co-author or editor of four books and the author of numerous articles on the United Nations, multilateral cooperation, state building and U.S. foreign policy. Among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States — any of them can veto any proposal. Thus the council, whose resolutions are legally binding (unlike the General Assembly), has historically been both a primary instrument of power within the United Nations and a source of the diplomatic intransigence often associated with the world body. Syria is a classic example of the limits of U.N. power when the Security Council

Page 6

is gridlocked. Despite nearly 18 months of violence and an ever-escalating body count (17,000, according to the latest U.N. estimates), Russia and China aren’t likely to sign off on tough economic sanctions under Chapter 7 because the resolution could eventually authorize the use of force. Russia, steadily losing allies to the Arab Spring uprisings, continues to support embattled Syrian President Bashar alAssad, in part because it doesn’t want to jeopardize the naval base it maintains in Syria, while China traditionally has been hesitant to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other nations. “The Russians are really the stumbling block because they have a history of being a patron of Syria — both the Assad regime and that of his father. Russia has been a traditional Syrian partner in the Middle East and it gives Russia their major toehold there,” Patrick said. “The Chinese are following their lead.” After the resignation of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan last month, the United States has pretty much given up pursuing a diplomatic strategy to end the violence in Syria, where civil war has become a way of life. Photo: Council on Foreign Relations

“

Syria is a very stark example of the fact that effective action within the U.N. Security Council really can only come about when there is consensus or at least acquiescence on the part of all five members. — Stewart Patrick

”

director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations

Moscow counters that the United States never gave Annan or his six-point peace plan a fighting chance, accusing the West of working to break Assad while bolstering the rebels. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said that pressure on Russia to back Syrian sanctions in the Security Council had “elements of blackmail.” “We are being told: If you do not agree to the resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, then we shall refuse to extend the mandate of the monitoring

mission in this country,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by the New York Times. “We consider it an absolutely counterproductive and dangerous approach since it is unacceptable to use observers as bargaining chips.” The effort to slap sanctions on Assad was fundamentally hindered from the start by what happened in Libya, with Russia already seething over the U.N.authorized, NATO-led intervention that deposed Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. “What happened in the wake of that

resolution was that it authorized all necessary means to protect civilians,” Patrick said.“The Western-led coalitions in NATO and the Arab League used that resolution as a mandate to work with the Libyan opposition to topple Qaddafi.” China and Russia, which abstained from voting on the resolution of force, went along with the U.N.-backed intervention mostly because the mandate was to protect civilians and was supported by the Arab League (and unlike Syria, Libya had a coherent rebel opposition). But Russia, along with other nations such as South Africa, objected to the NATO-led mission once it seemed to morph from a campaign to protect civilians to outright regime change, ending in the brutal murder of the longtime Libyan dictator by an angry mob last fall. “The West took this [resolution] as a license for regime change and some felt the U.S. and its Western allies had exceeded its formal mandate, which the U.S. disputes,” Patrick said. “I think there was a determination in the wake of that, with

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September 2012

the bad taste in the mouths of Russia and China responsibilities, the U.N. has an obligation to of the major democracies in the developing and others, it provides a convenient excuse not protect them,” Patrick argues. “Everyone at the world that would continually be considered for U.N. signed up for that but there has been a permanent or at least long-term membership to let this occur again.” Logjam is nothing new for the Security certain amount of buyer’s remorse, particularly — particularly when it comes to the promotion Council, however. Russia and China frequently on the part of Russia and China, but also a num- of democracy abroad, to the opposition to part ways with the other three permanent member of countries in the global south — post- authoritarianism, and especially to intervention bers when it comes to military intervention, colonial countries that have always been major in the case of mass atrocities — their reluctance defenders of nonintervention and state sover- to endorse action from the Security Council Patrick explained. makes one take pause and wonder if those coun“Russia and China take a more traditionalist eignty.” Efforts to reform the Security Council and tries are willing to assume those responsibiliview, which they say is actually more in keeping with the U.N. Charter, which is the emphasis on break the veto-wielding monopoly of the five ties.” Yet Patrick also challenges the argument, tranonintervention and the sanctity of sovereignty,” permanent members have been floated for he said.“In their view, sovereignty is the bedrock decades, often going nowhere. But Patrick said ditionally held by some American conservatives, of world order. They also don’t believe that the calls for an alteration or expansion of the U.N. that the United Nations has outlived its usefulU.N. Security Council has any business telling Security Council are growing in some quarters. ness. John Bolton, President George W. Bush’s In 2010, President Barack Obama announced U.N. ambassador, was notoriously hostile to the other countries how to govern themselves.” The inability to reach consensus on Syria is that the United States would support India in its international grouping, at one time famously emblematic of the disagreement inherent in any bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security suggesting that the United Nations itself would body that represents 193 members, each with Council. (India is currently one of 10 non-perma- benefit from having a few floors of the building lopped off. competing interests. The Security Council is a nent members of the council.) “Right now, there are more than 100,000 blue Patrick said “there are a number of countries,” microcosm of that problem. helmeted troops deployed in more than a dozen including developing democracies such as India, “There is a structural limitation built into the NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and peacekeeping operations around the world,” Brazil and South Africa, that Washington might Security Council that was basically the price of content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. Patrick told us. “That means the U.N. has the creating it — and that was giving each of the five one day allow permanent member status. “This is another issue that is very important second-largest deployed military in the world. members a veto within that body,” Patrick said. The first two the faxed changes willbeen be made cost to the subsequent with respect to advertiser, the U.S. relationship with changes the The U.N. is keeping the peace and stability in “Historically, council has often stymiedat no will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved.places from southern Lebanon to Haiti to from acting when one or more of those coun- U.N. and also the future of the U.N. Security tries believe it has a major national interest and Council,” he said. “The question is whether the Sudan.” Patrick argued that the United Nations gives Council shouldtobeyour updated stake in protecting the country that would be a Security Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes ad. to reflect major changes in power in the international the United States and other nations a chance to target of sanction or U.N. coercive force.” ensure global stability without political reprisals system.” Russia and China U.N. memIf the ad is correct signaren’t and the fax only to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes Patrick has authored a report that endorsed and the staggering costs of doing it alone. bers with reservations about intervention in “It is a great deal because it allows the U.S. Syria and elsewhere, which is increasingly being the notion of Security Council expansion, but he The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 advocated under the responsibility to protect cautioned that it could create some heartburn and other countries to respond in areas where they don’t necessarily want to see U.S. troops (R2P) doctrine (also see “Will the Responsibility for the U.S. and others. Approved __________________________________________________________ “I’ve made the argument in the past that the but where there is humanitarian or regional to Protect Usher in New Global Paradigm?” in the June 2011 issue of The Washington time is now for the U.S. to try to take the lead to security imperative,” he said. Changes ___________________________________________________________ “The entire budget of U.N. peacekeeping is try to expand the Security Council,” Patrick said. Diplomat). ___________________________________________________________________ “If a state fails to live up to its sovereign “But I have to say that the performance of some equivalent to several days in Afghanistan” for the

U.S.,” Patrick added, noting that Washington spends about 25 cents for every dollar the United Nations spends. “It’s become a real lightning rod over the past two decades, particularly amongst conservatives on Capitol Hill, to believe that the U.N. is an enormous waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars and it threatens to infringe on different aspects of American sovereignty. “But the U.N. is such an infinitesimal fraction of the federal budget, so the amounts of money we’re talking about are incredibly small,” Patrick pointed out. “That’s not an excuse for bad management practices and there is a certain amount of cronyism. Some countries don’t put their best people forward and there are not necessarily high standards of professionalism. There are some very, very talented international civil servants, but there are also people who are just parked there.” Instead of abandoning or shunning the world body, though, Patrick said the United States should work within U.N. structures to protect its own interests. “There has to be some give and take and some willingness to compromise rather than taking the attitude that the United States is going to unilaterally impose its reform on the U.N.” Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

Follow The Diplomat Connect at www.washdiplomat.com.

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September 2012

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International Affairs

Drug Policy

America’s ‘Drug Czar ’: Legalization Not the Answer by Larry Luxner

n January 1994, shortly after R. Gil Kerli kowske became police chief of Buffalo, N.Y. — an economically depressed, crimeridden shadow of what had once ranked among America’s greatest industrial cities — he asked a local precinct captain to photocopy an important document.

“He said, ‘Commish, we don’t have copy machines. When we need to copy something, we go across the street to the Rite Aid pharmacy and do it there,’” recalled Kerlikowske. “I said, ‘I guess you don’t have computers either.’ He just laughed.They put license plates under the floorboards to cover up the rust holes, and they’d run the water all winter long so the pipes wouldn’t freeze.” Within five years, Kerlikowske — often working 70 hours a week — had turned the Buffalo Police Department around.Among his accomplishments: lowering the city’s crime rate, dramatically improving police relations with the community, and introducing a variety of reforms including the random drug testing of police officers. “In Buffalo, we had 13 precincts, which was far too many and far too expensive for a city that had lost population. We closed six of them, built some beautiful stateof-the-art police stations, and put computers in every location and in every police car,” he said. Some of these improvements were financed with hundreds of thousands of dollars in unclaimed cash the police department had accumulated over the years in yellowing envelopes from drug dealers and others booked into city jails. “When he got here, we were still using carbon paper,” Buffalo Police Lt. Danny Williams told the Seattle Times. “He dragged us kicking and screaming out of the 19th century.” Today, Kerlikowske is America’s “drug czar,” though his official title is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Appointed by President Barack Obama in February 2009, the 62-year-old Florida native — who got his start in law enforcement as a high school photographer of crime scenes — spent nearly an hour last month with The Washington Diplomat. We interviewed Kerlikowske at the agency’s headquarters on 17th Street, a few blocks from the White House. His fifth-floor office is decorated with seals of the police departments of both Buffalo and Seattle, where Kerlikowske also served as police chief, as well as that of St. Petersburg, Fla., where he first became a police officer. Also on display are framed photos of the “drug czar” with Bill Clinton and another former president, Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe, who’s widely credited with defeating the powerful cocaine cartels that had terrorized his country and controlled its economy for decades. The first thing Kerlikowske wanted to make clear is that he really dislikes the “war on drugs” slogan. “We used to talk about the war on cancer, and yet cancer is so incredibly complex,” he told The Diplomat. “The war on drugs made a great bumper sticker. Maybe it was meant to engender the will of the American people to tackle this really difficult problem. But I think it’s

Page 8

“

Photo: U.S. Embassy of Guatemala

Our approach focuses on the public health challenge of drug consumption and science of addiction, and tackling the international security challenge posed by transnational criminal organizations. There are no simple answers to the global drug issue. — R. Gil Kerlikowske

”

director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy

much more appropriate to put it in the context of public health.” Yet decriminalizing any illegal substance — even marijuana — is definitely not the answer, he argues. Speaking July 30 at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Kerlikowske said there’s been “considerable discussion here and in Latin America” about Uruguay’s highly controversial move to make marijuana legal (Uruguay is just one of a number of countries in Latin America and Europe that has proposed decriminalizing recreational use of the drug). “Too often, we face a polarized debate — legalization at one end of the spectrum and this ‘war on drugs’ at the other,” he said.“The Obama administration is committed

As America’s “drug czar,” R. Gil Kerlikowske has made numerous trips to places such as Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Guatemala, above, though he also travels outside the Americas. He’ll be trekking to China on Sept. 10 to talk with Chinese officials about the supply of precursor chemicals used by drug laboratories and later this year he’ll be flying to Australia.

to a third way forward. Legalization is not our policy, nor is locking every offender up. Our approach focuses on the public health challenge of drug consumption and science of addiction, and tackling the international security challenge posed by transnational criminal organizations. There are no simple answers to the global drug issue.” Kerlikowske — whose career includes stints as an undercover narcotics detective, internal affairs investigator and police hostage negotiator — argues that “transnational criminal networks will not disappear if drugs were made legal. These organizations don’t derive all of their revenue from drugs, and they wouldn’t simply disband if drugs were legalized. They are diversified businesses, profiting from human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, intellectual property theft and other crimes.” In fact, the profitability of drugs “is actually quite low” compared to that of other crimes like prostitution, piracy and the sale of human organs, he says, noting that “these groups are in business for money and power, and there is no limit to the schemes they will employ to extract illegal proceeds from our societies.” While that may be true, drugs certainly help to fund the cartels that are waging a barbaric war for profits and turf in Mexico and parts of Central America.The ultimate destination for the marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines shipped along these transit routes is the United

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

States, where consumers get their fix but don’t get the beheadings and accompanying violence that’s gripped their southern neighbors. Which is exactly why leaders from Mexico to Guatemala say that if Americans didn’t snort so much coke, they wouldn’t have a bloodbath on their hands. They’ve increasingly pushed the United States to find alternative solutions to a decades-old strategy that views the issue solely through the prism of law enforcement, arguing that a greater focus on the demand side of the equation would not only reduce violence in their countries, but also free up resources in the United States, where drug addicts are more likely to wind up behind bars than in a treatment center. Yet Kerlikowske points out that the number of cocaine users in the United States has fallen by 39 percent since 2011, while methamphetamine use has tumbled by 50 percent. The drug czar also says it’s simply not true that America’s jails are crowded with otherwise law-abiding citizens serving time for marijuana possession. “That was quite true in 1995, but all of our prison increases since then have been a result of minimum mandatory sentencing and abolishment of parole, where flat-time sentencing and ‘three strikes you’re out’ has led to the increase,” he explained.“You don’t find the jails filled with people charged with possessing small amounts of drugs.” Despite the growing chorus of calls to consider legalizing small amounts of marijuana, Kerlikowske remains adamantly opposed to legalizing narcotics of any kind. He also says that chorus is not as loud as some people might think. Since his appointment three years ago, Kerlikowske has made numerous trips to Colombia and Peru, and has been to Mexico five times. He’ll also be trekking to China on Sept. 10

Photo: U.S. Embassy of Guatemala

R. Gil Kerlikowske talks with reporters during a recent trip to Guatemala, where he met with President Otto Pérez Molina and also visited a women’s drug rehabilitation center in the capital.

to talk with Chinese officials about the supply of precursor chemicals used by drug laboratories, and later this year he’ll be flying to Australia. More recently, Kerlikowske served as the top U.S. delegate to the June 25-26 anti-drug summit in Lima, Peru, where he said the contentious topic of legalization barely came up. “There were 500 people representing 61 countries at that summit, and only three countries — Luxembourg, Guatemala and Costa Rica — talked about legalization,” he told us.“The rest of the delegates, the ones who actually have responsibility for people’s safety and security, expressed quite clearly that there was no appetite for legalization of drugs by the people they

represented.” Yet even close U.S. allies such as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos have pressed for a more open dialogue on the issue. Santos himself raised the question of whether marijuana should be regulated, much in the way alcohol or tobacco is, at the Organization of American States’ Summit of the Americas earlier this spring. President Obama said he would be open to a debate about the effectiveness of current laws, but flatly said that “legalization is not the answer.” Of course, Colombia — where a U.S.-backed military crackdown uprooted the drug cartels that had run roughshod over the country in the

1980s and ’90s — still serves as the model for a tough security-based approach against drug trafficking. Last month, Kerlikowske announced that Colombian production of cocaine dropped by 25 percent in the past year and 72 percent in the past decade — from an estimated 700 metric tons at its peak in 2001 to 195 tons last year. That places Colombia third in worldwide cocaine production after Peru (325 tons) and Bolivia (265 tons). Yet the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime disputes these findings, insisting that coca production in Colombia has actually gone up. “There’s always been a discrepancy between the UNODC and ourselves, though both our technology and our methodology may be a little more accurate than theirs,” Kerlikowske politely suggested.“This is also because we back that up with field work. I recently met with Yury Fedotov [UNODC’s executive director] and told him we should really work to bring these studies into alignment.” Regardless, he said, “There’s no question that the amount of coca production in Colombia has decreased.” Kerlikowske, who has more than 37 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, said, “The security threat Colombia and the United States faced in 1999 is gone, and it has been accomplished without offsetting those results elsewhere. These lessons provide a model for dealing with challenges throughout the world, particularly in Central America.” But he emphasizes that the U.S. approach in the region is not only based on security and ranges from treatment centers to gang prevention programs. “We have been meeting with the Central

See Kerlikowske, page 24

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September 2012

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Diplomacy

United Nations

U.N. General Assembly Punctuated By Wrangling, Occasional Weirdness by Dave Seminara

olonel Muammar al-Qaddafi is dead. Fidel Castro, now 85, spends his days writing cryptic haikus about yoga and edible plants.

And Hugo Chávez, who has undergone three cancerrelated operations in the past year, is busy campaigning with actor Sean Penn in advance of the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election in October. So which world leader is going to make waves with an incendiary speech at this year’s U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in New York? The smart money is on Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose 9/11 conspiracy theories and antiU.S. and Israel diatribes at the UNGA in 2010 and 2011 sparked outrage and walkouts from a host of delegations. According to press reports,Ahmadinejad plans to deliver a report on a Non-Aligned Movement conference held in late August in Tehran at the UNGA, which kicks off Sept. 18 this year. But most Iran watchers predict that he’ll also have plenty to say about the U.S. role in the Middle East, his country’s nuclear program and whatever else strikes his fancy. The year 2012 will mark the 67th UNGA gathering of world leaders from the 193 U.N. member states in New York. In the past, the ministerial sessions that kick off each UNGA season have been filled with colorful characters, dramatic speeches and, at times, silliness. Leaders are supposed to limit their speeches to just 15 minutes, but the rule is widely ignored, much to the chagrin of many junior diplomats tasked with taking notes and reporting on the at-times meandering speeches. Fidel Castro, who once reportedly kept live chickens in his hotel room in New York during a General Assembly visit, holds the modern record for longest UNGA speech, at four and a half hours, set in 1960. But Col. Qaddafi delivered what is widely regarded as the most bizarre speech in UNGA history in 2009, with a rambling 90-minute screed in which he suggested that swine flu was created in a laboratory and called for investigations into the deaths of J.F.K. and Martin Luther King Jr. His plan to erect a traditional Bedouin tent in New Jersey created a stink, as did Chávez’s 2006 assertion that the U.N. chamber smelled like sulfur in the wake of George W. Bush’s speech there. But while the most outrageous speeches make the headlines each year, the brief ministerial phase of the UNGA is a kind of diplomatic World Series, a can’t-miss event where a huge amount of business is conducted behind the scenes. While heads of state and foreign ministers make their way to New York in mid-September every year for the start of the UNGA session, the wrangling over schedules and agendas begins weeks or even months before, as diplomats from all over the world try to determine how to spend their precious time in New York. “The speeches aren’t the most important part of UNGA,” said François Rivasseau, deputy head of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States, who has attended numerous UNGA sessions over the last 20 years.“The most important part happens in the bilateral meetings that take place on the margins of the assembly.”

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credit: UN Photo / JC McIlwaine

There are moments when you feel like you’re making a difference and then there are a lot of moments when you’re stuck in the basement of the U.N., not having seen light all day. — James Kariuki

”

counselor of politics, economics and communication at the British Embassy in Washington

But the delicate diplomatic dance of scheduling these meetings is a drama in and of itself.The United States and other big geopolitical players are inundated with meeting requests from countries large and small, and there is no way to accommodate them all in the one-to-two-week time span that most leaders spend in New York. As the desk officer for Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) at the State Department, I witnessed this dynamic firsthand in 2006, when CAR officials were dismayed to learn that the highest-level meeting they could secure for their visiting head of state, François Bozizé, was a new, politically appointed deputy assistant secretary of state (DAS) for African affairs. Since this DAS had no experience with the country, I, as a lowly desk officer, was offered the chance to take the lead in the meeting. That kind of diplomatic mismatch isn’t necessarily unusual, given the fact that leaders from 193 countries converge on New York and all of them want access to U.S. officials. The hurt feelings that sometimes result can damage bilateral relations, which is partly why foreign ambassadors posted in Washington feel pressure to deliver high-level meetings for their visiting dignitaries.

At its annual meeting in September, the U.N. General Assembly is sure to take up the issue of Syria — as it did when it adopted a resolution in early August, above, condemning the use of heavy weapons by Syrian authorities and urging all sides to cease the violence. But with the Security Council deadlocked over Syria, it’s doubtful the General Assembly will be able to do anything more than pass toothless resolutions.

“I try to explain that there is no disrespect, but it’s just physically not possible for the secretary of state to meet with all of her counterparts,” said Ambassador Claudia Fritsche, a veteran of more than a dozen UNGA sessions who has been Liechtenstein’s ambassador to the United States since 2002.“They have to prioritize and meet with countries where they have very, very serious issues. The rest of us just have to accept that we are received at a different level, and this is not always easy to explain.” James Kariuki, a political counselor at the British Embassy in Washington who is a veteran of six UNGAs since he joined the Foreign Office in 1993, says the scheduling is an “incredibly complicated bit of diplomatic protocol.” “There is a fair bit of jostling over who gets to see who,” he said. “You’ll see meetings between leaders of countries that don’t get on very well, people who wouldn’t go to each other’s countries meeting in the corridors at the U.N. But in the end you can’t see everyone.” Veteran diplomats describe the ministerial phase of the UNGA as a marathon of meetings, speeches and horse-trading over appointments and votes that can be exhausting, stressful and also exhilarating. This year, the UNGA madness got off to an early start with an unusual row between supporters of Lithuania and Serbia, two nations vying for this year’s rotating UNGA presidency. Russia backed Serbia while a host of Western countries backed Lithuania. Ultimately, the matter was decided in the first secret ballot for the largely ceremonial

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

UNGA presidency in more than 20 years, with Serbia narrowly prevailing by 14 votes. Kariuki says that even without this kind of drama, the affairs can be rewarding, particularly for junior-tier diplomats. “It can be exciting as a young diplomat during the peak of the ministerial week to find yourself in the same room as world leaders,” he said. Ambassador Fritsche, who prior to coming to Washington served as her country’s permanent representative to the United Nations since 1990, said that having an opportunity to listen to and meet the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela at the UNGA were two of the more memorable moments of her career. But Kariuki said the excitement level drops off dramatically after the ministers go home and UNGA enters the committee phase, where the U.N.’s six committees (Disarmament and International Security; Economic and Financial; Social, Humanitarian and Cultural;Special Political and Decolonization; Administrative and Budgetary; and the Legal Committee) hammer out the wording of hunCredit: UN Photo / Devra Berkowitz dreds of resolutions. brutal is effort when is themade ministers go Delegates pictured conversationinshortly beforeand a General Assembly meeting to review the U.N. Global CounterNOTE:“What’s Although every to assure your ad are is free of inmistakes spelling home and you reach that committee stage, and Terrorism Strategy. Weeks before the U.N. General Assembly convenes each September, diplomats wrangle over content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. you’re left haggling over paragraph 23 of a reso- schedules and agendas to determine how to best spend their time in New York. lution on globalization and you’re not really sure The first two faxed changes will but be made at no cost“Iftoa the advertiser, subsequent lesser-known figure or someonechanges from a each year a name is also picked out of a hat and it’s going to change the world you’re stuck will be billed at U.N. a rate of $75 Signed adsisare considered approved. country speaking, you’ll see a lot of that lucky country — last year it was there in the bubble, ” heper said.faxed “Therealteration. are smaller Turkmenistan — gets a front-row seat. moments when you feel like you’re making a junior-level diplomats in the room,” he said. Diplomats surveyed for this story said that Kariuki that diplomats “votead. with their difference andcheck then there aread a lotcarefully. of moments Mark Please this anysaid changes to your when you’re stuck in the basement of the U.N., feet,” while Ambassador Fritsche noted that at Syria would be item #1A on the agenda at this of eachchanges delegation’s six seats should year’s UNGA, particularly in light of former U.N. day.”to: (301) 949-0065least a fewneeds If the adnot is having correctseen signlight andallfax The only thing worse than being stuck in the be full for every speech so as to avoid embar- Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s resignation as special envoy to Syria. The global economic cribasement haggling over resolution language rassment. The Washington Diplomat (301) Of course, corralling a warm body to listen to sis and the situation in the wider Middle East may be relegation to note-taking duty 933-3552 for ministerial speeches at the UNGA. Rivasseau said you speeches can be a chore by the end of the min- will also be at the forefront, alongside less can__________________________________________________________ tell a lot about a country’s place in the isterial phase, when everyone’s just about had headline-grabbing issues such as water and food Approved not so much by how full the room is their fill of rhetoric, and the issue is particularly security and women’s empowerment. Changesworld ___________________________________________________________ The sheer list of agenda items, in fact, can be when their representative speaks but who is acute for the delegations that have prime seats ___________________________________________________________________ in the first row. The seating is alphabetical, but mind-numbingly long and at times bewildering. there to listen.

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Though the talks generally focus on hard-hitting global issues such as HIV/AIDS, sustainable development, poverty, human rights, macroeconomic policy, disarmament, and debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and war in Afghanistan, there are a number of inane items as well. A discussion on the Comorian island of Mayotte, Mongolia’s nuclear-weapons-free status, “Sport for Peace and Development” and “Harmony with Nature” are among the more obscure topics buried among more than 150 agenda items on the schedule. So will anything actually get done, or is the UNGA just a high-profile dog and pony show for world leaders and diplomats? Fritsche, Rivasseau and Kariuki all say that, contrary to popular opinion, plenty of business gets done at the UNGA. “We are all trying to spare taxpayer money and it’s much more economical to go to New York because you are sure to be able to meet with many ministers in one place,”said Rivasseau. “Rather than fly to 20 different places, you can see 20 people all at once.” But for some D.C.-based diplomats, the multilateral environment in New York takes some getting used to. “In Washington, embassies compete,” said Fritsche.“All of us have been sent here to establish the best possible relations with the host country, the United States, in order to represent our interests in the best possible way. So we all try to be visible, to attract the attention of the U.S. government, the Congress, the media.At the U.N., there are 193 members. No matter where they’re from, they need to work together to get things done. So we work together day and night.”

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The Washington Diplomat Page 11

Diplomacy

United Nations

Susan Rice Re-Establishes U.S. Presence at United Nations by Talha Aquil

uring an appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” last August, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that sometimes the U.N. General Assembly “feels a little bit like the Star Wars bar scene” full of some “of the most colorful dictators of the world.”

Yet she also added,“Many of the threats we face — terrorism, proliferation, genocide, climate change — are not the kind of things that one country, even one as powerful as our own, can solve, by itself. So we need cooperation. We need countries working together. And the U.N. is the one place on earth, despite its many flaws, where we can marshal the support and share the cost of doing what’s necessary to protect the United States.” These two statements encapsulate not only what has been the Obama administration’s approach to multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, but also Rice’s approach to her role at the world body. Nearly four years after Obama took office, it’s clear that his administration has established a far less antagonistic working relationship with the United Nations than George W. Bush’s foreign policy team did. “A premise of Obama’s foreign policy is that the United States can advance its national interests best by working within global institutions,” wrote Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations (also see the People of World Influence profile). At the same time, the administration has not shirked from playing hardball and getting its way on policies as far-reaching as the intervention in Libya and ensuring that an American continues to head the World Bank.The key difference at the United Nations between the Bush and Obama presidencies is the perception that the latter works within global institutions as opposed to outside of them. Carlos Pascual, formally of the Brookings Institution and now the State Department envoy for energy affairs, wrote that “the appointment of Susan Rice to the U.N. makes clear that Obama seeks to fix this institution, not trash it.” Rice’s confirmation was in marked contrast to her predecessor, John Bolton, whose disdain for the United Nations made him not only an unlikely candidate for the position, but also one unable to meet Senate approval, only assuming the post after a recess appointment by President George W. Bush. But Rice, like Bolton, is no wallflower. In many ways, her personal style mirrors Obama’s approach to the United Nations — willing to work with it, but just as willing to defend America’s interests in the process. Rice is a no-nonsense, oftentimes undiplomatic diplomat who’s not afraid to butt heads or speak her mind. Yet she’s also close to the White House and in that sense, she has been able to deliver concrete action instead of just hard-nosed rhetoric. Writing on his Turtle Bay blog at Foreign Policy, Colum Lynch pointed out that “in contrast to her Republican predecessors, including Zalmay Khalilzad and John Bolton, Rice holds cabinet rank, making her a principal in

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credit: UN Photo / Rick Bajornas

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Many of the threats we face — terrorism, proliferation, genocide, climate change — are not the kind of things that one country, even one as powerful as our own, can solve, by itself…. And the U.N. is the one place on earth, despite its many flaws, where we can marshal the support and share the cost of doing what’s necessary to protect the United States.

”

— Susan Rice

U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations

the Obama administration’s national security team.” To that end, she has been instrumental in implementing many critical aspects of Obama’s foreign policy, such as the intervention in Libya, the sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, and blocking the Palestinians’ attempts to secure U.N. membership. Though not everyone agrees with these policies, at least the United States is back in the U.N. saddle. Shortly after taking office, Obama made it a point to re-engage with the institution, which his predecessor largely dismissed as an impotent bureaucracy. Notably,Washington

Susan Rice, America’s permanent representative to the United Nations, chairs the Security Council’s meeting on illicit cross-border trafficking in April. Rice has widely been credited with bringing the United States back into the U.N. fold after eight years of neglect and hostility under the Bush administration.

joined the U.N. Human Rights Council, long a cesspool of dictatorships that used the council as cover for their own human rights abuses. Many say U.S. participation has helped to boost the credibility of the council, which has been more vocal about calling out in abuses in Syria, Iran, Sudan and Sri Lanka. “When Rice took over as ambassador after eight years of Bush, the United Nations was in dire need of attention. The bitter feelings provoked by the debate over Iraq had faded, and the era of provocation had largely ended with Bolton’s departure in late 2006,” wrote James Traub in a Foreign Policy profile of Rice called “The Point Guard.” “But Bush hadn’t been terribly interested in using the institution, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had proved to be an almost soporific figure. The U.N. felt increasingly marginal. So Rice and the administration ushered in a new era with a bang when Obama took office by vowing to pay the United Nations $1 billion in back dues, which it did by the fall.” Rice’s lengthy foreign policy credentials prepared her well for working at the United Nations. She received a Truman Scholarship at Stanford and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. In the 1990s, she served in various roles in the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton and was assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1997 to 2001. Rice was also a foreign policy aide to Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis during the 1988 campaign and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

presidential race. Between her work for Kerry and serving as Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser during the 2008 campaign, she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Throughout her career, Rice has not only proven her foreign policy chops, but also shown an ability to change with the exigencies of American foreign policy needs.The rosy view of the United Nations that Rice presented on “The Colbert Report” was not exactly characteristic of her earlier work. “She approached the U.N. without much idealism, with a sort of reserve,” a former administration official told Foreign Policy’s Traub. Her inclination toward action over talk, especially in cases of possible genocide, seems more akin to Bush’s ambitious foreign policy agenda than to an administration determined to repair relationships damaged by its predecessor’s unilateral interventionist policies. Rice’s own interventionist bent in part stems from her work in the Clinton administration as a National Security Council staffer during the Rwandan genocide. The failure to stop that atrocity led Rice to later tell Harvard scholar Samantha Power: “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.” Yet Rice’s belief in the necessity of intervention in certain cases is not so different from Obama’s own outlook. For instance, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama remarked, “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified,” on humanitarian grounds or in other places that have been scarred by war.“Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later,” he warned. But he also cautioned that no nation “can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when

we don’t, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.” Many have labeled Obama a foreign policy realist, but Erich Vogt of American University told The Washington Diplomat that “every administration, regardless of party, faces realities — that it will not be able to fundamentally redesign the world map and must look at various avenues based on their political cost.” The Obama administration is no different — and it has experienced this lesson firsthand at the United Nations, where Rice has had to balance conflicting interests, sometimes successfully, and other times less so. Most recently, Syria has exposed America’s inability to muster a unified diplomatic response to halt the violence raging in that country, leading critics to charge that the Obama administration has gone soft on President Bashar al-Assad. Likewise, Obama was criticized for his perceived dithering in response to the Libyan revolution, until the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to protect the country’s civilian population, allowing the NATO-led intervention that helped dislodge the regime. In that sense, Libya represented a triumph of Obama’s calculated strategy to intervene but share the burden with international partners so the United States wouldn’t become mired in yet another war in a Muslim nation. It was also a personal and professional victory for Rice, who pushed for a tough response by the administration and orchestrated the resolution that ultimately paved the way for U.N. action. But Libya’s legacy is not without its flaws. Brazil, China, India and Russia all subsequently criticized the intervention as exceeding its

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Continued from previous page original mandate. Having felt bitten by the experience in Libya, Moscow has adamantly blocked any strong action on Syria, leaving Rice with little ammunition against the Assad regime other than issuing a barrage of harshly worded warnings and condemnations. The Palestinian campaign for U.N. recognition, which was blocked by the United States last year, also damaged American standing in the General Assembly. Patrick from the Council on Foreign Relations wrote that the entire fracas “isolated the United States — Israel’s staunchest and loneliest defender — from the mass of postcolonial, developing countries.” Rice was also embroiled in controversy when diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed a U.S. spying operation targeting the U.N. secretary-general and members of the Security Council. Indeed, though Rice has won plaudits for her U.N. performance in some quarters, she’s also drawn fire from both sides of the political divide. Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation contends that Rice has been too hands-off at the United Nations, missing key Security Council meetings. “The presence of the U.S. permanent representative to the U.N. sends a signal that the U.S. considers the matter under discussion to be important.The repeated absence of Ambassador Rice signals the opposite,” he said.“Moreover, the impression that the U.S. is unwilling to ruffle feathers at the U.N to press its priorities is farreaching and counterproductive.” Rice has also been criticized for not consistently adhering to her humanitarian interventionist principles. Some advocates for Darfur, for example, have felt abandoned by her at the United Nations, despite her hawkish stance

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Susan Rice speaks to journalists following Security Council consultations on Iran. As U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Rice has pushed for tough sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program.

toward Sudan. Mark Hanis, president of the Genocide Intervention Network/Save Darfur Coalition, told the New Republic that “Darfur has been a clear failure” and that “there have been absolutely no Darfur resolutions during her tenure.” However, Vogt points out that America’s ability to influence issues abroad, especially absent international momentum and consensus, will always be limited.

Likewise, Rice has to work within the confines of not only the U.N. system, but also the administration, where opinions vary widely. It’s also difficult to pigeonhole Rice as either a foreign policy pragmatist or an idealist — like Obama, she’s a mix of both, depending on the situation. On Syria, for instance, although she’s blasted the Russians and Chinese for obstructing U.N. sanctions, she does not support a Libyastyle military intervention, arguing that the situation in Libya was fundamentally different. Not only is there no coherent rebel force that controls a defined portion of Syria, she points out that establishing “humanitarian safe zones” or other such options could unleash even more sectarian bloodletting that could spill over and destabilize the entire region. Obama has said as much himself — another example of how Rice and the president have been mostly in sync over the last four years.That melding of the minds has led to rampant speculation that if Obama wins another term, Rice would be a top contender to become the next secretary of state. So far, she’s been mum on that subject — a change of pace from her blunt style as Obama’s voice at the United Nations. “I am a direct person,” Rice said in an interview with the Daily Beast earlier this year.“With me, what you see is what you get. I’m not going to lie to you, I’m not going to scam you; if I say we’ll do something, we’ll do it.” That certainly personifies her tenure the last four years. And regardless whether she moves from Turtle Bay to Foggy Bottom next year, Rice has clearly left an imprint on the United Nations, firmly executing Obama’s foreign policy vision while re-establishing America’s presence in the world body. Talha Aquil is a freelance writer based in Toronto.

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September 2012

COVER PROFILE

Ambassador Paul Altidor

Haiti’s New Envoy Wants Investment Dollars, Not Pity by Larry Luxner

n Jan. 12, 2010 — the day a powerful earthquake destroyed Haiti’s capital city and wrecked its economy — Paul Altidor was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, advising his government on a pending deal to privatize the state-owned phone monopoly.

At 4:53 p.m., the aspiring World Bank economist felt the ground move beneath him. When the violent shaking ended about 40 seconds later, what had long been the most luxurious hotel in Haiti — an air-conditioned oasis in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country — was now an unrecognizable mess of concrete, a tomb trapping hundreds of locals, tourists and international aid workers. The rumbling turned to screams as people all over the city realized what had just happened. It’s not something Altidor likes to discuss. “Let’s put it this way,” Haiti’s new ambassador told The Washington Diplomat. “When it comes to the earthquake, I happen to be one of the luckiest people around. I came out with only a very small scratch. But many of the folks at the Montana died. I had gone there so often on business, the employees became my closest friends.” The Haitian government says 316,000 people lost their lives in the magnitude-7.0 quake, a far higher number than the official 230,000 figure released shortly after the disaster. Altidor says the actual death toll may never be known.

“

When it comes to business, a lot of folks don’t view Haiti as an investment destination. People feel sorry for Haiti. Everything about Haiti is magnified, but in a detrimental way…. We’re trying to shift that focus.

”

— Paul Altidor

ambassador of Haiti to the United States

“Emotionally, the country wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of what happened that day,” said the 39-year-old envoy, who didn’t lose any immediate family in the quake. It did change his life, however. Instead of continuing his career with the World Bank’s International Finance September 2012

Corp., Altidor became vice president of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a Washingtonbased nonprofit headed by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that since the disaster has raised $54 million in donations to help Haiti get back on its feet. And Haiti needs all the help it can get — as of press time,Tropical Storm Isaac was barreling toward the country, threatening to dump eight to 12 inches of rain on the makeshift tent cities and crumbling hillsides that are prone to flash floods and deadly mudslides. Altidor’s performance at the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and his years of experience in the private sector so impressed Laurent Lamothe — Haiti’s foreign minister at the time — that Lamothe asked him to head Haiti’s embassy in Washington, D.C. Since 2004, that mission had been run by the affable Raymond Joseph, who stepped down in August 2010 to run for president of Haiti. Then-President René Préval appointed Louis Harold Joseph (no relation) to replace him. But the elder Joseph was soon disqualified from running because the Préval government claimed that he lacked official clearance to participate; Joseph took the case to court but the issue was never resolved. The tumultuous campaign was eventually won by Michel Martelly, a popular singer and right-of-center politician who — upon taking office in May 2011 — proudly declared that Haiti was now “open for business.” Indeed it is, says Altidor, who presented his credentials to President Obama on May 2 amid plans to reinvent his embassy from top to bottom. “As you may have heard, our goal is to make Haiti an emerging economy by 2030,” he told us. “We feel that diplomacy has a key role to play in lifting Haiti from where it is right now to the next level by using the embassy to promote Haiti as an investment destination.” Doing that, of course, takes money. Just renovating the dilapidated mission on Embassy Row is itself a $2 million construction job, but Altidor said his budget is essentially being doubled. He’s also bringing new people on board who can get the word out that post-earthquake Haiti wants foreign investment (also see “Two Years After Quake, Haiti Lobbies for Investment”

Photo: Jessica Latos

in the January 2012 issue ofThe Washington Diplomat). “Resources are being put at the disposal of our various diplomatic missions around the world. This is fairly new in Haiti’s recent history,” said Altidor, who plans to expand his staff of 34. “We’re hiring not just diplomats, but also folks with business backgrounds in the private sector. So I have people here with MBAs and law degrees who used to work on Wall Street. Bear in mind that in the aftermath of the earthquake, a lot of Haitians and HaitianAmericans have embraced those ideas. It’s been harder to keep people at bay than to attract talent.” A big part of this push has to do with the Martelly government’s perception that its Washington embassy has been ignored by State Department bureaucrats and even U.S. companies hoping to export to the impoverished Caribbean nation of more than 9 million.

“Some top USAID officials don’t even know our address,” conceded Altidor (for the record, it’s 2311 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20008). “We’re undergoing this major renovation not just to make it pretty for the sake of being pretty, but because it’s the gateway to Haiti,” the ambassador said, noting that “our cultural section will also be revitalized. We have very robust cultural planning for the coming year, as this will become a destination for major cultural events.” Among them, he said: presentations by Phillippe Dodard, who works with fashion designer Donna Karan, and Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose 2005 TV documentary “Sometimes in April” chronicled the genocide in Rwanda that left 800,000 people dead. Peck’s inclusion in the upcoming cul-

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 15

Continued from previous page tural calendar is no coincidence, since Rwanda is precisely the model Haiti would like to follow as it struggles to regain its footing in the wake of the worst natural disaster in Caribbean history. Whether Haiti can achieve the kind of economic growth Rwanda has experienced over the last decade is a matter of debate, though it certainly helps that Altidor has the solid backing of his bosses in Port-au-Prince (Lamothe has since been named prime minister). “I’m getting political support from my administration that I don’t think any of my predecessors had,” said Altidor.“I’m sure Mr. Joseph would have wanted to have the level of resources I’m getting.” Joseph, now 81, said Altidor recently tracked him down while in Port-au-Prince, hoping to pick up some valuable advice from an elder statesman on how to be an effective ambassador in Washington. “I found him to be a humble person who listens well,” Joseph told The Diplomat by phone. “He praised me for the way I dealt with the Haitian community.Whether he’s going to have a different approach, I don’t know. But at least he acknowledged there was good work done, and that he wants to continue that legacy.Apparently, he has more pull within the administration than I did, and I wish him well.” It also helps that Altidor spent seven years in Washington and knows its think tanks, diplomatic missions and financial institutions intimately. Born and raised in the Haitian town of Jérémie, Altidor finished high school in Boston after his family relocated there, then earned a degree from Boston College and an advanced degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the International Finance Corp., his job was to help

Photo: Larry Luxner

Tons of debris have been removed and tent cities taken down in Port-au-Prince, though homelessness, poverty, crime and susceptibility to flooding and mudslides still plague Haiti’s quake-ravaged capital.

governments divest of state holdings by forming public-private partnerships. Altidor met his wife, Meghan, while both were students at MIT (she’s now an affordable housing attorney at the Washington law firm Nixon Peabody).And following the quake, he led a team of professors and researchers from MIT’s Community Innovators Lab to Haiti to provide guidance on housing policy and financing. “I understand Haiti and the dilemma it’s facing in terms of development, getting it right and using business diplomacy to move Haiti toward the goal of being an emerging economy by 2030,” he said. “A lot of folks come to Haiti with good

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intentions but with preconceived solutions they think will work, as opposed to local priorities. Over the last 30 years, Haiti had become so dependent on foreign aid that it’s weakened the government, which was the very institution that was supposed to protect Haiti’s interests. So these people end up wasting resources, not because it’s malicious on their part but because they think they know better.” He added: “Of course we need money to rebuild our infrastructure, but at the end of the day, the debate is about how efficiently the money that’s already been allocated is being utilized.”

The Inter-American Development Bank alone has pledged $2 billion in new grants to Haiti over a decade, reported the New York Times, while Congress appropriated $1.14 billion for reconstruction — much of it set aside for debt relief, health care, and food and justice programs. All told, private U.S. and overseas donors have pledged more than $11 billion in post-earthquake assistance to Haiti through this year, though local sources say only half of that aid has actually been delivered. Meanwhile, Haiti’s government and the international donor community have come under intense criticism for a haphazard rebuilding effort that lacks any coherent, long-term vision. Housing, or the enduring lack thereof, is emblematic of this problem. Progress is certainly visible in the nation’s capital, whose shoddily constructed buildings were decimated by the quake. For instance, the park that sits directly in front of Haiti’s quake-ravaged presidential palace in downtown Port-au-Prince has finally been cleared of refugees. The Champs de Mars “tent city” was often visited by reporters and TV crews hoping to highlight the plight of homeless Haitians with nowhere to go, though it eventually became more of an embarrassment than anything else. But hundreds of thousands of Haitians remain homeless, many in putrid tent camps susceptible to storms like Isaac — a plight that was documented in the recent New York Times article “Years After Haiti Quake, Safe Housing Is a Dream for Many,” by Deborah Sontag. “In the absence of an overarching housing policy, Haiti’s shelter problem has been tackled unsystematically, in a way that has favored rural over urban victims and homeowners over renters because their needs were more easily met.

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haiti Many families with the least resources have been neglected unless they happened to belong to a tent camp, neighborhood or vulnerable population targeted by a particular program,” Sontag wrote. Altidor admits the housing challenge is a mammoth one, but also points out the tremendous strides that have been made. “At one time, the number of people living in tents was 1.5 million. Now it’s down to less than 400,000. Some folks went back to their communities of origin, and some to new housing developments,” said the ambassador, an avid soccer fan who plays his favorite sport in the now-cleared Champs de Mars park every time he returns to Haiti, which is about once every two or three weeks. Altidor also deflected criticism that the Haitian government has squandered much of the humanitarian assistance it received the aftermath of your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and NOTE: Although every effort isinmade to assure the January 2010 temblor. coast —tofarmake from any content it is ultimately up to the customer thequake final damage. proof. “Very little of the aid going to Haiti goes to “Obviously, there was no earthquake here,” public so will in terms of accountsenior official Michaël de Landsheer told The first twoentities faxedanyway, changes be made at no cost to Haitian the advertiser, subsequent changes ability, it’s hard to even claim that the govern- the New York Times.“But in a sense everything in will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. ment is stealing money, when in reality it’s not this country after the earthquake is reconstrucbeing funneled to public entities but mainly to tion.” Please check this ad carefully. any608-acre changes to your ad. Park — inauNGOs. How can you be stealing something you MarkThe Caracol Industrial don’t even have?” gurated late last year by Bill Clinton in a deal If the ad isIncorrect signsays and faxpart to:of(301) needs changes fact,Altidor a big his job949-0065 in help- partially brokered by his wife, Secretary of State ing run the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund “was to be Hillary Clinton — will create 20,000 garment certain thisDiplomat money wouldn’t be(301) wasted. ” manufacturing jobs while giving companies that The Washington 933-3552 Yet the question of whether the money that’s invest there tax exemptions, duty-free access to been poured into Haiti is being used wisely con- the U.S. market and abundant cheap labor (Haiti’s Approved __________________________________________________________ tinues to haunt the international community. For minimum wage for textile wage is set to increase Changesinstance, ___________________________________________________________ more than a quarter of $412 million in next month from $3.75 to $5 a day). reconstruction funds has been earmarked for a Caracol’s flagship tenant will be Sae-A Trading, ___________________________________________________________________ sprawling free zone located along Haiti’s north a South Korean apparel maker with a long histo-

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ry of troubled labor relations in Guatemala, where it recently closed its factory in the wake of what the AFL-CIO called Sae-A’s anti-union repression and “acts of violence and intimidation.” Though questions remain as to whether the project was rushed through without considering its drawbacks (the environmental impact and Sae-A’s dubious labor track record), Haitian officials are adamant that Caracol will benefit the community. Eventually, according to Martelly, the free zone,

located 15 miles from the port city of CapHaïtien, could provide jobs for 65,000 people, boosting Haiti’s garment workforce by more than 200 percent. Sae-A is pumping $78 million into the project’s initial phase, while the U.S. government is contributing $124 million and the IDB $55 million. Once operations at Caracol are under way, the Haitian government hopes to attract other clothing manufacturers that could benefit from U.S. trade preferences for made-in-Haiti apparel, as well as companies that make electronics and furniture. The IDB says the project will create more than $500 million in wages and benefits over the next 10 years, boosting the number of jobs in Haiti’s formal private sector by at least 20 percent. Though Altidor says the project will generate desperately needed jobs, he adds that Caracol is only one piece of a much larger puzzle to address Haiti’s overwhelming needs. “While Caracol constitutes a flagship project for Haiti currently in terms of investments and potential job creation, I believe Haiti will need many more of these investments if it is to come out of the poverty cycle. Caracol is a step in the right direction. However, it is one project in the government’s economic strategy.” A key part of that strategy is the one-year-old Presidential Advisory Committee on Economic Growth and Investment (PACEGI). Besides Clinton, PACEGI’s 32-member board includes several other ex-heads of state, including Spain’s José María Aznar, Panama’s Martín Torrijos, Bolivia’s Jorge Quiroga, Costa Rica’s José María Figueres, Jamaica’s P.J. Patterson and Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe. PACEGI is co-chaired by Clinton and prominent Haitian businessman Gregory Mevs, who has interests in hotels, manufacturing and tourism. Its mission is to advise Martelly on policy

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Continued from previous page and strategic initiatives to attract investment that will create sustainable jobs. The goal: 500,000 jobs over the next four years. In the short term, the ambassador says two of Haiti’s top priorities at the moment should be securing a reliable source of energy and reducing the incidence of cholera and other infectious diseases by improving public health. “Energy is a key component to attracting business, so there’s a heavy focus right now on electricity,” he said. Regarding health, “how likely am I going to entice a group of businessmen to make investments in Haiti if they feel they may catch something while they’re down there? In that context, health is a national security problem. Not only are our own citizens dying, but it’s keeping other folks away.” Cholera has already killed 7,000 people and sickened more than half a million ever since it was accidentally introduced to the country by Nepalese peacekeeping forces serving with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah). The lack of access to clean water and sanitation has made Haitians particularly vulnerable to this water-borne scourge, and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the cost of eliminating cholera from the island of Hispaniola — which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic — at $800 million to $1 billion. The fact that Minustah brought cholera to Haiti after an absence of 100 years has made the U.N. peacekeepers deeply unpopular there.That tension was further exacerbated by an incident involving four Uruguayan peacekeepers accused of raping a teenage boy — an episode that was caught on tape and surfaced on the Internet, enraging Haitians and sparking violent protests in Port-au-Prince. Minustah’s fiscal 2012 budget is $793.5 million, and the mission has about 7,300 peacekeeping troops, 2,870 police officers, 550 international administrative personnel and 1,350 local civilian staffers deployed throughout the Maryland-size country. Altidor declined to go into details on a specific timetable for the withdrawal of Minustah troops — most of them from Latin American countries — “simply because I’m new in the position.” He also deflected questions on a central goal of the Martelly government: the eventual reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces. That’s sparked lingering fears about reviving an institution that was notorious for decades of human rights abuses under the regimes of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, JeanClaude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. But whether security comes from a beefedup national police force or from foreign soldiers, it needs to come soon if Haiti has any hopes of digging out of its perpetual misery. Reducing street crime and cleaning up the country’s image is critical not only to Haiti’s beleaguered people, but also to bringing tourists back to the country’s shores. In the 1950s, before Fidel Castro turned Cuba into a communist state, Haiti and Cuba were both popular with American tourists looking to enjoy Caribbean beaches and wild nightlife (the Clintons in fact honeymooned in Haiti). But tourism has dwindled to a trickle in Haiti — with the notable exception of Royal Caribbean’s private island resort of Labadee on the north coast, which attracts 600,000 visitors a year. “Ultimately, Haiti still needs to make meaningful progress in governance and recovery efforts. Infrastructure deficiencies that existed September 2012

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PHOTO: LARRy LUxNER

the imposing Iron Market in downtown Port-auPrince, destroyed by fire in 2008 and then by the earthquake in 2010, was rebuilt by Haiti’s largest private investor, Digicel, at a cost of $18 million. Digicel’s CEO, Denis O’Brien, financed the reconstruction of the historic landmark himself.

prior to the earthquake need to be addressed,” said Anton Edmunds, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “An open and transparent investment climate — along with sound policies that assure a level playing field where large and small businesses can prosper alike — will be critical for any long-term tourism success.” That is perhaps why the Martelly government seems intent to bring fresh entrepreneurial talent like Altidor into the fold. For his part, the young ambassador is determined to use his private sector experience to change Haiti’s trajectory — and image. “When it comes to business, a lot of folks don’t view Haiti as an investment destination. People feel sorry for Haiti. Everything about Haiti is magnified, but in a detrimental way. One person gets kidnapped, and Haiti is the most violent country in the world,” he lamented. “We’re trying to shift that focus. Most of the folks who sit on the plane going to Port-auPrince are development people. But for us to start living and not just surviving, a good chunk of them should be leisure tourists who come to Haiti to enjoy themselves.” Another strong area for investment is the telecom sector. Digicel is the country’s largest private investor; its Haiti revenues account for more than $400 million of its total annual sales of $4.5 billion. In fact, the deal Altidor came to close when the earthquake struck is now a reality: A conglomerate run by the Vietnamese military recently purchased 60 percent of state-owned Teleco. The transaction came to only $59 million, but the new operators have committed to spending at least $200 million on infrastructure. Today, in fact, Haiti has more than 4 million mobile phone lines in service — up from only 132,000 mobile and fixed lines at the time of the quake. That gives the country a penetration rate of 65 to 70 percent. Nearly all of that is mobile, since Haiti has only 35,000 fixed lines. Yet when Altidor needs to get in touch with his bosses, he prefers email. “Given the importance of this embassy, it’s critical that I remain in close proximity to the president and prime minister,” he said. “We’re always exchanging emails on a daily basis. With President Martelly, you know where he stands — and he’s doing his best.” And so, apparently, is his enthusiastic envoy in Washington. “I’m here to provide solutions, not to complain about the resources we lack,” said Altidor. “This is my first real job in the public sector. I have decided to forego economic opportunities to make sure we do development right. If I didn’t personally believe in this, I wouldn’t have taken the job.” Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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Diplomacy

Washington, D.C.

State Department Eyes Walter Reed To Be D.C.’s Next Embassy Enclave by Martin Austermuhle

ity the foreign government official tasked with finding usable space for an embassy in Washington, D.C.

With a virtually recession-proof real estate market and office space costing $94 per square foot (second only to Midtown Manhattan in the United States), what offerings are available are bound to be expensive. Add the usual concerns of security and diplomatic reciprocity, and it quickly becomes evident that land for new embassies isn’t simply found by perusing the classifieds section of the local newspapers. The U.S. government is hoping to make the process easier, though, at least for a few countries.The State Department has recently outlined plans for the Foreign Missions Center, a 43.5-acre embassy campus that will be located on a former military base in Northwest Washington. By setting aside the land and offering it to select countries on favorable terms — especially considering Washington’s notoriously pricey real estate — the State Department hopes to make it easier for foreign governments to maintain a presence in Washington while also allowing Washington to better negotiate favorable terms for new U.S. embassies abroad. Located between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street in Northwest Washington, near the District’s border with Silver Spring, Md., the Walter Reed Army Medical Center served as the U.S. Army’s flagship medical care facility for more than a century. In 2011, though, the closure and consolidation of military bases across the United States left the 113-acre campus empty, its purpose and personnel moved only a few miles north to Bethesda. With available land becoming more and more scarce in D.C., the State Department jumped at the opportunity to appropriate the western portion of the center’s campus for use as the Foreign Missions Center (the remaining 70 acres go to the city for local development). If all goes to plan, over the next five years the State Department hopes that more than 20 embassies will move into new digs on the campus, offering them reduced rates on rent and the ease of being on a single, secure plot of land. The Foreign Missions Center won’t be the first embassy enclave of its kind in

Page 20

“

Photo: Larry Luxner

We expect to use this asset wisely. It’s a limited resource [and we] want to make sure that any assignments are well thought out and in the mutual best interest of the U.S. government as well as the government that would be receiving the land. — Cliff Seagroves

”

director of the State Department Office of Diplomatic Property, Taxes, Services and Benefits

Washington. In 1968, Congress created the International Chancery Center, a 47-acre site in the Van Ness neighborhood of Northwest Washington that now houses 17 chanceries, including Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Israel and Nigeria. (The center was formally inaugurated in 1972.) The most recent addition to the center was China’s I.M. Peidesigned chancery, which opened in 2008. The legislation that created the center charged the State Department with finding another site for a second campus. According to Cliff Seagroves, director of the Office of Diplomatic Property, Taxes, Services and Benefits in the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions, a number of new sites were considered over the intervening 40 years. They included the Old Soldiers’ Home, the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, the site that currently houses RFK Memorial

Stadium, and the Columbia Hospital for Women near the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters. Ultimately, though, the Walter Reed site was chosen as being most appropriate for a second embassy enclave. According to Jane Loeffler, an architectural historian and author of “The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies,” such campuses are standard practice in cities across the world, from Beijing to Brasilia.“There are enclaves.There’s historically been embassy centers in many cities,” she said. The benefits of the campuses are undeniable. First, they spare foreign governments from having to compete for office space in Washington’s pricey and incredibly crowded real estate market. “There were a lot of small countries that couldn’t afford to buy into D.C. real estate,” said Loeffler about the original International Chancery Center. “They

The State Department recently outlined plans for a new 43.5-acre embassy campus known as the Foreign Missions Center that will be housed on the former Walter Reed army base, located between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street in Northwest Washington.

couldn’t get anything decent, and they needed office space. This was a way to accommodate the demand in a very expensive real estate market.” That demand only increased over the last decade, according to the State Department, with more and more new countries requiring land in what is one of the smallest capital cities in the world. “Just as a large number of new countries were created in the years following World War II, the collapse in the 1990s of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia resulted in the creation of 21 new countries, all of which quickly moved to establish diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C.,” says a State Depart ment fact sheet. But even more important, said Seagroves, is the very principle that drives diplomacy: reciprocity. “When the State Department has land that it controls in Washington to effectively trade with other countries for lands our chancery needs abroad, it improves our ability — in some cases where you have challenges getting land

The Washington Diplomat

See walter reed, page 22 September 2012

Medical

Genetics

Web Service Lets People Crack Their Genetic Codes by Gina Shaw

ast week, I found out that I’m a carrier for a genetic variant (what’s commonly called a “mutation’) known as Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency.

I have one mutated and one normal copy of a gene called SERPINA1, which produces a protein that protects the body — especially fragile lung tissues — from the effects of a powerful enzyme released by white blood cells. About 100,000 Americans have this deficiency, according to the national AAT registry. AAT deficiency, which I’d never heard of before last week, basically means you’re at increased risk for lung problems. (It’s also linked to liver disease.) It’s particularly a problem for people who smoke, and I’ve always been a militant anti-smoker and have never noticed any trouble with my lung function. The diagnosis explains a lot about my mom’s health history, though. The mutated gene had to come from one of my parents, and from earliest childhood, my mom could remember calling out to friends, “Wait for me! I can’t catch my breath!” She had multiple bouts of pneumonia in adulthood, one of which contributed to her death from dementia in 2008 at the age of 74. I’m guessing — since we obviously can’t find out now — that she may have had two mutated SERPINA1 genes. I got all of this information not from my doctor, but because my husband and I decided to give ourselves a rather unusual present for our anniversary this year: We got our genomes sequenced. This would have been virtually impossible for us to do as individuals just 10 years ago, and prohibitively expensive even five years ago. But this spring, Evan and I ordered genome kits from a company called 23andMe.com, a Web-based personal genome service launched in 2008 by biotech analyst Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google founder Sergey Brin. (Time magazine named it “invention of the year.”) The cost: $299 each. Getting our personal genetic code was simple: Each of us spit into a specially designed tube sent by 23andMe, sealed it up, put it in a pre-labeled box, and sent it back to them. Less than three weeks later, we got emails notifying us that our genomes had been analyzed. Logging onto 23andMe’s Web site, we could each read about our genetic risk for more than 200 diseases, our carrier status for some 50 genetic mutations (including AAT deficiency), our pre-programmed likelihood to respond to certain drugs, and other traits like whether or not we flush in response to alcohol and what kind of ear wax we have. (No, really.) In addition to the personalized genetic test, 23andMe has launched a campaign to unearth the genes behind Parkinson’s, inviting anyone diagnosed with the disease to submit a DNA sample for research — and in return, participants get the company’s services for free. It remains to be seen if casting such a wide net to learn more about diseases such as Parkinson’s yields any tangible results. For now, the majority of people who use 23andMe and other such services are, of course, curious September 2012

You don’t really know what’s hidden in your genes, and what’s there can surprise you. about their own genetic makeup and what it reveals about them. Most of what we found out was intriguing, but not important. It doesn’t really matter that I’m a fast caffeine metabolizer, or that I have a very slightly increased risk of developing Crohn’s disease. But with a family history of dementia and other neurological disorders, I have to say that I was relieved to learn that I don’t have any known genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease — in fact, 23andMe’s report says that my genetic risk for both these conditions is substantially less than average.

Of course, that’s based only on the genetic variants that 23andMe tests for — 10 markers for Parkinson’s and one for Alzheimer’s. This doesn’t definitively establish that I’ll remain free of either disorder as I age. I also found out that I have an increased risk of exfoliation glaucoma, where a whitish material that looks like dandruff builds up on the lens of the eye. Most people have about a 1 percent lifetime risk, while mine is 2.9 percent. That’s not a huge worry, but it’s enough to suggest to me that I should stick carefully to the Glaucoma Foundation’s recommendation of an eye test every one to three years between the ages of 40 and 54 — maybe closer to the every year side of the equation. But the big thing on my mind is this AAT deficiency. People with my form of the mutation (there are several, with the most severe being those who inherited two mutated genes) are usually fine unless they smoke, I’ve learned on the discussion forums that 23andMe offers. But even those with a mild mutation who are totally healthy, like me, are advised to keep a close eye on liver and lung function. So I’m going to need to get in to see a primary care provider to get some baseline testing.And Evan and I will also have to talk about genetic testing for our two biological children, who could also be carriers of the deficient gene (although not the most severe form, with two mutations, because Evan is not a carrier). This isn’t exactly what I expected when I sent the test in — which is kind of the point. You don’t really know what’s hidden in your genes, and what’s there can surprise you. I got “good” news about neurologic disease risk, but surprising “bad” news about something I’d Photo: istock never even heard of before. That doesn’t mean I wish I hadn’t taken the test. Quite the opposite. Because early detection of lung and liver symptoms in someone with AAT deficiency can help stave off more significant deterioration, I’m glad I know about it now — for myself, and possibly for my kids. I can also pat myself on the back about how fiercely I’ve avoided cigarette smoke and recommit myself to vigorous exercise that builds my lung capacity. Anyone who gets his or her genome sequenced could get similarly surprising news, positive or negative. While Evan and I did it mostly for fun, the fact is that your genome isn’t a party trick. Learning information about your genetic risk of certain illnesses can be serious business. Some people want to know the answers to questions like these, and some prefer to keep such information at arm’s length. Only you know which one you are. Gina Shaw is the medical writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 21

for Planning and Economic Development. City officials estimate they could gain $20 million in annual tax revenues from their portion of the Walter Reed site. The plans aren’t without criticism, — to move those issues forward and move on to the though. The process to develop the site next stage of building new, safe and secure facilities for could take a decade or more and is sure our personnel and operations in countries abroad,” he to be filled with bureaucratic wrangling said. among residents, businesses and city Those considerations, he added, will help determine officials on the best way to revitalize the which countries get the coveted former Walter Reed downtrodden stretch of Georgia Avenue. space — and which ones might not. “We expect to use In the meantime, area businesses fear an this asset wisely. It’s a limited resource [and we] want to economic vacuum. make sure that any assignments are well thought out and On the embassy side of the equation, in the mutual best interest of the U.S. government as much like the International Chancery well as the government that would be receiving the Center before it, some have said that the land.” Walter Reed site is too far removed from In some cases, he noted, that reciprocity would downtown Washington to be conveextend as far as the particulars of lease agreements that nient. (There is no Metro access to the a foreign country receives. According to Loeffler, the site, unlike the center at Van Ness.) deals can be quite good. Countries that secured spots at Additionally, the creation of these the International Chancery Center were able to sign enclaves shuts off chanceries from the 99-year leases for a fraction of the cost of renting or buygeneral public — a similar complaint ing in Washington. that has been made about new, fortressSeagroves says that while the process of preparing the Photo: Larry Luxner like U.S. embassies abroad. land at Walter Reed for use has only just begun, he hopes The western portion of the now-abandoned Walter Reed Army Medical Loeffler understands those concerns and wonders what it to see countries starting construction by 2015. And while he said Center will possibly house some 20 embassies in the near future, while the might say about some of the countries that choose to move to the that he’s not yet sure how many plots will be available, 25 coun- rest of the site will go to the city for local redevelopment. new Walter Reed enclave. Still, she adds, many visitors to tries have expressed interest in the land, and the State Department had led 10, if not more, tours of the site. new enclave. While the Foreign Missions Center will take up a Washington rarely know that they could be standing next to a to begin with, so the change won’t likely be widely So which countries are NOTE: interested in setting up shop on the of the Walter site, remaining 70 acres have been chancery Although every effort is madeportion to assure your ad Reed is free ofthe mistakes in spelling and content it is ultimately up to the customer noticed. new campus? The perennially reticent State Department would turned over to the D.C. government for redevelopment. And for a to make the final proof. As for city officials, the change could be an economic boon. For not discuss the details, and Seagroves cautioned that any decision city that has long complained that much of its land — occupied foreign governments, it could a brand new home for their on who can build on the site is still a ways off. by embassies, churches, hospitals and the federal government — is The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxedmean alteration. “We haven’t gotten into serious discussions yet with countries un-taxable, Signed the opportunity develop aapproved. prime chunk of real embassies at a bargain cost.And for the State Department, it could ads are to considered that have expressed interest so far in possibly relocating or locat- estate along Georgia Avenue has elicited praise and excitement help secure new sites for America’s own missions abroad — all in check ad carefully. Mark any changes to yourall,ad. not a bad deal for everyone involved. ing their operations at the center, nor have we been able toPlease have from city this officials. a lot of serious discussions internally because we have to get A mixed-use community is being planned that could include an the ad is correct and fax to: (301) 949-0065 changes Theaccording Washington (301) 933-3552 Martin Austermuhle is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat through theseIf initial stages first,” hesign explained. anchor retailer, needs residences and commercial space, to Diplomat It’s not only foreign governments that will be pleased with the Jose Sousa, the spokesman for the Office of the D.C. Deputy Mayor and editor in chief of DCist.com. Approved _____________________________________________ Changes _____________________________________________________________________

from page 20

Walter Reed

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The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

Global Vantage Point

Economics

Op-Ed: Untangling The Greek Gordian Knot by Nikos Chrysoloras

RUSSELS — Numbers are not enough to depict the Greek drama, which has not abated despite a late summertime lull, but I will give it a shot:

Unemployment has hit 23.1 percent in the general population, and it has exceeded 50 percent among the youth. Whoever loses his or her job in Greece today has virtually no prospect of finding another one in the foreseeable future. The Athens Stock Exchange has lost almost 90 percent of its value in comparison to pre-crisis levels, and twothirds of registered companies published losses in 2011. House prices have plummeted between 20 percent and 50 percent, while non-performing loans now exceed 15 percent. Accumulated GDP contraction is projected to exceed 20 percent between end 2008 and the end of 2012. The economy has been in a recession for five years now. Suicides jumped by 22 percent between 2010 and 2012. Greek police data show significant increases across the spectrum of violent crimes (thefts, robberies, rapes, homicides, etc.).The number of homeless people has also grown by 25 percent over the last two years. Moreover, an ever-increasing number of insurance companies refuse to insure exports to Greece. Oil and gas suppliers require down payments in cash to provide fuel to the country. Virtually all private utility suppliers have gone bankrupt and the state providers are facing an unprecedented cash crunch due to the inability of households to pay their bills. Thousands of apartment blocs, even in the middle class neighborhoods of Athens, did not have heating last winter because the owners of their flats were unable to pay service charges. Hospitals lack even trivial supplies.The Greek state owes 6.7 billion euro to its suppliers, who, in turn, are unable to pay their own bills and employees. Greek banks have suffered huge losses, due to the recent debt restructuring, and are essentially unable to provide credit to the economy, which is verging on the brink of a full-blown depression. In short, all the little things that place a society in the developed world — being able to find petrol for your car in the local gas station, adequate health care, flats with heating, the sense of reasonable security, a job — are being called into question in Greece. The people in my country cannot be sure what currency they will be using in a few months, if they will be able to travel, if they will be able to make ends meet for themselves and their families. The daily routine in Athens is indeed a true nightmare: The center of the city is closed almost every day to street rallies. Massive traffic jams are making the lives of Athenians miserable. Garbage collection, public transport and even the electrical supply are disrupted by recurring public sector strikes. Historical landmarks are vandalized by alienated youths. The streets of downtown Athens are littered and full of beggars, neoclassical buildings have been burned down in violent riots, and the center of the city is stricken by crime, illegal immigration and poverty. Under such conditions, extremism finds fruitful ground to grow. On top of all that, Greeks have to endure daily humiliation in the international press, demeaning comments from European politicians, and borderline racist behavior when abroad. Humiliation, desperation and the rapid deterioration of living conditions, due to the economic implosion,

September 2012

Photo: Alexandru Nika / istock

“

All the little things that place a society in the developed world — being able to find petrol for your car in the local gas station, adequate health care, flats with heating, the sense of reasonable security, a job — are being called into question in Greece.

”

have backfired: Chrissi Avgi (Golden Dawn), a once-fringe neo-Nazi party that was barely registering a few thousand votes in previous polls, attracted almost 7 percent of the vote in the last two parliamentary elections, and elected 18 MPs. The growing influence of such a party — in a country that suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths during the Nazi occupation and is proud for its valiant resistance to fascism and authoritarianism during the Second World War and the Cold War — is indicative of the desperation of the Greek society. It seems that not only German populist newspapers like the Bild have forgotten that hundreds of thousands of Greeks died from famine during the occupation by a stillliving generation of Germans — the Greeks have also forgotten it. Populist media in Greece compare Chancellor Angela Merkel with Adolf Hitler, anti-austerity demonstrators often burn German flags in the streets, and there have even been a few reports of violent attacks against northern European nationals and tourists (though such inci-

A woman holds a flag in front of the Greek Parliament during a protest in 2011. Greece’s economy has been in recession now for the past five years.

dents are still extremely rare). The worst of it all is that there is no end in sight and, despite the sacrifices, we are back to square one: Due to the prolonged pre-election paralysis, a more severe-thananticipated recession, as well as Greece’s weak administrative capacity, the troika of international lenders (European Union, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund), who are in Athens these days has concluded that the implementation of the second “Economic Adjustment Programme,” which was agreed to last March, is way off track. A higher deficit and shrinking GDP mean that Greece’s debt dynamic is fast becoming unsustainable once again, despite the recent haircut. Now, both Greece and its troika lenders are faced with two equally unappealing options: either to enforce more austerity measures in an economy already on the brink of depression, or allow for a renegotiation of the terms of the bailout agreement. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has warned that the country is headed for bankruptcy in October if it doesn’t receive additional assistance, though he says that assistance doesn’t necessarily mean extra money — just more time. “All we want is a bit of ‘air to breathe’ to get the economy running and to increase government revenues,” he told Germany’s Bild newspaper. But just as it’s doubtful that more spending cuts are politically feasible in Greece, it’s also highly doubtful that euro-area governments, namely Germany, will commit to a slower pace of deficit reduction for the beleaguered country. Some self-proclaimed experts on Greece have suggested that there is no solution to the Greek predicament, other than abandoning the eurozone. They are dead wrong. Greece does not have a currency to devalue. It will have to introduce a new currency from scratch, while already

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 23

from page 9

Kerlikowske American ambassadors quarterly, as a result of us reaching out to them and wanting to be able to talk more about drug policy,” he said.“This administration has a very different outlook on dealing with the drug issue internationally. We want to export more than helicopters. We want to export prevention and treatment programs that have been tested and actually work. It’s not always recognized that the United States can provide that.” To that end, Kerlikowske recently visited Guatemala, where he met with President Otto Pérez Molina and also visited a women’s drug rehabilitation center in the capital. “This Guatemalan treatment center met a public health need that’s not confined by national borders. In many cases, the women being treated at this center had made enormous sacrifices to be there, and their choices for treatment had been woefully limited before they arrived,” he said.“My point is that drug consumption isn’t just a U.S. or European problem; drug consumption is a significant and growing social problem in places we once called supply and transit countries.” Through the administration’s Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), Kerlikowske said the United States is “helping to create safe streets in Latin America, disrupt drug trafficking, and support democratic institutions. But CARSI funding also goes to gang prevention and social programs for at-risk youth to provide healthy alternatives to substance abuse.” The ex-cop, who’s credited with bringing Seattle’s crime rate to a 40-year low during his tenure there, said four decades as a police chief taught him that “you don’t change the level of crime in a neighborhood unless you first have safety going into it. In Mexico, people often want

to use Colombia as a template. Colombia took well over a decade to make these significant changes. Their citizens were taxed at a level that allowed the government to provide infrastructure, safety and security, which made a huge difference. Reducing corruption is really at the foundation of all this.” It’s also important, he said, to provide economically sustainable alternatives to farmers who give up coca production in countries like Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. “Institutional support for alternative development is absolutely critical, whether it’s fish farming, cacao or other crops. The success has been pretty amazing,” said Kerlikowske. “This not only reduces the amount of drugs coming out of Latin America, but also ensures that farmers have viable alternatives to support themselves and their families as they turn to alternate, legal crops.” Meanwhile, in the United States, the retail purity of powder cocaine purchased domestically has dropped by 28 percent since 2006, while the rate of Americans testing positive for cocaine in the workplace fell by 63 percent between 2006 and 2011, according to Kerlikowske’s office. And unintentional overdose deaths in the United States related to cocaine dropped 41 percent, from 6,726 in 2006 to 3,988 in 2009, the year for which the most recent data are available. “In the last 30 years, drug use across the nation has generally declined, but there’s been some increase in the last couple of years,” Kerlikowske said, reflecting on what he describes as a complex, ever-morphing problem that defies easy categorization.“Prescription drugs not coming across any border have taken more lives than cocaine and heroin combined, and yet it’s been an unrecognized problem until about three years ago.” Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

filler 1/2 page

Page 24

Continued from previous page being in a state of default. Such move would be suicidal, especially for a country that is not a net exporter of raw or manufactured goods. No one will be accepting drachmas in return for oil, fuel or medicines. If it abandons the eurozone, Greece will implode, and the West stands to lose as much as Greeks themselves from such a catastrophe, both in geostrategic and economic terms. Others say that austerity is the problem and that Greece should be allowed to follow expansionary Keynesian policies. But when your debt is already 160 percent of GDP, expansionary policies are not feasible. Moreover, even if they were, they would solve none of the structural problems of the Greek economy, namely public finance mismanagement, lack of export-oriented enterprises, and weak administration. So if Keynesian policies are unfeasible and counterproductive, a return to the drachma suicidal, but the imposition of more austerity measures is also intolerable, what can be done to heal the wounds of Greece’s despair? The first thing is that insults and national humiliation undermine the legitimacy of the Economic Adjustment Programme.The new government already has a herculean task ahead of it and comments like those recently made by several European politicians only make things worse. Millions of Greeks have paid dearly not only for their mistakes, but also for the mistakes of their governments and the incompetence of European oversight institutions. The second prerequisite to avoid catastrophe is to tell the European and Greek taxpayers the truth at last — that there are no quick fixes, magic formulas or easy solutions. The Greek economy and the Greek public administration need a complete overhaul from scratch. This will take years and sustained efforts. But the alternatives are catastrophic for both Greece and the eurozone. All this should be made clear to the citizens. Restoring the competitiveness of the Greek economy and changing its structure is the only way for the country to survive in the absence of cheap credit. And the result of the recent elections shows that the Greek people have already realized this. But consolidation efforts should not be focused on the achievement of fiscal targets only. On the contrary, conditionality for the disbursement of cash from the bailout mechanism should be tied to meaningful reforms that will improve the quality of life of the Greek people (e.g. reduction of bureaucracy). Lest there be no doubt: Vested interests will resist reform to their last breath. But it’s either them or the survival or Greece. The fourth prerequisite to avert a cataclysmic social backlash is to do more to spread the burden of adjustment in a manner that is socially just.The troika has so far refused any responsibility for the fact that its predictions regarding recession and the social impact of the measures adopted were all dead wrong. It is high time its executives admit that ‘mea culpa’ and then try to bring the Adjustment Programme on a more socially sustainable path and pursue “growth-friendly” consolidation. Furthermore, new computer software and “know how” for Greece’s ministries can also improve Greek public administration with negligible cost for the European taxpayer. The Greek government has already asked for such assistance in the form of an EU Task Force for Greece; so far, the task force has not managed to produce

tangible results. Moreover, eliminating uncertainty is the key to stopping Greece’s economic implosion. Although austerity measures imposed by Greece’s international lenders certainly have an adverse effect on growth and suppress output, the fact that the Greek economy is in such a comatose state is mainly due to macroeconomic uncertainty and the lack of credit lines (which in turn is also a symptom of macroeconomic uncertainty). It should have been common sense: No Greek or foreigner will invest and create jobs as long as no convincing guarantees are provided that the country will remain a part of the eurozone and it will not relapse into the developing world. Hence, if the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Greek authorities finally agree on a definitive deal, which will ensure the medium-term financing of the Greek economy, then uncertainty will disappear and the Greek economy will rebound. Besides, a successful resolution of the Greek crisis will help restore confidence in the eurozone, hence enhancing growth globally while helping pull the Greek economy out of the mud as well. How can this target be achieved? First, we need a swift deal for an updated memorandum of understanding between Greece and its lenders. A second haircut, this time for the bonds held by the ECB and national central banks, or an easing of the bailout terms, or a combination of both, is necessary. Prolonged negotiations for such a deal only worsen the cash and credit crunch in Greece, thus pushing its economy further into depression. Once the deal is finalized, then cash disbursements from the bailout money will resume, Greek banks will be recapitalized, and the Greek state will pay its bills to its suppliers. This will allow the Greek economy to avoid asphyxiation. Finally, Greece’s Adjustment Programme needs to be accompanied by a mini Marshall Plan. Otherwise, the violent restructuring of the Greek economy will tear the nation apart. The foundations for this Marshall Plan are already in place: Greece’s performance in absorbing EU structural funds has significantly improved over the last few years and is now above EU average. Second, in accordance with the decisions of last June’s EU Summit, the funds, which have been or will be used for the recapitalization of Greece’s private banks, should be taken off the country’s books of public debt. If this happens, it will be a huge leap toward ensuring Greece’s solvency and sustainability of public debt. Third, the 120 billion euro Pact for Growth and Jobs, which was also agreed to during June’s summit, should prioritize countries under duress, like Greece. If a sizeable chunk of this package is directed toward the European periphery, then some of the social effects of the austerity measures will be alleviated. And lastly, a twoyear extension to the deadline given to Greece to bring its deficit below the 3 percent threshold would give its economy enough time to adjust. Obviously, Greece should be required to give something in return: an unequivocal commitment to pursuing reform. The Greek people seem willing to do so. Nikos Chrysoloras is EU correspondent for Kathimerini, Greece’s leading newspaper, and a Robert Bosch Foundation EU Journalism Fellow for 2012. He holds a Ph.D. in government from the London School of Economics. An earlier, more extended version of this article was published by Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Germany.

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

EDUCATION ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ September 2012

A KINg’s Vision

Photo: www.PhotograPhyByalexander.com / cultural mission of the emBassy of saudi araBia

Thanks to Scholarship, Saudi Students Return To U.S. in Droves by Suzanne Kurtz

■ INSIDE: Ross Lewis ups the international ante at the University of Maryland. PAGE 30 ■ Americans aren’t speaking the same language when it comes to global competitiveness. PAGE 34 ■

September 2012

EDUCATION

The Washington Diplomat Page25

UNCF helps thousands of deserving students. But we have to turn away thousands more. So please give to the United Negro College Fund. Your donation will make a difference. Visit uncf.org or call 1-800-332-8623.

After living in the United States for six years, Hani Aljuaid has developed a taste for American coffee. “Every morning, I go to Starbucks. It’s a habit I picked up” while studying at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the 25-year-old from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “But at night, I have to have Arabic coffee.” Along with a newfound penchant for caffeine, Aljuaid recently completed a bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics, one of nearly 68,000 Saudis studying this year at more than 1,200 universities and colleges across the United States as a participant in the King Abdullah Photo: www.PhotographyByAlexander.com / Cultural Mission of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia Scholarship Program (KASP). As part of the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, nearly 70,000 Saudi students are attending more than At an estimated cost to the Saudi 1,200 universities and colleges across the United States this year. government of nearly $5 billion since its inception in 2005, the program provides Saudi nationals who are pursuing their bachelor’s, dents, it is not surprising that much is expected of them as well. master’s or doctorate degrees, as well as medical residencies and The objective of the scholarship program “is all encompassing: fellowships, with full tuition, a monthly stipend for living expenses, educationally, economically, politically and socially,” said Dr. Mody full medical and dental insurance, and an annual round-trip ticket Alkhalaf, director of cultural and social affairs at the Cultural back to Saudi Arabia. In addition, there are financial incentives for Mission of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia based in Northern Virginia. maintaining a high grade point average and dependants of acceptEach student is assigned an academic advisor through the ed students can also receive the benefits of health insurance and Cultural Mission and they must provide the advisor with a class tuition coverage. schedule as well as copies of their transcripts. The majority of the nearly 130,000 KASP recipients are studying While there is no formal contract that must be signed between in the United States; however, there are currently Saudi students at the students and the government, it is more of a “gentleman’s agreeBurke Diplomat Ad August:Layout 1 8/16/12 10:30 PM Page 1 more than 30 universities around the globe, namely in the United ment,” said Alkhalaf, that when they are finished with their studies, Kingdom, Canada, Western Europe, India, Australia and Japan. students will return to Saudi Arabia and help the country progress With this tremendous investment in the education of these stu- and develop into the 21st century.

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EDUCATION

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

“My whole journey in the U.S. has been wonderful…. I had a golden opportunity with this scholarship, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to pursue my education.”

The aim of the scholarship program is to create an educated middle class that can sustain the kingdom beyond its vast but gradually declining oil reserves. (Another unspoken goal is that the Western influence may help tame religious extremism back home.) Not surprising, the areas of study that are most encouraged by KASP are in the fields of engineering,medicine or business.But Alkhalaf said there is increasing flexibility in this. “The only thing we say they can’t do is take Arabic 101 as an elective,” she said. It is also — Hani Aljuaid not uncommon for students to apply to the program again so that they can pursue an King Abdullah Scholarship recipient additional degree or continue their educational training. Aljuaid recently relocated to Washington, To that end, the students are encouraged to become D.C., to continue his studies at the George involved on campus and within the communities where Washington University, where he will begin a they are living to promote cultural outreach, forming master’s degree in finance. Saudi student clubs, for instance, and holding regular “My whole journey in the U.S. has been events. Presently, there are more than 200 registered wonderful,” he said. “I had a golden opportuclubs around the country, Alkhalaf noted. nity with this scholarship, a once-in-a-lifetime During his time at Nova Southeastern, Aljuaid started chance to pursue my education. And it is betand served as the president of his university’s Saudi ter to have two degrees than one before going student club, which he said held events for Ramadan home.” and Saudi National Day, in addition to hosting fundraisYet the expectations of the students go ers for disaster relief in Haiti and a blood drive at a local Photo: Cultural Mission of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia beyond just academics and acquiring book hospital. knowledge. Alkhalaf tells incoming KASP stuSaudis studying in the United States under the King Abdullah “Conducting these events and showcasing all the dents that “you’re here to learn not just facts Scholarship Program are encouraged to become involved on campus and beautiful things about our culture and our country really and figures but also other cultures and take within the communities where they live to promote cultural outreach, gives you this ambassadorial feeling,” said Aljuaid.“Being back things [to Saudi Arabia] that are posiforming Saudi student clubs and holding regular events. exposed to many cultures and different types of people tive.” is a really important part of your life as a student.” For his part, King Abdullah has expressed his hope that the Saudi students will also With Saudi students spread across the United States and in nearly every state,Alkhalaf serve as “ambassadors” for the kingdom — “for them to know the world and for the world to know them,”Alkhalaf said. Continued on next page

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Continued from previous page acknowledged that sometimes students have complained about racism, but she is quick to add that sometimes “the Americans complain that the students aren’t paying their rent.” “But more often than not,” she said,“it’s positive relations that are being built.” Students from Saudi Arabia have been coming to the United States to study for decades, increasing rapidly in the late 1970s and peaking in the early ’80s, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE). The number dropped significantly in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to only 1,000 Saudi students in 2004, when greater restrictions were placed on visa applicants after it NOTE: Although that every was discovered 15effort of theis19made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and content is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. hijackers were from it Saudi Arabia. In 2005, however, after an agreemission of the emBassy of saudi araBia these restrictions Thement first to twoease faxed changes will be made at no cost to Photo: thecultural advertiser, subsequent changes was brokered between King Dr. Mody Alkhalaf, director of cultural andconsidered social will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are approved. Abdullah and President George W. affairs at the cultural mission of the embassy of Bush, universities fromcheck California arabia, speaks a graduation Please this adsaudi carefully. Mark atany changesceremony to yourinad. to Alabama began to see a sharp Virginia in 2010. the objective of the King abdullah rise in Saudi students applying to scholarship Program, she says, “is all encompassing: If theacademic ad is correct signon and faxcamto: (301) 949-0065 needs changes programs their educationally, economically, politically and socially.” puses. According to the IIE, today, The Washington Diplomat (301)of933-3552 Saudi Arabia ranks sixth in the number students that it sends to the United States — behind only China, India, South Korea, Canada and Taiwan. (More than 720,000 foreign students enrolled in the United Approved __________________________________________________________ States during the 2010-11 school year, up 32 percent from a decade Changes ___________________________________________________________ ago.) ___________________________________________________________________ While the notion of allowing more Saudi nationals into the United

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EDUCATION

September 2012

States has raised alarm bells for some U.S. policymakers wary of the possibility that these students might import terrorism, others say the experience could lead to greater moderation in a country where religious conservatives maintain a powerful grip over the education system. “If anybody is going to modernize [Saudi] society, it’s going to be people” exposed to the West, Elliott Abrams, a conservative analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, told Ellen Knickmeyer of the Wall Street Journal. “In that sense, I’m all in favor of it.” Unlike decades ago, the students are not just coming from the wealthy classes, but across all economic sectors in Saudi Arabia. The scholarship program has also been a golden opportunity for many Saudi women, who live in one of the world’s most gender-restricted societies, to get a Western education. Nearly 30 percent of KASP recipients this year are female, said Alkhalaf. And the majority of these women are pursuing advanced degrees. It is a trend that Fanta Aw, the assistant vice president of campus life and director of international student and scholar services at American University in D.C., has been observing on her campus. American University has always had students from Saudi Arabia, said Aw, but since the KASP began in 2005, that numIn October: ber has noticeably increased. With the exception of one or The Diplomat two students, she said that all of the 62 Saudi students Education section enrolled at the university this fall are recipients of the scholwill focus on China, arship and a third of those students are female. “That is significant. It’s very telling about where the socihome to the largest ety is at and the role of women in 2012, both the importance group of foreign of women in the Middle East and education,” said Aw. students making For 25-year-old KASP recipient Zahra Alwazir, “this is the an impact on U.S. time to go in. Not that many women my age are working [in universities and Saudi Arabia]. I’ll be able to climb the [professional] ladder a colleges. lot faster.” Another noticeable change that Aw has witnessed in her 20 years on campus is the diversity in the areas of study for the Saudi students. In addition to the traditional fields of engineering, business and medicine, the students are enrolling in programs like law and government, public communication, psychology and education, she said. To help prepare the students for the academic, social and cultural transitions that they will experience on campus, her office holds an orientation before the semester begins.While the university has the infrastructure in place to support

many of the religious needs of the Saudi students, Aw also emphasizes the importance of a shared community and “peer-to-peer support.” “Knowing that someone understands you is a very important piece for a successful transition,” she said. For Alwazir, who recently finished her master’s degree in finance at American University after completing a bachelor’s degree at the university in May 2011, a shared cultural community was an important part of her experience on campus. “At American, there are so many different cultures and I took advantage of this,” she said, noting that, however, her closest friends still hailed from the Middle East. Alwazir plans to return to Dhahran, on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, later this fall and hopes to begin her professional life in business consulting. “I’m looking forward to starting my career. I see it as an opportunity to go back,” she said.“They need us, our opinions, in the workforce to help develop the country and bring back our skills. I’m so excited for it and I’m so ready.” Suzanne Kurtz is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

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888.744.GRAD The Washington Diplomat Page29

[ universities ]

‘Dream Job’ New International Affairs Head Wants the World for University of Maryland by Suzanne Kurtz

n 1976, when Ross Lewin was 16 years old, he left his Los Angeles home for the first time to spend the year in Hannover and Hamburg, Germany, as an exchange student with the program Youth for Understanding. Decades later, he still recalls this experience “to see the world from outside of the U.S.” as “incredibly formative.” Eventually, it would also help shape both his worldview and career. As the newly appointed associate vice president for international affairs at the University of Maryland, Lewin said he hopes to bring new international programs to the College Park campus “and transform the lives of students, the way mine had been.” After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Lewin earned his Ph.D. in German studies from Stanford University in 2000. He taught German literature on campus before moving into university administration. From 2001 until 2004, Lewin directed the honors study abroad program at the The University of Maryland has some 300 formal partnerships with universities and governments overseas and sent University of North Carolina at 2,200 undergraduate students abroad last year to study in nations such as Italy, above, and Peru, far right. Chapel Hill. He comes to the University of Maryland directly from the University of Connecticut, where he was executive director of the Office of Global Programs and director of the Office of Study Abroad. During his eight years at UConn, Lewin quadrupled student participation in global programs, particularly with minority students, and persuaded the university to form alliances with 23 world-class research universities. “It’s an indication of the direction things are going — the scale of opportunities is greater than you can achieve operating independently or through traditional bilateral alliances,” he said of university partnerships. For the University of Maryland, international initiatives rank high among its strategic priorities, said Wallace Loh, the university’s president. Since taking office in 2010, Loh has put increased emphasis on deepening students’ global competencies, expanding the curriculum’s international content, and strengthening cross-border relationships. And he has been proactive about developing ties with universities overseas. — Ross Lewin, associate vice president for international affairs Recently, Loh joined the governor of Maryland on a trip to India and China, at the University of Maryland where he met with Chinese higher education leaders and visited seven universities; in India, he met with contemporaries at eight universities. Loh is now small. It is the largest public research university within a 30-minute proximity planning a similar visit to Israel in November. The appeal of partnerships with universities in these countries is their “very to Washington, D.C., with 37,000 students, 12 colleges and schools, 9,000 facstrong interest in entrepreneurship and innovation” — a priority they share ulty and staff, and an annual operating budget of $1.7 billion. As such, Loh said it is common for the campus to be visited by the education contingents of with the University of Maryland, Loh said. “Globalization benefits Maryland and the U.S.,” he told us. “It keeps the international delegations when they come to the United States, and “this benUniversity of Maryland competitive, and in a world economy, that’s ultimately efits the University of Maryland in an enormous way.” The university presently boasts more than 300 formal partnerships with what it’s all about.” But the international reach of the University of Maryland is already far from universities and governments overseas, has faculty from more than 130 coun-

Photo: Alexandra Zablotny

“The University of Maryland makes international education one of its highest priorities, has unbelievably rich programming in place, and is ideally located to pursue these goals.”

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EDUCATION

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

tries, and is consistently named among the top 25 universities welcoming international students. In fact, it had more than 3,500 international students in doctorial programs last year and sent 2,200 undergraduate students overseas to study as well. Yet international programs, emphasizes Lewin, who assumed his responsibilities in August, are “more than just sending students abroad” and “hoping for the best.” He concedes that with some study abroad programs, students might not be studying as seriously as they would back home, but the experience should not be underestimated. It is possible to create “high-value programs,” but first it is important to think about the “intentionality of the program,” according to Lewin. Asking questions such as what the expected learning outcomes of the program should be and

See maryland, page 36

Photo: Katherine Rennenkampf

EDUCATION

September 2012

The Washington Diplomat Page31

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NISTRATION

September 2012

The Washington Diplomat Page 33

[ opinion ]

Language of 21st Century Op-Ed: To Compete, Americans’ Future Has to Be Multilingual by Linda Moore

e Americans must confront a stark disadvantage we face when it comes to the global economy. Some eight in 10 Americans speak only English, and the number of schools teaching a foreign language is in decline, according to a new study by the Council on Foreign Relations. But the opposite is true among our economic competitors. While some 200 million Chinese students are learning English, only 24,000 Americans are studying Chinese, U.S. Department of Education statistics say. Foreign language degrees account for only 1 percent of all U.S. undergraduate degrees. And fewer than 2 percent of U.S. undergraduates study abroad in a given year, the Education Department says. Our nation is largely monolingual but is entering an increasingly multilingual world. More than half of European Union citizens speak a language other than their mother tongue, and more than a quarter speak at least three languages. This is because additional languages are studied in European primary and secondary schools, and are taken up by European college students in much larger numbers than in the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored task force report, headed by former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, concluded: “Education failure puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk.” It warned that the country “will not be able to keep pace — much less lead — globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long.” For decades, our children were deprived of bilingual or multilingual education out of a mistaken belief that it took time away from other subjects, hindering students’ academic development. But recent research has shown that learning another language is a wise investment, rather than a waste. Research from the University of Georgia found that bilingual school children perform better on standardized tests including the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) than their monolingual peers.A George Mason University study discovered that younger students who had enrolled in a second language immersion program outperformed those who did not in coursework, as well as on standardized tests, throughout their scholastic careers. Educators now conclude that learning additional languages improves one’s ability to focus, plan and solve problems. Among other benefits, this means that such students are better able to move efficiently from one subject

Photo: Graça Victoria / BigStock

to another. The D.C.-based Center for Applied Linguistics has ascertained that the earlier we learn a foreign language, the greater the benefits. Moreover, these benefits can last a lifetime. Learning another language can help people stave off the effects of aging, including preventing the onset of dementia and other agerelated conditions like Alzheimer’s, according to research done by University of California neuroscientists. I believe that teaching students foreign languages in pre-kindergarten to sixth-grade classes is a worthwhile investment. Our school educates 350 students in NortheastWashington, D.C., to think, speak, read, write and learn in two languages, either English and French, or English and Spanish. Exposure to a new language and the skills it helps develop is a key reason that our school, where 80 percent of our students come from low-income households, was ranked as high performing by D.C.’s Public Charter School Board in December. The ranking system was based on several factors, including test scores, attendance and re-enrollment rates. The benefits of learning a new language go beyond the classroom. When students graduate, being fluent in a second language improves their career prospects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a number of emerging occupations need workers who can speak and write in more than one language. A University of Florida study revealed that in large, linguistically

Our nation is largely monolingual but is entering an increasingly multilingual world. More than half of European Union citizens speak a language other than their mother tongue, and more than a quarter speak at least three languages.

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September 2012

TRADITIONAL VALUES in a Modern World

diverse cities such as Miami and San Antonio, the ability to speak a second language translates into more than $7,000 of increased annual income. We want our students to have access to these opportunities and more. The economic importance of being bilingual is highlighted by the fact that 31 percent of company executives can speak at least two languages, according to international executive search firm Korn/Ferry. Using multilingualism, we are expanding the scope of children’s learning at a time when public policy limits school accountability to math and reading. Most policymakers want their children to have global skill sets but do not encourage this in our public schools. Other countries have learned this lesson and have made the necessary commitments to teach their Beverlie Lord / Satsun Photography students additional languages.Their students’ exposure to additional languages is paying dividends. I would like to see the U.S. Department of Education encourage local education authorities to invest in bilingual and multilingual education. Given the global competition for good jobs, this is not a luxury, but a necessity. It will help our children, and our nation, to succeed in the economy of tomorrow. Linda Moore is founder and executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School, which is located in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

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what should students be achieving can guide the creation of study abroad programs, Lewin explained, and allow students to acquire valuable skills like language acquisition, cultural awareness and critical thinking abilities, not to mention personal growth and maturation. Including opportunities for in-country internships and volunteering along with the academics is also key, Lewin added. When these practices are implemented, the study abroad experience is “transformative” and “extraordinary,” and becomes a critical component for helping students embrace global citizenship, he said. Bolstering the study abroad initiatives is just one way Lewin is working to make the University of Maryland the “best globally networked university in the nation” and a hub of international education. Another priority for Lewin in strengthening Maryland’s international offerings is to leverage the resources that come with the university’s prime location. “What better location is there, when Washington, D.C., is your backyard?” Lewin said he hopes to create internship programs for undergraduate students in Congress, the State Department and with nongovernmental organizations that focus on international issues. He also wants to work closely with the embassies in Washington to open up additional opportunities for students. Lewin wants to explore other ideas such as creating a set of international summer schools at the University of Maryland that would attract students from around the world and focus on subjects of particular strength for the university, such as cyber security and conflict resolution. Lewin also noted that he would like to strengthen the university’s relationships with institutions in Africa and Latin America. There are always challenges when you start a new position, but “this is a dream job for anyone in my field,” said Lewin.“The University of Maryland makes international education one of its highest priorities, has unbelievably rich programming in place, and is ideally located to pursue these goals.… My promise is to bring creativity, an open mind and commitment.” Suzanne Kurtz is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

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EDUCATION

September 2012

LIVING L U X U R Y

■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ September 2012

Tall Ambitions i

f political ambitions in d.c. run high, the buildings do not. the city’s iconic skyline is dotted with historic monuments and plenty of blue sky — thanks to strict height restrictions that have kept the city from building up. But with little room left to build out, critics say residents and businesses are getting shortchanged by the dearth of tall buildings in the u.s. capital.

Officials Eye Curtailing D.C.’s Height Restrictions by Karin Zeitvogel

Continued on next page

Photo: william yuey / BigstocK

■ INSIDE: Five beauty professionals who trained abroad now share their tricks of the trade with Washingtonians. PAGE 42

LUXURY LIVING September 2012

■

The Washington Diplomat Page 37

Continued from previous page

When it was built at the

So officials and ordinary citizens in Washington are once again end of the 19th century, mulling whether a law passed in the 19th century and amended the 14-story Cairo Hotel in 1910 that limits the height of most city buildings to 130 feet (40 in D.C. sparked such outmeters) should be relaxed. (Buildings along a 15-block stretch of rage over its height that Pennsylvania Avenue can reach 160 feet.) the city enacted strict On one side of the argument, opponents of the law say it’s outheight limits on all of its dated, keeps rents artificially high and stymies development. On buildings — restrictions the other side, supporters of the law say it has given Washington that still stand today. its unique character and sweeping vistas unobstructed by skyscrapers. In what other city can you watch fireworks, a few miles people who work in D.C. out to away, from the roof of your apartment building and actually see the suburbs to live.That, in turn, most of the sparkle? has led to overcrowding on the Earlier this spring, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, D.C. Delegate Metro and huge traffic jams. In Eleanor Holmes Norton and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs 2006, then Washington Post the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which staff writer Michael Grunwald has jurisdiction over Washington, floated the idea of slightly raiswrote that the Height Act has ing the city’s height limits. The move would possibly add a story “inflated office rents, deflated onto some buildings or convert non-inhabitable rooms on top the municipal tax base, limited floors into livable space. Though the changes would be relatively NOTE: effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and affordable housing, contributed minor, unlike in other city jurisdictions, they Although require the every approval to the region’s hideous traffic of Capitol Hill — a tall order in today’s politically paralyzed content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. jams and generally helped keep Congress — and they are sharply opposed by preservation groups. The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes Washington a second-tier city despite the unrelenting growth Laura Richards, a trustee of the 90-year-old Committee of 100 will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. of its major industry — the govon the Federal City, which is “dedicated to safeguarding and ernment.” advancing Washington’s historic distinction, natural beauty and Please Today, office rent in the overall livability,” told a July congressional hearing on thecheck issue thatthis ad carefully. Mark any changes to your ad. District remains among the doing away with building height limits would “alter irretrievably highest in the United States the District’s historic, welcoming scale. ” She called forsign the and 1910 fax to: (301) 949-0065 If the ad is correct needs changes (second only to Manhattan, in Height Act to remain “undisturbed and be enforced vigorously.” Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid fact), a financial burden some And the National Park Service, manages Diplomat Washington’s Thewhich Washington (301) 933-3552 centerpiece, the National Mall, and many of its monuments, also has words of praise for say keeps businesses away — or makes current ones less profitable. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi said at the congressional hearing in July the height restrictions, saying on its website that the “limit of 160 feet has preserved the broad, horizontal Baroque Approved nature of the__________________________________________________________ city, allowing light and air to reach the that relaxing the height restrictions in the capital would help to increase tax revenues, pedestrian level, and resulting inChanges a picturesque skyline pierced by steeples, domes, tow- allow population growth and bring in business. ___________________________________________________________ Contrary to popular opinion, the height restrictions were not enacted to keep builders and monuments.” ___________________________________________________________________ But others argue that the restrictions have promoted suburban sprawl, pushing ings lower than the Capitol building or U.S. Monument. Congress passed the original

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Contrary to popular opinion, D.C.’s height restrictions were not enacted to keep buildings lower than the Capitol building or U.S. Monument. Heights of Buildings Act in 1899 in response to the construction of the Cairo Hotel, which rose more than 160 feet and sparked public outrage for towering over other city landmarks. The height restrictions stemming from the Cairo backlash, which remain on the books despite various efforts over the years to change them, are a complicated formula based on the width of the street that a building sits on, and the building’s intended usage. Christopher Collins, counsel to the District of Columbia Building Industry Association, summarized the law at the July congressional hearing: “Buildings on ‘business streets’ … may be erected to a height equal to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet, with an overall maximum height of 130 feet, except for the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 1st and 15th Streets, NW, where a height of 160 feet is permitted. On residence streets, the maximum height is 90 feet but is further limited by the width of the adjacent street minus 10 feet.” D.C. Delegate Holmes Norton said she isn’t sure how or why anyone came up with that formula and argues that D.C. residents should have a say in whether the restrictions are relaxed. Collins said his association, which represents some 500 commercial and residential

real estate groups, proposes modifying the law to remove the restriction on “human occupancy” above the top story of a building, allowing top floors to be used as restaurants, for instance, health clubs, community rooms, green gardens or living areas. “We believe that this proposal will have a positive benefit on the quality of life of those using those facilities and will also help to enhance the beauty of the skyline of our ‘horizontal city,’” he said. Washington might want to consider taking a leaf out of the books of other world capitals that have seen their landscape altered over the past half century. The Polish capital of Warsaw was an architectural jewel, much like Washington, before World War II, with low-rise buildings, wide boulevards, expanses of green and a river running through it. The city was almost entirely flattened during the war and while the historic old town was meticulously rebuilt, most of the reconstruction afterward produced the faceless concrete buildings favored by the Soviet communist regimes of the time. The builders had their reasons, including expediency — the need to house lots of people quickly — money and dictates from the Soviet occupying power.

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Continued from previous page To add insult to what many residents openly called an ugly city with just a few beauty marks, Joseph Stalin had one of the few neighborhoods in downtown Warsaw that survived the war razed to make way for the 42-story, 768-foot-tall Palace of Culture. It’s one of five skyscrapers that the Soviet leader had built, allegedly because he was jealous of the Empire State Building. Poles were not fond of it and almost tore it down in 1989 when the Berlin Wall crumbled. But today, the palace still stands and has become an accepted landmark of the city sightline, which is also dotted with gleaming skyscrapers, newly constructed buildings featuring historic charm, and the remnants of those faceless Soviet-era tenements.The result is a hodgepodge of architecture but also a city that has clearly adapted to the times — something critics say Washington, with its squat, boxy look, has failed to do. Then again, perhaps Washington prefers the model of the French capital that inspired so much of its own character. Paris was largely spared the devastation of World War II and is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, thanks largely to Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who modernized the city in the mid-1800s. Haussmann’s name has been given to one of Paris’s main shopping thoroughfares and to the architectural style of the buildings that line the city’s streets. He is also credited with introducing the long, grand avenues in the French capital that frame Parisian treasures like the Arc de Triomphe. If that sounds familiar to Washingtonians, it’s because the U.S. capital was also designed around “grand avenues” with sweeping vistas by Frenchman Pierre L’Enfant. His vision was complemented 100 years later by the addition of the National Mall and many of the city’s monuments. Paris has another thing in common with D.C. The Eiffel Tower beat out the Washington Monument to become the world’s tallest man-made structure after its construction for the 1889 World’s Fair. Today, the iconic tower remains the tallest structure in Paris.The second tallest, the Tour Montparnasse, was completed in the 1970s and rises 689 feet above a train station.The Tour Montparnasse is an office building that Parisians were initially in favor of, seeing it as a symbol of modernity. But once it was built, they looked at it as an

Photo: Phillip Minnis / bigstock

The Eiffel Tower, which beat out the Washington Monument to become the world’s tallest man-made structure after its construction for the 1889 World’s Fair, remains the tallest structure in Paris today.

intrusion on the skyline. Most high-rise buildings in Paris are now erected on the outskirts of the city, primarily in a business district called La Défense. However, unlike the Washington Monument, which stands at 555 feet, the Eiffel Tower rises more than 1,000 feet, roughly the height of an 81-story building. It’s exactly the kind of building that would be heresy in Washington, D.C., whose growth, depending on one’s perspective, has either been stunted by an arcane law or saved by it. Karin Zeitvogel is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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The Washington Diplomat Page 41

[ looking your best ]

Beauty Unbound Trendsetting Transplants Help Washingtonians Put Best Face Forward by Stephanie Kanowitz

eauty is like a fingerprint. Each person’s is unique. So too is the way people see and practice it, providing plenty of clients for a multibillion-dollar industry here in the United States. But beauty isn’t just an American obsession. To get a sense of how it is viewed and applied in other parts of the world, we spoke to five Washington professionals who received their training abroad.

Ayman Hakki plastic surgeon and founder of Luxxery www.luxxery.com In Dr. Ayman Hakki’s native Syria, there is less need for procedures such as buttock and breast augmentation, he said.The most-requested cosmetic surgeries are nose jobs and liposuction to remove fat.Washingtonians, on the other hand, are more interested in those procedures and quick fixes. “Washingtonians don’t have time to take off to recover from big-ticket items,” said Hakki, who sees about 50 clients and performs about 20 procedures per week. “Washingtonians do a lot of non-invasive procedures such as fat transfer, fillers and Botox.” That contributes to the success of Luxxery, his statecertified surgery suite and après-surgery pampering center in Waldorf, Md., and Luxxery Express in Washington, the first D.C.-area Botox Cosmetic Boutique, where Hakki performs injections and minimally invasive procedures. Because of doctor-patient confidentiality, he can’t name his famous patients except to say they include politicos, former Miss Americas, news anchors and hall-of-fame football players. Hakki — whose father was Rajai Wahid Hakki, a cultural attaché in the United States for the Syrian Foreign Service from 1962 to 1964 — knew he wanted to become a plastic surgeon when he was 16 and read about a Brazilian surgeon who had worked on Sophia Loren. “I wanted to do just that,” he said, “make women beautiful.” He recognized instantly that he could merge his inner artist with his inner scientist. Hakki attended the Damascus University School of Medicine in his native city while painting on the side to earn extra money. “The Syrian system of medicine was very theoretical and dependent on rote memory,” he said. “It was actually a very uninspiring six years. The only saving grace during those years was that I made pocket money by doing watercolor portraits of famous people in Damascus. One of them was Princess Mona, the mother of my third cousin, [and] Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Arab world’s Warren Buffett.” Hakki did his residency work at Georgetown University Medical Center here. As a child, he’d attended Murch Elementary School in Northwest and vowed to return to Washington. “It took 20 years to become a board-certified assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Georgetown,” he said.“To the best of my knowledge, it was the only residency program in America that required an art class every Monday for two years in a row.There I was, on a journey from [age 16, taking a weekly art class in Damascus] to 36, attending a weekly art class in our nation’s capital. This combination of art and science is exactly what inspired

Page 42

Photos: Ira Wexler

A native of Syria, Dr. Ayman Hakki, above and far left, is the founder of Luxxery, his state-certified surgery suite and après-surgery pampering center in Waldorf, Md., as well as Luxxery Express in D.C., the first Washington-area Botox Cosmetic Boutique.

me as a young kid, and still does to this day.”

Hanne Powers esthetician at Nectar Skin Bar http://nectarskinbar.com Although she misses tending to the skin care needs of the Danish royal family and heading a self-built beauty empire that included several spas and a national magazine, Hanne Powers has adjusted quickly to life in Washington. She moved here in August 2011 to be with her American husband. “I love D.C. The hardest thing, though, is not having the same identity as I did,” said Powers, 35, a Copenhagen native who graduated from the Cidesco Beauty Centre at age 21. “When you built something for that many years, it’s hard. But I also must admit that it’s so nice not to have your own spa. When I come in, all I have to think about is doing my treatments and being with my clients.” She’s also noticed many differences between Danish and American beauty practices. “I feel like the European or the Danish beauty industry is a bit further. An example would be the oxygen treatment,” said Powers, referring to the application of moisturizers using pressurized oxygen. “Here it’s very big, everybody’s talking about it. It’s kind of yesterday, it’s kind of old news in Denmark.

Photo: Nectar Skin Bar

Copenhagen native Hanne Powers, opposite page top left, recently brought her beauty skills to Nectar Skin Bar in Georgetown, above.

LUXURY LIVING The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

It was huge seven, eight years ago.” Another difference is the hair-removal process of waxing. In Denmark, people either have everything waxed or do nothing.“It’s not a sure thing that everybody has shaved legs,” she said, whereas American women won’t even go two days without shaving. Americans’ hesitance with permanent makeup also baffles Powers. “In Denmark, we have so many blonde people, I could have a full day of tinting eyelashes and eyebrows,” she said.“I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve done that here.”

iSAbelle GoeTz owner of Isabelle’s Okyo Salon http://okyosalon.com

and M before buying Okyo two years ago.“I would just close my eyes and put my finger on a map and then say,‘OK, New Orleans is good.’ My mission was to see everything here. Work was so good to me and America really was very welcoming and embracing my talent, so 18 months later, I couldn’t leave yet.” One of her favorite differences between French and American clients is the faith the latter puts in her.“American clients just sit down and trust you,” said Goetz, who oversees a staff of 15.“In France, people may be a little more picky.They come with their idea here, but they let you apply what you want.” Despite her love of America, Europe remains her muse.“I still go back to Europe to get inspired,” Goetz said. “You can quickly lose the touch. I usually go to Europe every year because I need that inspiration and then I apply it here. The Americans are thirsty for our talents.”

luiGi PArASmo

A native of Belfort, France, near owner of Luigi Parasmo Salon the German border, Isabelle Goetz www.luigiparasmosalon.com began cutting hair professionally at age 15. Today, the 41-year-old counts When in Rome, Luigi Parasmo Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, didn’t always do as the Romans Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Canadian did.And that served him well in Ambassador Gary Doer and Queen his quest to style hair. Rania of Jordan among her regular “The most important techPhoto: isaBelle’s oKyo salon clients. niques — i.e., my base haircut “I think the important part of Isabelle Goetz, a native of Belfort, france, who techniques — allow my clients business is to be professional,” Goetz came to washington as part of an international the next style, ” said and content it is ultimately up to the customer NOTE: effort made to assure is move free oftomistakes in spelling Photo: daVe PhilliPich said of landing — and keeping — Although exchangeevery program whenisshe was 21, styles hairyour ad to toParasmo, make thewho final opened proof. his trained in rome, luigi Parasmo opened his georgetown such a roster.“Get to work early.They at isabelle’s okyo salon, which she opened two Georgetown salon with 11 salon in april after 20 years of working on washingtonians’ cannot worry about you being late.” years ago. The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, changes billedfigures at a such rate as ofcondoleezza $75 per faxed employeessubsequent in April. “This was will She came to Washington when hair, be including rice. alteration. are considered developed in Italy. Iapproved. was the she was 21 through a program with AIPT-CDS, known today as Cultural Vistas, anSigned inter- ads national exchange program that she found out about while working at the Paris Hair luckiest man in the world to be able to work for one of the best and most talented hairPlease check this ad carefully. Mark changes to molded your ad. stylists in Rome andany at a young age, he me and taught me the art of cutting Show. “I really thought I would live here for 18 months, but it was so successful for me and If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 Continued on next page I love travel,” said Goetz, who worked for 17 years at a salon on 18th Street between L Approved _____________________________________________ Changes _____________________________________________________________________

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The Washington Diplomat Page 43

“People in D.C. are extremely well educated. They’re also aware of countries outside of the U.S. and they’re very curious and happy to shop outside the box.” — Ada Polla chief executive officer of Alchimie Forever

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hair.… It’s very much like building a building: In order to make it stay up, you’ve got to have a strong foundation from scratch.” Parasmo, who started styling hair at age 14, honed his skills at the Battaglia Hair and Makeup Agency in Milan, where he styled runway models for brands such as Valentino, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace. Having spent 20 years on Washingtonians’ hair after coming to the United States in 1992, working at the Erwin Gomez and Toka salons and getting to brush with D.C. figureheads such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Parasmo says he’s learned that hair is very cultural. “Italian women like to be fashionable at all times and always love the latest in hair and clothing trends. Italy is, after all, the world’s fashion capital — yes, I said it,” Parasmo told us.“However, in the U.S.A., I’ve noticed some big changes recently. More and more people are following fashion trends in big cities like New York and L.A., dictating the fashion and styling rules with pressure from Hollywood and society.” Parasmo’s partner, Javier Calvo, is co-owner of the salon. The Madrid native also trained throughout Europe, including Paris and London. “The salon was always Luigi’s dream and he wanted me to be a part of it,” Calvo said, “and continue our journey together, just like we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.”

Ada Polla chief executive officer of Alchimie Forever www.alchimie-forever.com When Geneva native Ada Polla wanted to sell the moisturizers, cleansers and scrubs her parents formulated in Switzerland to help post-surgical patients in the United States, she knew Washington was the place to do it. “When I started Alchimie, everyone that I talked to was quite concerned about the fact that I was starting a beauty company in the District and thought I should be in New York or I should be in L.A.,” said Polla, who came to D.C. in 2002 to earn an MBA from Photos: Alchimie Forever Georgetown. “I’m very proud to be a D.C.based beauty brand because there’s not a lot Geneva native Ada Polla chose of us and I feel like I’m doing my part Washington, D.C., as the base reminding people that D.C. is a lot more for her beauty line Alchimie Forever. than dark navy suits and Capitol Hill.” Local dermatologist Tina Alster gave Polla her first order in 2004. Since then, the company has experienced double-digit annual growth. The products, all infused with anti-aging and antioxidant ingredients, are sold through partnerships with spas, specialty boutiques and dermatologists. Polla’s father, Luigi Polla, is recognized as the first medical doctor to introduce pulsed dye laser technology to Europe to help with skin issues such as discoloration. Her mother, Barbara Polla, is a biomedical researcher whose work with heat shock proteins, antioxidants and iron chelation forms the basis of Alchimie’s anti-aging formulation. In 1997, they founded the Forever Laser Institut, the first fully integrated European medical day spa. “Post-procedure skincare is really how we got started,” Ada Polla said. “While [my father] thought about the products exclusively for his own medical spa clients, I thought there was an opportunity in the marketplace to distribute the line more broadly.” She felt the American beauty market had a gap in its options for sensitive skin. “If you look at most of the anti-aging lines here or the dermatologist-formulated lines, they’re extremely effective, but they’re all on the quite aggressive side, and so if you’re prone to sensitivity or to allergies or to rosacea, for example, they’re not necessarily products that your skin can tolerate,” she said. Washington has proved her business instincts right. “D.C. as a whole, whether thinking about fashion or restaurants or even the number of glossy magazines that we have, has evolved, and beauty is obviously a part of it,” Polla said.“People in D.C. are extremely well educated.They’re also aware of countries outside of the U.S. and they’re very curious and happy to shop outside the box.” Stephanie Kanowitz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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LUXURY LIVING

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

culture & arts

■ WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM

entertainment

■ SEPTEMBER 2012

PHOTOGRAPHy

MuSIC

AnimAl

In Sync The Diplomats at the Embassy of Hungary are always in sync with each other — but then again, they have to be, since they’re members of the same band. PAGE 47

InstIncts

THEATER

Courtly Drama As the Shakespeare Theatre preps for a brand new season, it’s also gearing up to make a widely anticipated appearance — in court. PAGE 48 Photo: manuel harlan

ART

Jamaican Drifting Seven Jamaican artists based in the United States reflect on their homeland on its 50th anniversary of independence. PAGE 49

Photo: Galerie Paul andriesse, amsterdam/Julie saul Gallery, new york / Charlotte dumas

Resolute, conflicted, expectant, discerning, resigned. These aren’t words often used to describe animals. A dog is “good” or “bad,” and a steed “noble.” But Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas defies conventional vocabulary with formal portraits of animals that suggest a more complex inner life. PAG PA E 46 “Peter, arlington national Cemetery, arlington, Virginia,” above, and “hsh, Palermo, sicily”

DINING

FILM REVIEWS

A little taste of France is tucked away in the Falls Church-Arlington border at La Côte D’Or Café. PAGE 50

“Chicken with Plums” is a poignant story about lost love in Iran whose universal regret resonates across cultures. PAGE 52

[ photography ]

Complex Creatures Dutch Artist Captures and Humanizes Inner Lives of Animals by Gail Sullivan

Charlotte Dumas photographed the burial horses of Arlington National Cemetery for a recent project on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which is also featuring her previous work depicting racehorses tethered to hippodrome stalls, gray wolves on Scandinavian nature preserves, and the stray dogs of Palermo — as seen in photographs such as, from clockwise top, “Baiardo, La Favorita, Palermo, Sicily,” “Barney, Palermo, Sicily,” and “Taza, Lake George, Colorado.”

esolute, conflicted, expectant, discerning, resigned. These aren’t words often used to describe animals. A dog is “good” or “bad.” A puppy is “playful,” and a steed “noble.” Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas defies conventional vocabulary; her formal portraits of animals suggest a more complex inner life, inviting viewers to reconsider the relationship between mankind and animals. From the stray dogs of Palermo, Italy, to search and recovery dogs of 9/11, Dumas has photographed animals in various contexts and in countries around the world. She typically works in series, creating portraits of groups of animals characterized by their utility, social function or relationship to people. “Charlotte Dumas: Anima” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art is Dumas’s first solo exhibit in the United States and the fourth for “NOW at the Corcoran,” which presents new and site-specific work by emerging and mid-career artists. Climbing the stairs to the Corcoran’s Rotunda gallery, visitors encounter a reclining white horse that takes shape against a dark background. His hooves are politely tucked into his broad chest, his ears alert, but his body relaxed. Up close, there is something very human about his expression. “Ringo” is one of the burial horses of Arlington National Cemetery, the subject of a newly commissioned series of portraits that is the centerpiece of the exhibit. These horses carry the caskets of soldiers and presidents to their final resting places. Horse-led military funeral processions date back to the 18th century, when horse-drawn caissons of artillery were unloaded on the battlefield, often returning with fallen soldiers. About eight times a day, Arlington Cemetery’s burial horses lead funeral processions in teams of six. Funerals for high-ranking officers include a rider-less horse, with boots reversed in the saddle’s stirrups to symbolize that the fallen won’t ride again and is looking back on his family one last time. In this solemn historic ritual, Dumas found an opportunity to explore “how we tend to use and regard animals for our own purposes, both literally and symbolically.” She photographed the horses at night, in their barn stalls, not in the midst of performing their formal duty. Yet the portraits capture the weight of sadness felt by a soldier’s mourning family, the burden borne by aging horses carrying a casket, and the distinguished honor of the duty they perform.Yet each portrait is uniquely expressive. The curved body of one horse suggests vulnerability; the rigid posture of another resembles a crisp military uniform. Dumas photographs her subjects in their habitats. After hours of observation and quiet interaction, she gets as close as the animal will allow, positioning herself at eye level to establish intimacy, offering a different perspective to the viewer accustomed to looking at these animals from above or below. Her work employs contrasts of shadow and light and is heavily influenced by the classical composition of Dutch Golden Age portraiture. These days, animals are more often the subject of cute Tumblr or BuzzFeed posts than of fine art, and

Page 46

The Washington Diplomat

in that sense Dumas’s images break with contemporary trends. An adjacent gallery showcases three of Dumas’s earlier bodies of work featuring portraits of gray wolves on Scandinavian nature preserves, racehorses tethered to hippodrome stalls, and the stray dogs of Palermo. Viewed individually, the portraits of racehorses tethered to their stalls convey a sense of restraint. But seen as a group, the animals appear bound together, united by a single purpose, with a sense of strength and pride. Dumas plays with perspective in her portraits of gray wolves as well. She is fascinated by the animal, which is both loathed as a predator and revered in folklore. Her portraits capture this duality; one portrays the lone hunter with a predatory glimmer in his eye, another conveys the intimate social bonds characteristic of these animals, showing a pack asleep in close proximity. Like gray wolves, the stray dogs of Palermo roam free. For Dumas, these dogs exist in the space between family pets and their wild ancestors.They aren’t Photos: Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam/Julie Saul Gallery, New York / Charlotte Dumas the property of humans, nor are they separated Charlotte Dumas: Anima from us by forests or fences. Dumas sees the dogs as through Oct. 28 “part of the community, Corcoran Gallery of Art living among their human 500 17th St., NW counterparts in a kind of For more information, please call (202) 639-1700 equilibrium.”At first glance or visit www.corcoran.org. there is something sad about dogs living among trash on the streets, as though discarded. But the portraits also capture a certain confidence and dignity reminiscent of the free-roaming wolves. Dumas’s portraits urge reflection on the bond between mankind and animals. Each of the animal groups she has chosen to portray is affected to some degree by humans. Some are domesticated, while others continue to roam free, albeit in dwindling numbers as their habitats disappear. Some represent the prospect of victory, others lend dignity to death, the ultimate defeat. Dumas describes animals as “witnesses to our existence.” In bearing witness to theirs, her portraits beg consideration of our own role in these animals’ stories.

[

]

Gail Sullivan is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

September 2012

[ music ]

Working in Concert The Diplomats Band Always Looking for Few Good Members by Kaitie Kovach

hen Ákos Veisz learned he was moving from Hungary to Washington, the first thing he packed was his saxophone. That was in January of 2011. Veisz, a diplomat for the Hungarian Embassy specializing in political and economic issues, says he’s been playing the saxophone and clarinet since he was 11 years old and had always been in some form of a band. So soon after his arrival he began to seek out a musical outlet. “I was looking for a band, but I found out that I had many colleagues who actually play instruments, so of course then there was the idea of, ‘Why don’t we play together?’” he recalled. So about a month after arriving, Veisz sent an email to his embassy colleagues featuring a pointing Uncle Sam declaring “I WANT YOU FOR THE BAND.” Veisz got responses from singers, a pianist, drummer and guitarist. But he lacked a bassist so he decided to learn to play on a basic level, chipping in on saxophone where it worked. And so The Diplomats was formed. Today, the band has seven members, three of whom work at the Hungarian Embassy. Due to the high turnover rate in diplomatic work, Veisz is the only founding member remaining in the band. To date, more than a dozen people have played in the band since it was formed. As time went on and some members had to leave, The Diplomats reached out beyond the embassy to fill gaps in the lineup. Using email listservs, Veisz says the group sent thousands of emails calling for auditions when spaces opened up. Though not all of the current group members work at the Hungarian Embassy, most of the band has some sort of Hungarian or Central European connection. Including Veisz, the current lineup includes David Rakviashvili, deputy chief of mission at the Georgian Embassy, on lead guitar; Bryan Dawson, Olga Major and Ottilia Kufcsak on vocals; Robb Hill, an American photographer who used to live in Hungary, on drums; and József Czímer on piano. Dawson, executive chairman of the American Hungarian Federation and director of North American operations for the information management company ZyLAB, is among the newer members of the band. He joined earlier this year, hoping to rekindle his connection with music and his Hungarian roots, he said. Dawson’s mother is a native Hungarian who fought in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.Though he was born in Miami, Dawson also spent time in Hungary just before the fall of the Iron Curtain. “I joined the band mainly because of the personalities involved,” Dawson said. “I love the people we’re working with. It’s a great vibe.” For now, the band exclusively plays covers — Veisz describes their focus as rock ‘n’ roll and blues, but set lists from the band’s first few concerts show some eclectic taste.To date,The Diplomats has tried on more standard rock songs from the likes of the Black Keys and George Harrison, but the group has also dabbled in Frank Sinatra standards and pop music from Pink. Of course, they do a few Hungarian tunes as well. Veisz attributed the eclectic mix of songs to the band’s “very democratic” nature. The Diplomats hasn’t debuted any of its own songs yet, but Veisz and Dawson say the band is working on writing some original material.

September 2012

Photos: Ákos Veisz

Above from left, ottilia kufcsak, Bela Gedeon and Bryan dawson perform in the band the diplomats, formed by Ákos Veisz when he moved from hungary to work at the embassy in washington. the band has performed in several embassy concerts and was briefly featured on Fox 5’s morning show with, at left, david rakviashvili, maria hermann, hungarian embassy chef Viktor merényi, linda harper of Cultural tourism dC, Bela Gedeon, Fox 5’s holly morris, hungarian ambassador György szapáry, Ákos Veisz and sandor mihalko.

“We have one and a half [songs], which is a good start,”Veisz noted. Recording an album isn’t on their radar just yet, but Veisz says it’s on the group’s “10-year plan.” He says the band’s lineup should remain the same for at least the next two years, which will allow them more opportunities to write original material. The band has the support of Hungarian Ambassador György Szapáry, who allows them to use the embassy’s event and gallery space to rehearse and perform. So far The Diplomats has held three concerts at the embassy. The first was more of a test run, with mostly family and friends in attendance.The other two concerts were open to the public, held in December 2011 and May of this year. Veisz said more than 200 people attended their most recent show. In March, the band briefly (in two 10-second snippets,Veisz says) appeared on Fox 5’s morning show in support of the Hungarian Embassy’s chef, Viktor Merényi, as he competed in the Embassy Chef Challenge. (Merényi went on to win the competition.) No D.C. concerts are currently scheduled, but the band is going on tour. In October, The Diplomats will road trip to Sarasota, Fla., and perform at a Hungarian cultural festival there. To prepare, Veisz said the band will likely ramp up its weekly practices to twice a week and expand the repertoire so they can play more classic Hungarian rock songs. In the future, band members hope to play more concerts in the D.C. area, perhaps even beyond the embassy. Dawson and Rakviashvili both said they’d like to perform at different embassies in the area. Veisz said he’d like to see the band participate in fundraising events down the line. “Then we don’t just enjoy doing something,” Veisz said, “but we really did something.” Kaitie Kovach is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

The Washington Diplomat Page 47

[ theater ]

Bard-Worthy Shakespeare Theatre Gears Up for New Season, Court Battle by Lisa Troshinsky

s the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) basks in the recent success of its 25th anniversary season and a 2012 regional Tony Award, while gearing up for another innovative season, the theater is also embroiled in a behindthe-scenes, real-life drama that, if staged, might rival one of the Bard’s sagas. A court hearing this fall will decide whether the STC will win a preliminary injunction to stay at the Lansburgh Theatre, as part of a fight against its management company,the LansburghTheatre, Inc. (LTI), which has threatened to evict STC if it doesn’t pay an enormous increase in rent. If won, the decision would prohibit any eviction. Although the STC and its legal counsel are confident they will prevail, if they lose, it could cost the D.C. community a cultural landmark. The Lansburgh, located at 450 7th St., NW, which has housed the Shakespeare Theatre Company for the past 20 years, is one of two STC performance venues.The Photo: Colin mearns / newsquest media GrouP company also stages productions in the newer and larger Harman Hall, Ryan Fletcher stars in the national theatre of scotland’s which it owns and is located down production of “Black watch,” which returns to the the street from the Lansburgh. shakespeare theatre for its 2012-13 season. this fall, In addition to the theater, the the theater company also heads to court to fight against Lansburgh is home to apartments a major rent hike for its lansburgh theatre, left. and retail space owned by Gunwyn/ Lansburgh Development Corp. Miller also says LTI cannot terminate its partAccording to an STC press release, nership with STC because the duration of LTI is in 1992 the Lansburgh Theatre was “perpetual,” as long as STC remains a viable thebuilt specifically for STC as a quid ater company. pro quo between the developer of The STC, meanwhile, won a court order to the Lansburgh apartment building (a temporarily stop the eviction that had been partnership led by architect Graham scheduled for June 15 and won the right to keep Gund) and the Pennsylvania Avenue the case in D.C. Superior Court, after LTI tried to Development Corporation and D.C. move it to U.S. District Court. Keeping it in D.C. Photo: niCole Geldart citizens. In return for constructing Superior Court will be advantageous because it the Lansburgh apartment building, the developer agreed to donate the theater will keep the battle closer to the local community, which will be most affected space to the Lansburgh nonprofit organization. by the litigation’s outcome, said Miller. Unfortunately, the jurisdiction shuffle “As part of this deal, Lansburgh Theatre, Inc (LTI) was established as a special- will likely push back the hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction, ized nonprofit charity solely created to serve as the Theatre’s landlord and sup- originally scheduled for Sept. 21, until sometime in October, he noted. port the Shakespeare Theatre Company,” the release Miller predicts LTI’s motivation in trying to evict STC states. from the Lansburgh is economic gain. Since the theater But STC says the longstanding deal fell apart when LTI was built in the early 1990s, the area surrounding the theFor more information recently tried to raise the rent to $480,000. ater, known as Penn Quarter, has skyrocketed in value. on the shakespeare “Although most of the media focus has been on the rent “While LTI, in its inception agreement as a charity, is not theatre Company and hike [a 700 percent increase], the main issue is that what supposed to profit from the Lansburgh building, forcing us its upcoming season, LTI is doing is illegal and commits violations of public out would be using a charity for private economic purplease call (202) 547-1122 or visit charity rules,” Randy Miller, counsel to the STC and a partposes,” he said. www.shakespearetheatre.org. ner at Arnold & Porter LLP, told The Washington Confident it will prevail in the pending litigation fight, Diplomat. the Shakespeare Theatre, led by longtime Artistic Director LTI claims it raised the rent to fund repairs for the Lansburgh building. Miller Michael Kahn, has scheduled an exciting season that includes old standards but clarified that the money STC pays (currently about $70,000 per year) isn’t rent, also pushes the theatrical envelope. per se, but rather goes into a trust fund used for improvements to the Lansburgh In a discussion with The Diplomat, Kahn said the theater will stage three building.“It is more than enough and there is a surplus of $500,000 to $600,000 currently in the trust fund,” he said. see ShAKeSpeARe, page 51

to learn

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The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

[ art ]

Jamaican Yearnings For Boundary-Breaking Artists, Some Bonds Can’t Be Severed by Gary Tischler

t first, the exhibition looks like it targets a specific locale on a specific occasion, created by a specific group of artistic souls. Despite its focused purpose — a celebration of Jamaica’s golden jubilee anniversary of independence — “Outward Reach: Seven

Jamaican Photographers and New Media Artists” at the Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery breaks through all kinds of boundaries, from the geographic to the artistic.

The works, some kinetic, some abstract, and others just plain odd, are the brainchild of seven Jamaican artists based in the United States reflecting on their homeland. But it’s not that simple. Some of the themes, images and emotions on display strike a universal chord, touching on issues such as colonialism, gender and the

environment, while others seem to toggle between the U.S.-based artists’ island homeland and the land they now call home. Others still are clear attempts to

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put a cutting-edge stamp on Jamaican art. Just ask curator Jacqueline Bishop, whose ghostly photograph “Folly” adorns part of the exhibition — and who sees a duality in her own art and that of the other contributors. “I think all of us came here to America for various reasons — opportunities, relatives, education,” she said. “And I suspect we will become permanent here, as opposed to returning to the homeland. But there is this dream thing, this undeniable pull of heart and soul. You are who you are wherever you are. I know that’s true for me.” Bishop is multicultural and multi-gifted. She teaches in New York, where she writes poetry and fiction, and is the author of “My Mother Who Is Me: Life Stories from Jamaican Women in New York” and “Writers Who Paint Painters Who Write: 3 Jamaican Artists.” Without question, Bishop’s work, whether visual or literary, is highly personal, though it too strikes a more universal tone. “I think when I dream, I am Jamaican,” she said.“But here, you can do so much more with your art.There’s a community of artists here, and the great wide world also, and that does not exist in Jamaica.” Moreover, the island nation, though only a few hours away by plane, has changed for her.“There’s a culture of violence that’s hard to deal with,” she said. Bishop originally came to New York because her mother lives there, but “it’s more than that, of course. I suspect that’s also true for the artists in this exhibition. It’s a dichotomy in the exhibition of reaching outward to the homeland, of remembering and commenting.” Outward Reach: Seven Jamaican Her own contribution is photographers and New Media Artists like a photoshopped dream in which she remembers an through sept. 28 abandoned house once occuOrganization of American States (OAS) pied by her grandparents Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery and formerly owned by the Tiffany family 1889 F st., nw (of jewelry fame). Ghostly sounds seem to For more information, please call (202) 458-6016 permeate her photography. It’s a haunted or visit www.museum.oas.org. house, just as Jamaica itself has become a haunted place for some of the artists. Similarly, photographer Cosmo Whyte embodies the dilemma of an artist torn by two worlds in a series of photographs depicting a barefoot man in a Wall Street business suit overwhelmed by big, high-end, colorful ties practically choking his neck — a straightforward but bold metaphor. In a series called “Come Back to Jamaica,” Andrea Chung recalls redolent television

September 2012

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Photos: oas art museum oF the ameriCas

Works by Jamaica-born, u.s.-based artists such as Cosmo whyte, left and culture cover, andrea Chung, above, and Jacqueline Bishop, below, are featured in “outward reach” at the art museum of the americas to reflect on Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence.

travel ads and how native Jamaicans become invisible under the eyes of tourists and mobs of cruises visitors. Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow shows an Asian woman in New York trying to lose herself in the spirit of Jamaican flowers by stealing into or creating urban gardens. “It’s one of those things you truly miss and remember. Sometimes you want to place flowers into spaces where they’re not accommodated,” said Bishop of the island’s lush beauty. Radcliffe Roye captures a different, more authentic side of the island in his evocative, kinetic photographs of people in Jamaican dance halls.“This is not what other people are used to, the old reggaestyle music.This is much rawer, in-your-face kind of dancing and music,” Bishop noted. She told us that it was important to include both photography and video in this exhibition.“Photography in the islands is a kind of ugly stepsister or brother in the visual arts, and that’s just not so, given all the potentials of the form.” Bishop’s own sensibilities certainly factor into this show, echoing the memories, dreams and concerns of her fellow relocated artists. “I think for most of us the transference is permanent,” she said with a note of regret. “But the dream, the idea of Jamaica, the heart, that’s always there.” Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 49

[ dining ]

French Fixture La Côte D’Or Brings Café Coziness to Virginia by Rachel G. Hunt

ust off Route 66 in a rapidly transitioning area on the Falls ChurchArlington border sits a squat little building that looks a bit out of place amid the recent development. The building is the home of La Côte D’Or Café, a cozy, romantic spot for a special occasion or just an excellent meal. Though it’s been a long-time favorite of many loyal patrons, the French eatery remains relatively unknown to those outside of Northern Virginia. La Côte D’Or is the inspiration of Raymond and Lynne Campet. Veterans of the D.C. restaurant world, the Campets sold their enormously popular French restaurant on Capitol Hill, La Brasserie, in 1992 to open a new restaurant closer to home. Since its opening 20 years ago, La Côte D’Or has seen many changes. To give diners a choice of formal or casual dining, the Campets moved the fine dining portion into the previously used private room with some upgrades to the décor. The original building then became the Bistro Des Celestins, specializing in casual, less-expensive fare. Recently, however, they moved La Côte D’Or back into the main body of the restaurant and have opened Le Marché in the back for quick and casual breakfasts and lunches. The current menu at La Côte D’Or offers both classic bistro fare as well more complex dishes. On recent visits, the best choices tended toward the bistro side of the menu. The paper-thin crêpes, either wild mushroom or seafood, are delicate but rich in a silky cream sauce. (Sugar and chocolate dessert crêpes are also very nice.) Two types of sausages — spicy lamb Merguez with frites and the milder pork Toulouse with lentils — are good, hearty choices. Spicy garlicky mustard is served as a dipping sauce for both the sausages and fries, a nice touch that enhances the dish. The fries, which also accompany the mussels and Parisian minute steak, are the thin, long and nicely crispy on the outside yet soft inside. Another area of the menu that’s handled expertly is the soup. The poisson rendition is aromatic with clear broth, herbs and chunks of various seafood, all accented with bread and an intensely garlicky tomato spread. The French onion is a well-exeLa Côte D’Or Café cuted cheesy classic, as is the 6876 Lee Highway, gazpacho Andalouse, though the Arlington, Va. latter is somewhat milder than might be expected. Salads offer a (703) 538-3033 nice alternative to soup, and here www.lacotedorcafe.com the classic Niçoise and Lyonnais are both solid choices. Lunch: Mon. - Sat., 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.; La Côte D’Or also offers a Sun., 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. number of fish and seafood Dinner: Sun. - Thu., 5 - 9 p.m.; choices — mussels, herbed salm Fri., Sat., 5 - 10 p.m. on, swordfish au poivre, tilapia, clams, Dover sole meunière — all Appetizers: $5.95 - $17.95 of which are extremely fresh and Entrées: $13.25 - $32.50 well prepared but vary in their Dessert:: $5.75 - $10.95 appeal. The salmon, for example, is respectable but rather munThree-course pre-fixe menu: $25 dane. Likewise, the meat dishes Table 21: $150 have been somewhat inconsistent. On a recent visit, the veal Reservations: Available picatta was bland and almost Dress: Business casual dried out while the lamb steak was near perfect. La Côte D’Or rounds off the meal in successful fashion with a selection of classic desserts, including crème caramel, crème brulée and chocolate mousse. Tarts (strawberry and raspberry) are simpler, with puff pastry layered with fruit and just the tiniest amount of filling. House-made sorbets are refreshingly light and not too sweet, especially the pineapple version when it is available.The made-to-order house special dessert is a delicious apple tarte tatin that requires an extra 10 minutes but is well worth

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La Côte D’Or is the brainchild of Raymond and Lynne Campet, who sold their enormously popular French restaurant on Capitol Hill, La Brasserie, in 1992 to open a new restaurant in Northern Virginia.

the wait. The beauty of the food at La Côte D’Or is its simplicity. Wellprepared ingredients are a hallmark of French cooking and in honing to this principle, the Campets produce consistently good results. Their primary concern is the food itself rather than cuisine as a form of self expression or high art.While the presentation of each dish is considered (they are all appetizingly laid out), this is food that is clearly made to be eaten, not admired or pondered. Service is uniformly excellent. Owner Raymond Campet — who early in his career became the maitre d’ to French Ambassador Charles Lucet — is just as attentive to his guests as he always has been, visiting each table to make sure that everything is to his guests’ liking. His wait staff is well prepared to provide the same level of service, with excellent knowledge of the menu and quick, unobtrusive attendance to water glasses and bread baskets (perfectly crusty baguette slices and sweet cream butter are an early temptation in the meal).The conviviality of the staff helps to create a friendly and soothing atmosphere that

Photos: Jessica Latos

September 2012

from page 48

Shakespeare

Photo: Jessica Latos

pervades the restaurant. Like all things, prices at La Côte D’Or have crept up over time. With the closing of the bistro and consolidation of the two menus, prices are higher than one might expect for this type of restaurant, especially for the daily specials, which seem surprisingly high. There are, however, several ways to enjoy the restaurant on a budget. An early evening prefix menu of three courses (Tuesday through Friday) is moderately priced, as is the Wednesday evening special (order one entrée and receive a second for free when ordering two courses and 50 percent off bottles of wine less than $50). La Côte D’Or is named after one of the 83 French departments created during the French Revolution. Located in the Bourgogne (Burgundy) region, the department takes its name from an escarpment that cuts through the area. On one side, the hill looks out over thick forests while the other side over-

La Côte D’Or specializes in classic bistro fare in a cozy setting that adheres to the French cooking philosophy of simple, well-prepared ingredients.

looks the lush vineyards that produce the wines for which the region is famous. Sitting in this quaint restaurant decorated in a French provincial style and redolent with the smell of sautéing garlic, one can almost forget that the view outside the window is of Lee Highway and not the beautiful golden hills of France. As summer winds down and thoughts turn to rainy autumn days, cozy and bright little places like La Côte D’Or become even more appealing — just one of the many reasons why the restaurant belongs on anybody’s list of local hideaways. Rachel G. Hunt is the restaurant reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

productions that it has never done before. “We’ve never done a Russian play, much less a Russian comedy,” Kahn said, referring to the season opener,“The Government Inspector,” a satire of provincial bureaucracy by Ukrainian-born, 19th-century playwright Nikolai Gogol that runs from Sept. 13 to Oct. 28 at the Lansburgh. Also on the horizon at the Lansburgh is Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie,” which casts Richard Schiff from NBC’s “The West Wing” in the story of a man whose illusions of a grand lifestyle waver after the death of the stranger who quietly validated his larger-than-life confidence.The fall season also features “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the Sidney Harman Hall. Kahn is particularly excited about bringing back rotating repertory in the Harman Hall, which STC didn’t do last season. Actors and actresses will switch off every other night in the spring of 2013 between Friedrich Schiller’s “Wallenstein” — never before produced in the United States — and Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus.” The two plays are thematically related; both are about major military figures who turned against their countries. The season is also punctuated by several special presentations. In continuing its relationship with the National Theatre of Scotland, STC will produce “Black Watch,” a graphic account of the Scottish regiment fighting in Iraq, after a short, sold-out run last year at Harman Hall; as well as “The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart,” which ran at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And for one special night in December at the Lansburgh, STC will stage a new French-language revival of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” directed by John Malkovich. Kahn says the production of the

Photo: Scott Suchman

Shakespeare Theatre Artistic Director Michael Kahn says he’s excited about the upcoming season, which includes three productions never before staged by the company, as well as the return of a rotating repertory in Harman Hall.

18th-century tale will be “different, youthful, surprising and modern.” Enthusiastic about the upcoming season and confident STC will win its court case, Kahn said he “doesn’t think there will be a worst-case scenario” regarding its litigation with LTI, and that just as it has for a quarter of a century, the show will go on — at the Lansburgh. “I don’t know how the outcome will be,” Kahn said, “but we expect to be at the Lansburgh for many years to come.” Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

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September 2012

The Washington Diplomat Page 51

[ film reviews ]

Awaiting Death Lifetime of Regret, Reveries Fill ‘Chicken with Plums’ by Ky N. Nguyen

“

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hicken with Plums,” written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud Photo: Yannick Grandmont / Adopt Films (“Persepolis”) is a poiCatherine de Léan, left, and Dimitri Storoge exchange gnant story about lost shocking confessions after a one-night stand in love whose universal Canadian writer-director Anne Émond’s debut feature, meaning resonates “Nuit #1.” across cultures. Set in Tehran in the mid-20th century, the characters confessional encounter. speak French, a common language During the day, Clara’s mild-mannered prospoken by educated Iranians, espefession teaching third grade provides her with cially at that time. a good cover in mainstream society. Every In 1958, Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu night, however, she transforms into an insatiaAmalric) lives a deeply solemn exisble party girl who becomes addicted to tence in his last days. Already rather Photo: Patricia Khan / Sony Pictures Classics extreme highs using alcohol, drugs and sex. melancholic, he loses all desire to Golshifteh Farahani as Irâne, left, and Mathieu Amalric as Nasser Ali Khan star She’s obsessed with getting some kind of live after his precious violin is brocharge to grasp at any kind of meaning in her ken by his wife following a domestic in “Chicken with Plums,” a story of unrequited love in 20th-century Tehran. squabble over his lack of contributing to the household finances. Though well known as empty life. Despite being rather handsome, 31-year-old Nikolaï lives a stoic existence as a loner a leading musician, Nasser’s fame and talent hasn’t made him much fortune, so the loss of who keeps to himself. He views himself as a student of great literary works, none of which the irreplaceable violin deprives him of all that he has. So Nasser simply decides to await his death in bed, a morbid premise for a film but one he can complete. He’s unable to make any progress to realize his grand dreams, which he that sets up an elaborate story as Nasser recalls the younger days of his past. And he muses can’t properly express to those around him. Similarly, he can’t stay on any kind of schedule enough to work for a living, so he gets by in over everything since then, puta Spartan flat that mirrors his existence. ting together the pieces of a sorChicken with Plums Despite its lonely undercurrent,“Nuit #1” rowful life in which he lost his (Poulet aux Prunes) works well because of its honest story, raw one true love, Irâne (Golshifteh emotions and vivid acting performances. Farahani), whose rich merchant (French with subtitles; 91 min.) The new lovers, both misfits of sorts, share father (Serge Avedikian) wouldn’t Landmark’s E Street Cinema their most private thoughts with each bless what he insisted would be ★★★★✩ other, finding a connection and companher ill-destined marriage to a poor ionship when they least expected it. musician. Over 20 years, he traveled the world, channeling those woeful emotions into making the most beautiful music. Crowded ‘2 Days After returning home, his mother compels him into a marriage with Faringuisse (Maria de Medeiros), an educated woman who has always in New York’ adored him, though he doesn’t return an ounce of that affection.They At the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival,“2 Days have children, but he neglects them almost as much as their mother, in New York,” French actress-writer-director finding them all to be rather foreign creatures. In his dreams, he even Photo: Magnolia Pictures Julie Delpy’s delightful follow-up to 2007’s speaks with the Angel of Death, Azraël (Edouard Baer), who tells him Chris Rock, left, and Julie Delpy, find their comfortable “2 Days in Paris,” was embraced by audihis children’s future. cohabitation upended when Delpy’s family comes for a visit ences at its well-received East Coast preThus, Nasser’s reveries are at times strange, heartbreaking yet unimiere. Its witty story, co-written by Alexia versally real, revealing the profound regrets and mistakes that we all in “2 Days in New York.” Landeau and Alexandre Nahon, develops harbor to some degree. It’s a complex mosaic of one man’s life that builds into a wildly funny farce. throughout the film and comes together at the end to complete the puzzle of why 2 Days in New York In a modest but stylish New York apartment he wanted so badly for that life to be over. (English and French with subtitles; befitting hip artistic types, French photographer Marion (Delpy) lives comfortably enough with her 91 min.) No-Holds ‘Nuit #1’ boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), a radio talk-show Landmark’s E Street Cinema Canadian writer-director Anne Émond’s debut feature,“Nuit #1,” makes its mark host and reporter, along with one child each from with a no-holds-barred portrait of an accidental relationship: What starts out as prior relationships and a cat. But their stable lives ★★★★✩ casual sex turns into something more. are upended when Marion’s jolly father Jeannot The intimate experience is reinforced by the (Albert Delpy, Julie’s father in real life), her exhibitionist sister Rose (Alexia Landeau), and Nuit #1 graphic sex happening on screen, so squeamish her sister’s ill-mannered boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon) come for a visit, all cohabit(French with subtitles; 91 min.) moviegoers should be aware of the explicit- ing the now-definitely-too-cozy apartment. ness. Delpy’s direction is assured enough to maintain a sense of order amidst the chaos, The Avalon Theatre After Clara (Catherine de Léan) and Nikolaï bringing to the screen finely tuned comedic turns by the talented ensemble cast. As for ★★★✩✩ (Dimitri Storoge) meet at a dance party, the pair the starring leads, Delpy’s neurotic persona hilariously contrasts nicely with Rock’s exasgo back to Nikolaï’s place and have wild sex. perated straight man. While he’s sleeping, she tries to slip out of the apartment, but he catches her and convinces her to stay. What at first glance appears to be a one-night stand ends up being a Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

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September 2012

[ film festivals ]

Shorts Go Big Good Things Come in Small Packages With DC Shorts Film Fest by Ky N. Nguyen

Dame Judi Dench, right, and Penny Ryder star in “Friend Request Pending,” a short comedy drama about older people finding love in the modern socially networked world that is playing in the 2012 DC Shorts Film Festival.

s the 2012 DC Shorts Film Festival returns for its ninth year, the once-nascent short film fest has grown into a pretty big powerhouse, showcasing 140 films from 27 countries from Sept. 6 to 16. “We have films with something for everyone, from dramas and comedies to documentaries and experimental films,” proclaimed DC Shorts Festival Director Jon Gann. New this year: Local D.C.-area chefs will provide tasty paired snacks for patrons attending food-themed films. Here are some highlights of a festival that’s certainly not short on things to do and see:

International Offerings Don’t miss a couple of global shorts fueled by a wattage of international movie stars such as Judi Dench and Gérard Depardieu. “While DC Shorts focuses on showing films with great stories, regardless of star power, it’s always great when the two coincide,” Gann noted. “Friend Request Pending,” directed by Chris Foggin, is a charming comedy drama about two elderly female friends (including English Dame Dench) who embark on a social networking campaign to catch the attention of the most eligible bachelor around, the leader of the local choir. “Grenouille D’hiver” (“Winter Frog”), directed by Slony Sow, centers around a French winemaker (French legend Depardieu) who mourns his late wife via cross-cultural exchanges with a young Japanese woman.

Screenings The film competition takes place during the opening weekend, Sept. 6 to 8, when films are played in 18 separate 90-minute programs, each followed by an informative question-and-answer session with the filmmakers. From Sept. 9 to 16, all the films are screened again, allowing audiences another chance to catch what they missed during the com-

Repertory Notes

Photo: DC Shorts / DC Film Alliance

petition weekend. Finally, on September 15 to 16, the festival concludes with the “Best of DC Shorts” screenings.

can also celebrate with the award winner at a wine and cheese reception.

DC Shorts Online Film Festival

Parties

Nothing beats watching a film in a theater with fellow film lovers, but DC Shorts introduces a new feature in 2012 for viewers who want to see more or can’t make it to the theater at all. For $20, the online pass allows unlimited screenings from a desktop, laptop, tablet, smart phone or other Internet-enable device.

In addition to the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition’s wine and cheese reception, other DC Shorts parties allow film festival patrons to mingle and mix with each other. Open bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres can be enjoyed at the following events.

DC Shorts Screenplay Competition On Fri., Sept. 14, audiences can watch actors perform live readings of the six finalists in the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition. Audiences vote for their favorite script; the winning writer takes home a $2,000 prize. Festival-goers

to learn

For more information, please visit www.dcshorts.com.

• City View Party: Roof of Carroll Square • Grand Bash: U.S. Navy Memorial • Closing Party: Atlas Performing Arts Center Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen

Please see Film Clips on the next page or detailed listings available at press time.

10-Nov. 5) illustrates the changes that have transformed the German capital, featuring “Berlinized” (Mon., Sept. 10, 6:30 p.m.) and “Eastern Landscape and a Place in Berlin” (Mon., Sept. 17, 6:30 p.m.).

American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theatre

(202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm

The perennial crowd-favorite “AFI Latin American Film Festival 2012” returns Sept. 20 to Oct. 10, showcasing the year’s biggest Latin American hits programmed by cultural attachés from embassies in Washington, D.C. Continuing series include “The Films of Stanley Kubrick” (through Sept. 13), “Spy Cinema/James Bond 50th Anniversary” (through Sept. 19), “70mm Spectacular” (through Sept. 19), “Marilyn Monroe Retrospective” (through Sept. 17) and “Totally Awesome 6: Great Films of the 1980s” (through Sept. 19).

Freer Gallery of Art

(301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

Goethe-Institut The series “Berlin: City of Reinvention: Rediscovering Berlin” (Sept.

Cosponsored by the Royal Thai Embassy, “Life Journeys: Four Thai Films” examines both independent and mainstream cinema in Thailand today with the following selections: “I Carried You Home” (Fri., Sept. 7, 7 p.m.), “The Overture” (Sun., Sept. 9, 2 p.m., including a live musical performance), “P-047” (Fri., Sept. 14, 7 p.m.), and “In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire Friday” (Fri., Sept. 21, 7 p.m.). (202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp

National Gallery of Art Produced in partnership with the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Czech Film Archive, the program “Miloš Forman: Lives Of

September 2012

An Artist” (Sept. 22-30) kicks off with the illustrated lecture “Origins of the Czech New Wave” (Sat., Sept. 22, 4 p.m.) by Michal Bregant, director of the Czech Film Archive in Prague. Screenings include: “Audition” preceding “Taking Off” (Sun., Sept. 23, 4:30 p.m.), The Fireman’s Ball” (Sat., Sept. 29, 1 p.m.), “Black Peter” (Sat., Sept. 29, 3 p.m.), “Loves of a Blonde” (Sat., Sept. 29, 4:30 p.m.), and the director’s cut of “Amadeus” (Sun., Sept. 30, 4 p.m.) “Aleksei Guerman: War And Remembrance,” presented in conjunction with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Seagull Films, is the first North American retrospective of the mysterious Leningradborn filmmaker, unknown in the West but noted in Russia for his unusual work focusing on important historical episodes. Screenings include: “Khrustalyov, My Car!” (Sun., Sept. 2, 4:30 p.m.), “Trial on the Road” (Sat., Sept. 8, 4:30 p.m.), “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” (Sun., Sept. 9, 4:30 p.m.), “Twenty Days without War” (Sat., Sept. 15, 4 p.m.), “The Fall of Otrar” (Sun., Sept. 16, 4:30 p.m.), and “The Seventh Companion” (Sat., Sept. 22, 2 p.m.). (202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/programs/film

The Washington Diplomat Page 53

[ film ]

CINEMA LISTING *Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

Czech Black Peter (Cerný Petr) Directed by Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia, 1963, 85 min.)

Inspired by the vérité approach of Italian neorealism, “Black Peter” centers on a shy but sympathetic young store clerk who, assigned to apprehend shoplifters, lacks the nerve to confront anyone (screens with “Loves of a Blonde”). National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 29, 3 p.m.

The Fireman’s Ball (Horí, má panenko) Directed by Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia/Italy, 1967, 71 min.)

A provincial fire department’s annual ball erupts in mayhem — raffle prizes are pilfered, the beauty pageant goes awry — and outside in the town, a house burns down. National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 29, 1 p.m.

Loves of Blonde (ásky jedné plavovlásky) Directed by Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia, 1965, 83 min.)

A naive factory worker who has a onenight stand with a musician from Prague and then follows him home (screens with “Black Peter”). National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 29, 3 p.m.

English $upercapitalist Directed by Simon Yin (U.S./Hong Kong, 2012, 96 min.)

and influenced major studio movies and independent cinema for years to come.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

September 2012 (Germany, 2006, 137 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Sept. 11, 9:20 p.m., Thu., Sept. 13, 9:45 p.m., Fri., Sept. 14, 9:30 p.m.

FILM Highlight

The Cold Light of Day

“Michelangelo Antonioni Centenary” (through Sept. 3) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Italian filmmaker, one of the most influential directors of the postwar era. The National Gallery of Art screens “La Notte” (Sat., Sept. 1, 2:30 p.m.), “L’Eclisse” (Sun., Sept. 2, 2 p.m.), and “Red Desert” (Mon., Sept. 3, 2:30 p.m.). From Sept. 10 to 18, the AFI Silver Theatre presents “Zabriskie Point,” Blow-Up” and “The Passenger.”

Directed by Mabrouk El Mechri (U.S./Spain, 2012, 93 min.)

After his family is kidnapped during their sailing trip in Spain, a young Wall Street trader is confronted by the people responsible: intelligence agents looking to recover a mysterious briefcase. Theater TBA Opens Fri., Sept. 7

Michelangelo Antonioni Centenary

(202) 842-6799; www.nga.gov/programs/film (301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

Cosmopolis Directed by David Cronenberg (France/Canada/Portugal/Italy, 2012, 109 min.)

In New York City in the not-too-distantfuture, a 28-year-old finance golden boy dreams of living in a civilization ahead of this one as he watches a dark shadow cast over Wall Street.

Two American suburbanite parents search for their runaway daughter, and in the process, meet other people whose children ran away. With their children gone, the parents are now free to rediscover life (screens with “Audition” [Czech Republic, 1963, 47 min.)].

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 23, 4:30 p.m.

An Englishman Abroad

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Directed by John Schlesinger (U.K., 1983, 60 min.)

Directed by Tomas Alfredson (U.K./France/Germany, 2011, 128 min.)

Based on a true story, actress Coral Browne travels to Moscow in the late 1950s for a production of “Hamlet” and met a mysterious Englishman: Guy Burgess, the notorious spy and defector (screens with “A Question of Attribution”).

Forcibly retired from the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, George Smiley (Gary Oldman, bringing a watchful intensity to the role) is unexpectedly summoned back and briefed on the presence of a mole among MI6’s leadership.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Sept. 2, 8:30 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Sept. 14 to 19

The Passenger

Zabriskie Point

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France/Spain, 1975, 126 min.)

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (U.S., 1970, 110 min.)

Journalist Jack Nicholson is covering a conflict in North Africa when he discovers the dead body of an acquaintance who resembled him. He assumes the man’s identity to explore his life — which turns out to be a dangerous one.

A handsome rebel and a young woman embark on a strange journey amid the stark and beautiful imagery of Death Valley.

Little White Lies (Les petits mouchoirs) Directed by Guillaume Canet (France, 2010, 154 min.)

Every year, a successful Parisian restaurant owner and his wife invite their group of friends to the beach, but this year, one of the friends has a near-fatal accident, setting off a chain of reactions and secret revelations during their once-idyllic getaway. Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Sept. 7

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d’espions)

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Sept. 7, 9:45 p.m., Sat., Sept. 8, 8:10 p.m., Wed., Sept. 12, 7 p.m.

Amadeus

A Question of Attribution

Directed by Milos Forman (U.S., 1984, 180 min.)

Directed by John Schlesinger (U.K., 1992, 70 min.)

Beloved (Les Bien-aimés)

Milos Forman’s adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s drama about a brash Mozart and his beleaguered rival Salieri swept nearly all major categories in the 1984 Oscars.

James Fox is marvelously slippery as Sir Anthony Blunt — director of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, surveyor of the King’s Pictures and a Soviet spy for some 25 years (screens with “An Englishman Abroad”).

A couple in a working-class community in France are charged with being part of a group of sexual predators preying on children — the beginning of a legal nightmare that lasted years and led to the conviction of a number of people later shown to be innocent.

National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 30, 4 p.m.

Arbitrage Directed by Nicholas Jarecki (U.S./Poland, 2012, 100 min.)

A troubled hedge fund magnate desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help. Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Sept., 14

Blow-Up Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (U.K./Italy/U.S., 1966, 111 min.)

“Blow-Up” brought the art film to the masses, broke the nudity barrier, captured the Mod look of 1960s “swinging London”

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AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Sept. 2, 8:30 p.m.

The Spy Who Loved Me Directed by Lewis Gilbert (U.K., 1977, 125 min.)

In Roger Moore’s best Bond film, James Bond teams with beautiful KGB agent Anya Amasova to investigate a missing submarine mystery that leads from the deserts of Egypt to beneath the waves in the Bahamas. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Sept. 2, 6 p.m.

Taking Off Directed by Milos Forman (U.S., 1971, 93 min.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Sept. 7

Farewell (L’affaire Farewell) Directed by Christian Carion (France, 2009, 113 min.)

In 1981, as U.S.-Soviet relations hit a new low, Moscow-based French businessman Pierre Froment gets chatted up by KGB man Gregoriev; soon the disenchanted Gregoriev is passing sensitive documents on the Soviet’s American spy network to Froment, urging him to get the info to the West (French, English and Russian). AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Sept. 14, 7 p.m., Tue., Sept. 18, 6:45 p.m.

Like a fossil, the Marx-Engels-Forum, a large, ambitious monument project of the GDR, adorns a historic spot in the center of Berlin. Jürgen Böttcher’s experimental documentary transforms footage he shot of the creation of this monument in the 1980s into a story about the loss of a monument’s meaning (screens with “Eastern Landscape” (Germany, 1991, 15 min.) about a Berlin dump that accumulates history). Goethe-Institut Mon., Sept. 17, 6:30 p.m.

Italian L’Eclisse

National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 2, 2 p.m.

French

Catherine Deneuve and her real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni star in this sexy yet exquisitely romantic musical drama that spans over three decades as it follows a mother and daughter’s misadventures in love. (French, Czech and English)

Directed by Jürgen Böttcher (Germany, 2001, 88 min.)

It’s 1955, and cocky, clueless French agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, aka OSS 117, is dispatched to Cairo to burnish France’s colonial relationships and stabilize the Suez Canal situation.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Sept. 15, 4 p.m., Tue., Sept. 18, 9 p.m.

Directed by Christophe Honoré (France/U.K./Czech Republic, 2011,

A Place in Berlin (Konzert im Freien)

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France, 1962, 125 min.)

Presumed Guilty (Présumé coupable)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Sept. 16, 8:20 p.m., Wed., Sept. 19, 7 p.m.

Directed by Michel Hazanavicius (France, 2006, 99 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Sept. 10, 9:30 p.m., Wed., Sept. 12, 9:05 p.m.

A maverick New York hedge fund trader with uncanny analytic abilities moves to Hong Kong and orchestrates a mega-deal that swiftly escalates beyond his control.

In 1984 East Germany, the 100,000 employees of the Stasi control the population through intimidation and pervasive surveillance. Company man Ulrich Mühe accepts an assignment to spy on playwright Sebastian Koch, slowly becoming absorbed by the domestic drama playing out between Koch and actress girlfriend.

Directed by Vincent Garenq (France, 2011, 102 min.)

La Maison Française Wed., Sept. 12, 7 p.m.

German Berlinized (Berlinized – Sexy an Eis) Directed by Lucian Busse (Germany, 2011, 84 min.)

Lucian Busse looks back at the subculture that emerged in Berlin in the early 1990s, when, in the midst of great political change and in the shadow of ultra-commercialized techno culture, there existed a parallel universe that’s now mostly forgotten.

Monica Vitti finishes an affair with Francisco Rabal but then drifts into another with her mother’s stockbroker.

La Notte Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France, 1961, 120 min.)

A day and night in the life of a modern marriage, set against the soulless architecture of Milan, find a couple visiting a dying friend, a nightclub and a protracted party, until their evening ends in a tormented dawn encounter. National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 1, 2:30 p.m.

Red Desert (Il deserto rosso) Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France, 1964, 120 min.)

Monica Vitti plays a wife and mother struggling with her own neuroses and a futile affair with an engineer amid a nightmarish industrial landscape. National Gallery of Art Mon., Sept. 3, 2:30 p.m.

Malayalam Urumi: The Warriors Who Wanted to Kill Vasco da Gama Directed by Santosh Sivan (India, 2011, 130 min.)

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)

In the most expensive Malayalamlanguage film ever made, the son of a revered general who was killed by Vasco da Gama’s men seeks bloody revenge when the Portuguese explorer returns 20 years later to shore up Portugal’s colonial interests.

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 16, 2 p.m.

Goethe-Institut Mon., Sept. 10, 6:30 p.m.

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

Russian

Silent

The Fall of Otrar (Gibel Otrara)

Samsara

Directed by Ardak Amirkulov (Soviet Union/Kazakhstan, 1991, 176 min.)

Aleksei Guerman was writer and producer on this fabled epic portraying the ruthless intrigues that led to Genghis Khan’s destruction of the Central Asian civilization of Otrar (Russian, Kazakh, Mongolian and Mandarin).

Directed by Ron Fricke (U.S., 2011, 99 min.)

In search of the elusive current of interconnection that runs through our lives, this documentary, filmed over five years in 25 countries on five continents, transports viewers to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes and natural wonders.

National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 16, 4 p.m.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Sept. 14

My Friend Ivan Lapshin (Moy drug Ivan Lapshin)

Spies (Spione)

Directed by Aleksei Guerman (Soviet Union, 1984, 100 min.)

Directed by Fritz Lang (Germany, 1928, 178 min.)

A love triangle develops in a small town between a police detective, his widowed friend, and an actress in this nostalgic return to Stalin’s Russia before the Great Purge of 1937-38.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Sept. 16, 4:30 p.m.

Undercover agent Willy Fritsch must infiltrate an international crime syndicate led by mastermind Rudolf Klein-Rogge.

National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 9, 4:30 p.m.

Thai

Khrustalyov, My Car! (Khrustalyov, mashinu!)

I Carried You Home (Padang besar)

Directed by Aleksei Guerman (Russia/France, 1998, 137 min.)

Consistent with his indirect portrayal of events, Aleksei Guerman constructs the narrative around a surgeon whose life is ruined by the so-called “doctors’ plot,” in which predominantly Jewish Moscow doctors were accused of conspiring to assassinate Soviet leaders. National Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 2, 4:30 p.m.

The Seventh Companion (Sedmoy sputnik) Directed by Aleksei Guerman (Soviet Union, 1967, 89 min.)

During the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, a general in the czar’s army, arrested by the secret police, is released into the brave new world of the Soviet Union. National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 22, 2 p.m.

Trial of the Road (Proverka na dorogakh) Directed by Aleksei Guerman (Soviet Union, 1971, 96 min.)

A Red Army sergeant who once defected to the Nazis is forced to prove his patriotism through a series of increasingly perilous missions. National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 8, 4:30 p.m.

Twenty Days Without War (Dvadstat dney bez voyny) Directed by Aleksei Guerman (Soviet Union, 1976, 101 min.)

Directed by Tongpong Chantarangkul (Thailand, 2011, 113 min.)

When their mother dies, two estranged sisters accompany her body in an ambulance ride across from Bangkok to her rural birthplace, giving them a chance to reconnect and come to terms with their grief. Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Sept. 7, 7 p.m.

In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire (Sin maysar fon tok ma proi proi) Directed by Wichanon Somumjarn (Thailand, 2012, 76 min.)

Wichanon Somumjarn’s debut feature is the story of a Bangkok construction worker who returns to his hometown for a friend’s wedding and reunites with a girl he had a crush on in high school —a seemingly straightforward narrative that reveals itself to actually be based on the director’s own life.

READIN’

ART

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Sept. 21, 7 p.m.

’RITING ’RITHMETIC

The Overture (Hom rong) Directed by Itthi-sunthorn Wichailak (Thailand, 2004, 104 min.)

Based on the life of Luang Pradit Phairao, master of the traditional Thai ranard-ek (wooden xylophone), this film is a sprawling story of musical genius and the preservation of cultural identity (preceded by a 30-minute performance by traditional xylophone master Thaworn Sriphong).

Royal dukes are squaresville. They have no rhythm. And they wear crowns.

Give your kids a chance to succeed. Up their daily dose of art.

Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Sept. 9, 2 p.m.

In 1942, a Soviet army major on furlough delivers the belongings of a fallen comrade to the man’s wife in his own hometown of Tashkent, where he reunites briefly with his ex-wife and begins a tentative courtship with a lonely seamstress.

P-047

National Gallery of Art Sat., Sept. 15, 4 p.m.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Sept. 14, 7 p.m.

Directed by Kongdei Jaturanrasmee (Thailand, 2011, 98 min.)

Two young men break into people’s homes — not to rob them but to borrow their lives for a while before putting everything back as it was.

September 2012

The Washington Diplomat Page 55

[ around town ]

EVENTS LISTING **Admission is free unless otherwise noted. All information on event venues can be found on The Washington Diplomat Web site at www.washdiplomat.com. Times and locations are subject to change. Unless listed, please call venue for specific event times and hours of operation.

ART Sept. 1 to Feb. 24

Enlightened Beings: Buddhism in Chinese Painting

Buddhism arrived in China during the first century and quickly grew in popularity, exerting a profound impact on all aspects of Chinese art and culture.

body of work in response to architect Philip Johnson’s celebrated design for the Kreeger home as a space for art and musical performance. The Kreeger Museum Sept. 13 to Nov. 2

Parks and Passages: Art and Public Space in Berlin and Washington

This summer, Provisions Library sent a team of D.C.-based artists and researchers to Berlin to study urban transformation in repurposed places to spark ideas for the redevelopment of Dupont Underground, an abandoned streetcar tunnel beneath D.C.’s Dupont Circle.

Freer Gallery of Art

Goethe-Institut

Sept. 1 to Oct. 21

Through Sept. 14

Occupy This!

“Occupy This!” combines art, photojournalism, historic documents and films to consider — in a broad, historic context — the causes, activities and representation of the Occupy Movement, which celebrates its one-year anniversary on Sept. 17, 2012. American University Katzen Arts Center Through Sept. 2

A Small Hope

Lukman Ahmad, a self-taught Kurdish artist from Syria, expresses his personal connection to the Kurdish land and its people — a history layered with tragedy, perseverance and aspirations — in works that are steeped in vivid colors and moving shapes. The Foundry Gallery Sept. 7 to Jan. 6

Women Who Rock: V ision, Passion, Power

Organized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the exhibition highlights the flashpoints, the firsts, the celebrated, and the lesser-known women who have influenced the genre from its inception through today. National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Sept. 9

Antony Gormley: Drawing Space

The Phillips presents the first major U.S. exhibition of works on paper by British artist Antony Gormley, internationally acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public projects that investigate the human body’s relationship to space. The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 9

Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme

One of the most celebrated artists of the modern era, Jasper Johns revolutionized the field of printmaking. This exhibition features some 90 iconic examples of targets, flags, numbers and other subjects the artist explored from 1960 to today and celebrates his visionary response to lithography, intaglio, silkscreen and lead relief sculpture. The Phillips Collection Sept. 11 to Dec. 29

Dan Steinhilber: Marlin Underground

Dan Steinhilber, known for his ability to transform mundane materials into extraordinary experiences of art, presents a new

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Shifting Geometries

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT rich archival holdings of the Art Museum of the Americas, “Constellations” surveys the dynamic, inter-American history of geometric abstraction across the 20th century — a tribute to the curatorial vision of José Gómez Sicre, the founder and first director of the AMA. Art Museum of the Americas Sept. 23 to Jan. 27

Shock of the News

This exhibit traces how visual artists in Europe and America after the turn of the 20th century began to think about the newspaper more broadly — as a means of political critique, as a collection of readymade news to appropriate or manipulate, a source of language and images, a typographical grab bag, and more. National Gallery of Art

Ten contemporary artists from Australia offer their takes on the diverse traditions of abstraction.

Through Sept. 27

Embassy of Australia

Developed in conjunction with the artist’s family, this exhibition examines the life and paintings of renowned Azerbaijani painter and film production designer Kamil Najafzade, including film screenings throughout the month.

Through Sept. 15

Hina/Jaina: On the Threshold of the Mayan Underworld (600-900 AD) More than 50 “Jaina style” figurines discovered on the man-made island of Jaina off the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula — an extremely important Mayan ritual and religious site in the classic period — depict various aspects of Mayan cosmology, religious beliefs and society, providing fascinating insight into one of Mexico’s most intriguing ancient civilizations. Mexican Cultural Institute Sept. 15 to Dec. 16

Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski

“Revelation” draws together more than 30 monumental canvases by Russian-born artist Jules Olitski, renowned as one of America’s last classic modern painters. American University Katzen Arts Center Through Sept. 16

Worlds Within Worlds: Imperial Paintings from India and Iran

India’s Mughal emperors, who reigned over a vast empire that extended from Kabul over most of the South Asian subcontinent between the 16th and the 19th centuries, were passionate about lavish manuscripts and paintings. The exhibit brings together 60 of the finest folios and paintings from the Freer|Sackler collection, one of the world’s most important repositories of Mughal and Persian painting. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Sept. 21 to March 10

The Sultan’s Garden: The Blossoming of Ottoman Art

More than 50 sumptuous textiles and other works of art illustrate the stylized floral designs that became synonymous with the wealth, abundance and influence of one of the world’s greatest empires. The Textile Museum Through Sept. 23

Constellations: Constructivism, Internationalism and the Inter-American Avant-Garde

Drawn from the permanent collection and

Azerbaijani Artist in Every Sense: Kamil Najafzade (1929-2011)

Pepco Edison Place Gallery Through Sept. 28

Ocean Fishes and Taxonomy

Working in the tradition of naturalists such as John James Audubon and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, James Prosek reminds us of the role visual representation plays in shaping our perceptions of the natural world with paintings, sculptures and taxidermy specimens exploring the nature of two-dimensional representation and the limitations of classification systems. The National Academy of Sciences Through Sept. 28

Painted_Interventions

The third in a series of exhibitions of Austrian contemporary art, which takes place in cooperation with “bäckerstrasse 4 – plattform für junge kunst,” features works by Austrians Elisabeth Wedenig, Matthias Lautner and Markus Hofer, as well as an artist from D.C., who reflect on the importance of the pluralistic world of the media. Embassy of Austria Through Sept. 30

Open City: London 1500-1700

Over the course of two centuries, London changed from the capital of England, secure within its medieval walls, to a metropolitan seat of empire. “Open City” explores activities and pressures that altered Londoners’ sense of community, focusing especially on three types of institutions: church, theater and market.

September 2012

Sept. 30 to Dec. 31

Through Dec. 9

The Serial Portrait: Photography and Identity in the Last One Hundred Years

African Cosmos: Stellar Arts

Some 150 works reveal how 20 photographers responded to older portrait conventions and imagined new ones by exploring the same subjects — primarily friends, family, and themselves — over the course of days, months, or decades. National Gallery of Art Through Oct. 6

New Works by Michael Platt and Stan Squirewell

Michael Platt presents his new body of work that combines elements of Australian and Aboriginal cultures with his signature techniques of using digital images, conventional photography, drawing and printmaking to explore the human condition, while Stan Squirewell works with photography, collage, sculpture and painting to create a visual vocabulary that blends ancient forms and spiritual symbols influenced by the African Diaspora with contemporary technology. International Visions Gallery Through Oct. 14

Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aeist

Few artists were more skilled than Dutch still-life artist Willem van Aelst (1627–83) at depicting luscious fruits, luxurious fabrics, and spoils of the hunt — 28 examples of which are featured in this first exhibit devoted solely to the artist. National Gallery of Art Through Oct. 14

The Deep Element: Photography at the Beach

This exhibition brings together photographs of the beach from the late 19th century through the present day, revealing the many ways that artists have explored and been inspired by this rich subject. Corcoran Gallery of Art Through Oct. 31

The Big Picture: A Photography Exhibition in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the IDB Cultural Center

Comprising 44 striking images from the Inter-American Development Bank’s permanent collection, as well as pieces previously shown at other art events held by the D.C.based international finance institution, “The Big Picture” highlights the cultural wealth and diversity of the Latin America and the Caribbean, as seen through the lens of 22 leading contemporary photographers from 13 countries. Dulles International Airport Gateway Gallery

Folger Shakespeare Library

Through Nov. 12

Sept. 30 to Dec. 31

Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan

Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings, 1475–1540

Focusing on drawings, prints, illustrated books and innovative printing techniques, this exhibition — the first of its kind in America — serves as an introduction to Augsburg, which enjoyed a golden age in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Recently conducted scientific excavations provide a fascinating look into the nomadic culture of the ancient peoples of Kazakh stan, with more than 150 spectacular finds from this vast Central Asian nation challenging traditional views of the nomadic societies that thrived thousands of years ago.

National Gallery of Art

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

In the first major exhibition to explore the historical legacy of African cultural astronomy and its intersection with traditional and contemporary African arts, some 100 objects consider how the sun, moon and stars and celestial phenomena such as lightning and rainbows serve as sources of inspiration in the creation of African art from ancient times to the present. National Museum of African Art Through Dec. 30

Prêt-à-Papier: The Exquisite Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave

A selection of iconic costumes and haute couture dresses — reflecting the rich history of fashion in European paintings and designs of the grand couturiers — are reinterpreted in trompe l’oeil paper masterpieces by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave. Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens Through Jan. 6

Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep

In the Spirit of the East Asian calendar’s Year of the Dragon, this exhibition highlights objects drawn from cultures as diverse as the ancient Mediterranean world, imperial China and contemporary South America, portraying dragons as everything from firebreathing beasts to beneficent water gods. The Textile Museum Through Jan. 13

Dark Matters

“Dark Matters” brings together works from the Hirshhorn’s collection that draw upon the associations and implications of darkness and its notions of mortality, silence, solitude and loss. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Through Feb. 3

Citizens of the Republic: Portraits from the Dutch Golden Age

Stalwart Dutch citizens, distinguished for their contributions to the arts and the state, are sensitively rendered in a selection of 17th- and 18th-century engravings. National Gallery of Art Through Feb. 10

Shadow Sites: Recent Work by Jananne Al-Ani

Inspired by archival archaeological and aerial photographs, as well as contemporary news, Jananne Al-Ani’s video works examine enduring representations of the Middle Eastern landscape. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Feb. 24

Lalla Essaydi: Revisions

Lalla Essaydi, a Moroccan-born, New Yorkbased artist, pushes the boundaries of Arab, Muslim and African perceptions of women’s identities with her art, which includes themes of feminism, gender, identity and the private inner lives of women while drawing

For a complete list of events, please visit our Web site at www.washdiplomat.com.

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

on Arabic calligraphy for its decorative a nd communicative potential.

Sept. 22 to 23

National Museum of African Art

The Smithsonian presents a two-day symposium that attempts to reinterpret, redefine and broaden the concept of Sufism to understand its relevance in contemporary society, featuring renowned scholars, musicians, poets, dancers, filmmakers and artists (presented in collaboration with the embassies of India and Pakistan as well as the Turkish Culture and Tourism Office).

DANCE Sept. 21 to 23

DTSB&Co 20th Anniversary Fall Performance

The Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company celebrates its 20th anniversary with the world premiere of “Caverns,” along with “Charlie Chan & the Mystery of Love,” “Becoming American,” “Khaybet” and “Dariush.” Tickets are $15 to $25. Dorothy Betts Marvin Center Sun., Sept. 23, 2 p.m.

Saayujya: Bharatanatyam Dances & Carnatic Vocals

Sivam Inc. presents Saayujya, a performance of Bharatanatyam dances and Carnatic vocals that brings together Priyadarsini Govind, one of the foremost Bharatanatyam dancers of this generation, and T.M. Krishna, one of the leading Carnatic vocalists. Tickets are $15 to $50. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Fri., Sept. 28, 7:30 p.m.

A Splendid Night of Guizhou, China

The Chinese Alumni Associations of Greater Washington presents an extravaganza of more than 40 professional dancers and artists from Guizhou Province and the Shaolin Kungfu Team. Tickets are $30 to $50.

Sufism at the Smithsonian

National Museum of the American Indian

FESTIVALS Sept. 8 to Oct. 17

Mutual Inspirations Festival 2012 Milos Forman The Mutual Inspirations Festival 2012 celebrates Oscar-winning, Czech-American director Milos Forman’s 80th birthday and his work, which represented the best of Czech cinematography and the accomplishments of the transatlantic film industry. Featuring internationally renowned directors, artists and historians, the festival presents more than 30 events at venues throughout the Washington area, including screenings, concerts, lectures, exhibitions and theater performances. September highlights include a launch party on Sept. 8 with Czech artist Borek Sipek’s glass designs at Industry Gallery and historian Tomas Bouska discussing “K.Ch. – The Documentary Portrait of a Female Political Prisoner” at the Czech Embassy on Sept. 13. For more information, visit www.mutualinspirations.org. Various locations

Sat., Sept. 29, 7:30 p.m.

GALAS

The Korean American Cultural Arts Foundation presents this unique celebration of artists from the Republic of Korea, with highlights such as a pageant of Chosun Dynasty costumes and classical Korean dances performed by Master Park Jai Hee. Tickets are $50. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Sun., Sept. 30, 7 p.m.

Ballet Folklórico de México

Celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2012, this brilliant company takes audiences on a journey that traces the evolution of Mexican dance from the pre-Colombian era, to Spanish colonization to the Mexican Revolution and into the present. Tickets are $28, $36 or $44. George Mason University Hylton Performing Arts Center

DISCUSSIONS Sept. 6 to 7

The Stations That Spoke Your Language: Radio and the YiddishAmerican Cultural Renaissance

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents a symposium exploring Yiddish radio in America, its history and cultural impact, its continuing influence on American media, and its multifaceted legacy. Library of Congress James Madison Building Wed., Sept. 12, 12 p.m.

Opera Houses from Antiquity to Present

Author Victoria Newhouse discusses her new book, “Sight and Sound: The Architecture and Acoustics of New Opera Houses and Concert Halls” and why, “like medieval cathedrals, today’s opera houses symbolize wealth and power.” Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building

Wed., Sept. 5, 7:30 p.m.

Alexis Descharmes, Cello

As the first cellist of the Opéra National de Paris, Alexis Descharmes — taking part here in D.C.’s John Cage Centennial Festival — boasts an exceptionally busy international career that includes the release of more than 20 award-winning discs and appearances at festivals in no less than 30 countries. Tickets are $25. La Maison Française

Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

7th Annual Korean Art and Soul

MUSIC

Wed., Sept. 12, 6:30 p.m.

34th Annual Ambassadors Ball Funds raised at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s annual ball to honor Washington’s diplomatic community go toward cutting-edge research to help find a cure for MS, as well as vital programs and services for the many thousands of people affected by MS in the D.C. area. Tickets are $500; for information, visit www.msandyou. org/ball. Ritz-Carlton Washington Hotel Fri., Sept. 28, 6 p.m.

From Vision to Reality: A 20-Year Journey It has been 20 years since Father D’Agostino founded the Nyumbani Children’s Home in Kenya. Today, Nyumbani, run by Sister Mary Owens, has provided care and shelter to thousands of HIV+ children in Kenya through its children’s home, a local outreach program and Nyumbani Village, a self-sustaining community to serve orphans and elders who’ve been left behind by the “lost generation” of the HIV pandemic. The 20th anniversary gala in D.C. features reception, silent and live auction and dinner with Kathleen Matthews serving as mistress of ceremonies. A mass commemorating the 20th anniversary of Nyumbani Children’s Home takes place Sun., Sept. 29, at 5:30 p.m., at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in D.C., followed by a reception at the Cosmos Club. Tickets to the gala are $325; for information, contact Erin Kennedy at info@nyumbani.org or (202) 422-5024. Ritz-Carlton Washington Hotel Fri., Sept. 28, 6:30 p.m.

Euro Night 2012 Fête

Now in its fifth year in a row, Euro Night features more than 20 European Union Embassies showcasing their respective culture, traditions and culinary specialties. Tickets are $35. La Maison Française

Sat., Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m.

Opera Camerata of Washington: Don Giovanni

The Opera Camerata of Washington stages Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” conducted by maestro Gregory Buchalter, assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and directed by Roger Riggle. The performance will also feature young artists and Metropolitan Opera finalists, as well as a cocktail reception and silent auction under a grand tent in the garden of Portuguese Ambassador Nuno Brito’s residence, followed by the performance and post-production Fri., Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m., Sat., Sept. 15, 7:30 p.m.

Latin American Harp Festival

René Devia of Colombia, Julio González of Mexico and Lorenzo González and Julie Crystal Peña of Paraguay perform on the Latin American harp, to raise funds for Teatro de la Luna’s upcoming “15th International Festival of Hispanic Theater.” Tickets are $30. Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre Sat., Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Avasarala Kanyakumari & Orchestra

Kalamandapam presents a recital by violinist Avasarala Kanyakumari, an acclaimed master of Carnatic music, the ancient system of Indian classical music known for the melodic vocal lines of its compositions. Tickets are $25. Kennedy Center Terrace Theater Sun., Sept. 30, 3 p.m.

Autumn Piano Concert and Reception

The Piano Society of Greater Washington opens its season with a concert of solo works from Debussy, Bach and Schumann, as well as piano-violin works by Brahms. Donations appreciated. Calvary Lutheran Church Silver Spring, Md.

THEATER Sept. 3 to 30

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

This “all-American satire” (New York Times) explores the larger-than-life world of professional wrestling. Tickets start at $35. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Through Sept. 5

All’s Well That Ends Well

The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual “Free For All” returns with the Bard’s story of adventure and romance, set in World War I, as Helena, the daughter of a physician, pursues the non-committal Count Bertram, who in turn tries to escape her advances through harsh words and disdainful actions. Sidney Harman Hall Sept. 5 to 30

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Rajiv Joseph’s acclaimed play follows the

intertwined lives of a quick-witted tiger, two homesick American marines, and a troubled Iraqi gardener as they roam the streets of war-torn Baghdad in search of meaning, redemption, and a toilet seat made of gold. Tickets are $10 to $61. Round House Theatre Bethesda Sept. 8 to 22

Hamlet

Fresh from a run in London, Shakespeare’s Globe makes its D.C. debut with an eightactor production of “Hamlet,” a raw, thrillingly elemental production of the fullest expression of the Bard’s genius. Tickets are $60 to $85. Folger Theatre Sept. 13 to Oct. 7

El desdén con el desdén/I n Spite of Love

In one of the most popular comedies to come out of Spain’s Golden Age, Princess Diana disdains love and marriage, so to win the affection of the indifferent princess, Count Urgel feigns his own disdain for her and sets off a series of madcap comic situations. Tickets are $36 and $40. GALA Hispanic Theatre

Sept. 20 to Oct. 13

Don Giovanni

Powerhouse Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov stars in the Washington National Opera’s season-opener: Mozart’s musical masterpiece “Don Giovanni,” which follows legendary rake Don Juan as he descends into excess and immorality, while the women he has discarded seek revenge. Tickets start at $25. Kennedy Center Opera House Sept. 20 to Oct. 21

Jekyll and Hyde

Synetic Theater continues its proud tradition of reimagining literary classics with “Jekyll and Hyde,” a bold, wordless retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless cautionary tale about conflicting impulses and desires. Tickets are $35 to $55. Synetic Theater Sept. 21 to Oct. 14

A Couple of Blaguards

“Blaguards” follows the trials of the brothers Frank McCourt and Malachy McCourt from their childhood in poverty-stricken Limerick to their journey to Brooklyn, where the young men learned to apply the day-to-day lessons from their hardscrabble Irish past to their new lives in America. Tickets are $35. Church Street Theater

Sept. 13 to Oct. 28

The Government Inspector

Sept. 21 to Oct. 21

The first Russian play to be staged by the Shakespeare Theatre, Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” is a lampoon of provincial bureaucracy, as a civil servant who is running out of money travels from Saint Petersburg to a small Russian town, where his imagination runs rampant. Tickets are $43 to $95.

Based on the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, “Fly” is the powerful story of four African-American military pioneers who proved themselves as officers and pilots during World War II. Please call for ticket information.

The Shakespeare Lansburgh Theatre

Fly

Ford’s Theatre Sept. 27 to 30

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Sept. 15 to Oct. 6

Anna Bolena Celebrated American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky returns to the Washington National Opera to make her role debut as Anne Boleyn in the storied Tudor court of King Henry VIII, as the unfaithful king plots to replace his queen Anne Boleyn with her lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour. Tickets start at $25. Kennedy Center Opera House Sept. 19 to Oct. 7

Shakespeare’s whimsical tale of love and mistaken identity comes to life in a completely new way in this bilingual Chinese and American co-production — the culmination of a multiyear collaboration between the University of Maryland and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. Tickets are $35. Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Fri., Sept. 28, 8 p.m., Sat., Sept. 29, 2 and 8 p.m.

Zero Cost House

Black Watch

After a sold-out run last year, the National Theatre of Scotland’s “Black Watch” returns to the Shakespeare Theatre Company, offering a searing view of war from the perspectives of soldiers in Iraq, based on interviews with former soldiers who served in the Scottish regiment. Tickets are $70 to $85. Sidney Harman Hall

Toshiki Okada’s sly, personal and idiosyncratic “Zero Cost House,” written in the wake of the Japanese tsunami disaster is a time- and space-bending autobiographical production about drastic relocations, remaking government, and the freedom and heaviness of that moment when what’s impossible becomes concrete. Tickets are $20. Georgetown University Davis Performing Arts Center

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DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

London Olympics

From left, Elizabeth Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, President of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden, and Senior Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for Comcast Melissa Maxfield attend a reception at the British Residence, co-hosted by Comcast and NBCUniversal, for the official opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London.

photos: thomas coleman

photo: British embassy in washington

From left, attorney Mark Tuohey, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington bureau chief Antoine Sanfuentes, Susan Blumenthal, and Lisa Sanfuentes attend a reception marking the start of the Olympic Games in London.

British Ambassador Sir Peter Westma cott admires a replica Olympic torch at a reception held at his residence celebrating the London Games.

photo: British embassy in washington

More than 700 guests came to the British ambassador’s residence, which was elaborately lit up for the Olympics, to watch the start of the Games in London.

EU at Miriam’s Kitchen

From left, former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs W. Scott Gould, and Minister-Counselor of Defense Material at the British Embassy William Jessett attend the Olympic viewing party at the British Residence.

Nancy Bard, left, joins Diane Rehm of National Public Radio at the British Residence to watch the start of the 2012 Olympics, which was broadcast on screens throughout the residence.

From left, Michael Evans of The Times newspaper, Deputy Chief of Mission at the British Embassy Philip Barton, Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times, and Chris McGreal of the Guardian attend the Olympic viewing party at the British Residence.

Todd Wiggins, a guest at Miriam’s Kitchen in Foggy Bottom, waves as he picks up his dinner tray of glazed salmon, grilled asparagus, rice pilaf and homemade applesauce from staff at the EU Delegation in Washington.

photo: British embassy in washington

Executive Vice President of Comcast David L. Cohen welcomes guests to the British Residence, where footage of the Olympic opening ceremony was provided by Comcast/NBCUniversal.

Photos: European Union, 2012 / Maeve O’Beirne

From left, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Chris Paul, Shannon Scott, Maura Fox, Rear Adm. Tom Moore and Cmdr. Ian Atkins, assistant naval attaché at the British Embassy, attend the Olympic viewing party at the British Residence.

President and CEO of the Meridian International Center Stuart Holliday and his wife Gwen enjoy the gardens of the British Residence during a reception celebrating the start of the Olympics.

European Union Ambassador João Vale de Almeida, center, joins his staff at Miriam’s Kitchen, where members of the EU Delegation to Washington prepared and served dinner to hundreds of downon-their-luck D.C. residents.

Belgian National Day

Photos: James P. Adams, Joanne Ke

From left, Ambassador of Brazil Mauro Vieira, Ambassador of Turkey Namik Tan, Ellen Noghès, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Noghès, and wife of the Luxembourg ambassador Louise Åkerblom attend the Belgian National Day held at the ambassador’s residence on Foxhall Road.

Page 58

As his wife Agnes Matthysen looks on, Ambassador of Belgium Jan Matthysen welcomes some 600 guests to his residence, which featured Belgian beers from five distributors, chocolates from Neuhaus and Barry Callebaut, and the residence chef’s Belgium waffles, fries and his award-winning apple pie.

From left, John P. Farmer of the White House, founder and CEO of the Institute for Education Kathy Kemper, Ina Ginsburg, Natalia Kislyak, and Ambassador of Russia Sergey I. Kislyak attend the Belgian National Day reception.

From left, Didi and Walter Cutler, former president of the Meridian International Center, join James Blanchard of DLA Piper and Janet Blanchard at the Belgian National Day reception.

The Washington Diplomat

September 2012

Azerbaijan Republic Day

Current Ambassador of Afghanistan Eklil Hakimi, left, joins former Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad, now CEO of Capitalize LLC, at the Azerbaijan Republic Day reception.

‘Shifting Geometries’ at Australia Ambassador Kim Beazley, right, joins artist Gemma Smith at the Australian Embassy, where her work was featured in “Shifting Geometries,” an exhibit showcasing 10 contemporary Australian artists. Photo: Paul Morigi

Cocoa Farmers in Côte d’Ivoire

U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Penavic Marshall, left, joins Ambassador of Georgia Temuri Yakobashvili at the Azerbaijan Republic Day reception held at Sequoia restaurant in Georgetown.

Photos: thomas coleman

From left, Ambassador of Mauritius Somduth Soborun, Ambassador of Timor-Leste Constancio da Conceicao Pinto, International Affairs Director at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Ann Santini, and Ambassador of Laos Seng Soukhathivong attend a reception celebrating the Republic Day of Azerbaijan held at Sequoia restaurant.

From left, Jeff Morgan, vice chairman of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF); Bill Guyton, president of the WCF; Anne Alonzo, chairwoman of the WCF; and Dominique Ouattara, first lady of Côte d’Ivoire, attend a signing ceremony at the Ivorian Embassy in Washington to develop and implement a $3.6 million project to benefit cocoa farmers and their families. Photo: larry luxner

Book Launch

KORA Fashion Show

Photos: Laura Gerhardt

Ambassador of Japan Ichiro Fujisaki, center, joins authors Thomas E. Mann, left, and Norman J. Ornstein for a launch party celebrating their new book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.”

From left, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Portuguese Embassy Rosa Batoreu, Georgi Petrov, and his mother, Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova attend a book party for authors Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein.

From left, Julia Senninger, Norman J. Ornstein, Ambassador of Luxembourg Jean-Paul Senninger, and his wife Louise Åkerblom attend a book party for authors Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, whose name will go to a new scholarship at the University of Michigan that will help fund the next generation of leaders looking to find common political ground.

Honoring Harriman

photos: Haddad Media

From left, President Emeritus Timothy J. Sullivan of the College of William and Mary, Jennie Churchill, and French Ambassador François Delattre attend a reception at the State Department in honor of Churchill’s grandmother, Pamela Harriman.

U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Penavic Marshall gives remarks at a State Department reception to honor former U.S. Ambassador to France Pamela Harriman and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Pamela Harriman Foreign Service Fellowship Program, which grants rising juniors or seniors placements at either the U.S. Embassy in London, the U.S. Embassy in Paris or the Office of the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C.

From left, Judith Kipper, Gloria Bold, Janet Howard of CocaCola (former chief of staff to Pamela Harriman), Jennie Churchill, and Tammy Haddad attend a reception in honor of former U.S. Ambassador to France Pamela Harriman.

Photos: larry luxner

From left, Jeff Vosseller, publisher of Africa Agribusiness Magazine; Christelle Gorman of Côte d’Ivoire; Ambassador of Sierra Leone Bockari Kortu Stevens; Omar Arouna of GoodWorks International Consulting LLC; and NuNu Wako of Ethiopia attend a fashion show and dinner at Arena Stage for the KORA All Africa Music Awards in Côte d’Ivoire later this year.

Models pose at a fashion show and gala dinner held at Washington’s Arena Stage to kick off the KORA All Africa Awards, known as the Grammy Awards of Africa, which will be held Dec. 29 in Côte d’Ivoire.

Iftar Celebrations

photo: british embassy in washington Photo: jan du plain

Photos: embassy of israel in washington

From top row left, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), hostess Shaista Mahmood, Dr. Maya Kassandra Soetoro-Ng, and host Rafat Mahmood, along with Heather Foley and former House Speaker Tom Foley attend an Iftar dinner at the Mahmood residence in honor of Soetoro-Ng, President Barack Obama’s half-sister.

Farah Pandith, special representative to Muslim communities at the State Department, left, talks with Ambassador of Israel Michael Oren at his residence for an Iftar dinner that broke the fast in the traditional Islamic manner, followed by prayers and a halal Middle-Eastern themed dinner.

Imam Antepli Abdullah of Duke University, left, joins Ambassador of Israel Michael Oren for a traditional Iftar dinner at Ambassador Oren’s residence — the second year that Oren has brought together members of the Muslim and Jewish community of Washington to break the Ramadan fast.

September 2012

From left, Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Washington office Melanie Maron Pell, Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress Zainab Al-Suwaij, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the British Embassy Philip Barton welcome guests to an interfaith Iftar reception held at Barton’s residence.

The Washington Diplomat Page 59

November 13, 2012 Washington, D.C.

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September 2012

HOLIDAYS AFGHANiSTAN Sept. 9: assassination of cmdr. ahmad Shah Masood ANDorrA Sept. 8: Patron Saint, national holiday (Mare de Deu de Meritxell) ANGoLA Sept. 17: nation’s Founder and national heroes’ Day

ArmENiA Sept. 21: independence Day

BrAZiL Sept. 7: independence Day

BELiZE Sept. 10: St. George’s caye Day Sept. 21: independence Day

BuLGAriA Sept. 6: reunification Day Sept. 22: independence Day

BoTSWANA Sept. 30: Botswana Day

CAmBoDiA Sept. 24: constitution and coronation Day

CANADA Sept. 3: labor Day CHiLE Sept. 18: independence Day Sept. 19: armed Forces Day

DomiNiCAN rEPuBLiC Sept. 24: Day of the Virgin of Mercedes EAST Timor Sept. 20: liberation Day

CoSTA riCA Sept. 15: independence Day

EL SALvADor Sept. 15: independence Day

CZECH rEPuBLiC Sept. 28: Day of czech Statehood

ETHioPiA Sept. 11: ethiopian new year Sept. 27: Meskal GuATEmALA Sept. 15: independence Day GuiNEA Sept. 28: referendum Day

APPOINTMENTS Latvia andris razans became ambassador of latvia to the united States on July 30. ambassador razans previously served as political director/undersecretary of state at the latvian Ministry of Foreign affairs (2010-12), where he also held posts as ambassador at large of the ministry’s Policy Planning Group (2009-10); counselor and Ambassador head of the Policy Planning Group Andris razans (2003-04); head of the eu Policy Division (1997-98); and desk officer of the northern europe Division (1993-94). in addition, he was latvia’s ambassador to Denmark (2004-09), diplomatic advisor to the latvian prime minister (2004), and deputy head of mission of the latvian embassy in Sweden (2000-03). ambassador razans was also diplomatic advisor to the latvian president (19982000), as well as second secretary and third secretary at the latvian embassy in Denmark (1994-97). ambassador razans holds a master’s degree in history from latvian State university and has studied at Sweden’s Stockholm university and lund university, where he was a guest researcher, as well as the london School of economics and uSia Visitors program for young leaders. he speaks latvian, english, russian and Swedish as well as some German, Danish, norwegian and French.

malta Joseph cole became ambassador of Malta to the united States on July 30. ambassador cole previously served as director-general of european and economic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign affairs (200912); chairman of the Malta Sanctions Monitoring Board (2009-12); a memAmbassador ber of the Malta council for Joseph Cole economic and Social Development (2009-10); and director of global issues at the ministry (2006-09). he was also vice chairman of the national uneSco commission (2006-09), deputy high commissioner in london (1998-2001), and consul general for Malta in new South Wales, australia (1983-85). in addition, ambassador cole served as assistant to the director-general in the Ministry of Finance and commerce (1996-97) and head of unit in the enforcement Division of the inland revenue Department (1987-96). ambassador cole specialized in science and technology at the Malta college of arts and is married to the former Bernadette Bunce and has a daughter named christine.

Netherlands rudolf Simon Bekink became ambassador of the netherlands to the united States on July 30, having most recently served as ambassador to the People’s republic of china (2008-12), following stints as the Dutch ambassador to Belgium (200408) and Sweden (2000-04). ambassador Bekink served in

September 2012

GuiNEA-BiSSAu Sept. 24: independence Day Washington, D.c., on a prior occasion, as first secretary to the embassy’s political department from 1982 to 1986, covering africa, latin america, europe and protocol. in addition, he was director of protocol for the Ministry of Foreign affairs from 1997 to 2000, during which time he directed state visits to the netherlands, as well as deputy head of mission with the Dutch Permanent representation to the organization for economic cooperation and Development in Paris (1992-97). ambassador Bekink also held posts in the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Foreign affairs (1990-92) and was deputy head of division at the Ministry of economic affairs (1989-90), as well as chargé d’affaires to Ghana (1986-89). he began working at the Ministry of Foreign affairs in 1976, serving in Greece, angola and the east asia Ambassador Division of the Foreign Ministry. rudolf Simon ambassador Bekink was born on Bekink Sept. 30, 1950, in assen, a town of about 67,000 people in the northeastern part of the netherlands, and earned a master’s degree in economy from the university of Groningen. he married businesswoman Gabrielle de Kuyper of austin, texas, in august 2011, and he has three grown sons. he can be followed on twitter at @ rBekink.

HoNDurAS Sept. 15: independence Day iSrAEL Sept. 17-18: rosh hashanah Sept. 26: yom Kippur JAPAN Sept. 21: respect for the aged Day (Keirou no hi) Sept. 23: autumnal equinox (Shuubun no hi) LiBYA Sept. 1: national Day LiECHTENSTEiN Sept. 8: nativity of our lady

LuXEmBourG Sept. 3: luxembourg city Fete

PArAGuAY Sept. 29: Battle of Boquerón

mACEDoNiA Sept. 8: independence Day

QATAr Sept. 3: independence Day

mALAYSiA Sept. 16: Malaysia Day

rWANDA Sept. 25: Kamarampaka Day

mALi Sept. 22: anniversary of the Proclamation of the republic

ST. KiTTS and NEviS Sept. 19: independence Day

mALTA Sept. 8: our lady of Victories Sept. 21: independence Day mArSHALL iSLANDS Sept. 1: Workers’ Day Sept. 30: customs Day mEXiCo Sept. 16: Mexican independence Day of 1810 moZAmBiQuE Sept. 7: Victory Day Sept. 25: armed Forces Day NiCArAGuA Sept. 14: Battle of San Jacinto Sept. 15: independence Day

SLovAKiA Sept. 1: Slovak constitution Day Sept. 15: lady of Sorrows Day SouTH AFriCA Sept. 24: heritage Day SWAZiLAND Sept. 6: Somhlolo Day (independence Day) TAJiKiSTAN Sept. 9: independence Day TriNiDAD and ToBAGo Sept. 24: republic Day uZBEKiSTAN Sept. 1: independence Day

PALAu Sept. 5: labor Day

viETNAm Sept. 2: Vietnamese national Day

PAPuA NEW GuiNEA Sept. 16: independence Day

YEmEN Sept. 26: September revolution anniversary (1962)

Send Us Your Holidays and Appointments Fax to: the Washington Diplomat at: (301) 949-0065 E-mail to: news@washdiplomat.com mail to: P.o. Box 1345, Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345

Singapore ashok Kumar Mirpuri became ambassador of Singapore to the united States on July 30, having most recently served as Singapore’s ambassador to indonesia since July 2006. ambassador Mirpuri was also Singapore’s high commissioner to Malaysia (2002-06) and high comAmbassador missioner to australia (2000-02). ambassador Mirpuri joined the Ashok Kumar Ministry of Foreign affairs in 1984, mirpuri serving as first secretary (political) at the Singapore embassy in Jakarta (1987-91) and as director of the ministry’s Policy Planning & analysis Directorate i, specializing in Southeast asia (1994-97). in 1997, ambassador Mirpuri was seconded to Shell international ltd. in the united Kingdom as corporate advisor (asia Pacific), returning to the Singapore embassy in Jakarta in 1998 as minister-counselor and deputy chief of mission. ambassador Mirpuri holds an honors degree in political science from the national university of Singapore, and he received his master’s of arts degree from the university of london’s School of oriental & african Studies under a raffles Scholarship. he also did the Programme for executive Development at the institute for Management Development in lausanne, Switzerland, and attended the advanced Management Program at harvard Business School in the united States. ambassador Mirpuri was awarded the Public administration Medal (Gold) by the Singapore government in 2010.

ObITUARY In LovIng MeMory of ouLIMata BadIane Ba aug. 6, 1958-June 1, 2012 Mrs. oulimata Badiane Ba, 53, devoted mother of two and wife to former ambassador of Senegal to the united States (2002-10) amadou lamine Ba, died unexpectedly in Boston on Fri., June 1, 2012. Mrs. Ba was born in Senegal on aug. 6, 1958. She was buried in a traditional Muslim ceremony in her hometown of thies next to her grandfather on June 7, 2012. She was a phenomenal woman, wife, mother, daughter and sister, and her hometown will forever mourn her passing. She is survived by her husband, amadou Ba, as well as her daughter Marieme and son ali. Mr. Ba still resides in their home in Boston; her children work and live Washington, D.c. her family would like to thank all of their friends, colleagues and associates for their incredible support during this difficult time. Please continue to keep her and her family in your prayers. May allah grant her eternal peace. — Marieme Ba The Washington Diplomat Page 61

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Nine full-color issues for $29 a year. Mention Washington Report on this ad and get a $20East subscription. Visit our Middle Affairs Webfull-color site at http://www.wrmea.com Nine issues for $29 a year. Mention this ad and get a $20 subscription. Visit our Web site at http://www.wrmea.com

PREMIUM TICKETS TO ALL EVENTS NATIONWIDE real Estate Ads

Foreign diplomats are entitled to a 25 word ad (additional words are 35¢ each) for merchandise only. offer limited to one ad per month and does not include real estate or business ads. Must fax a copy of Diplomatic identification card.

NoTE: ad materials and full payment due by the 15th of the month prior to publication.

real estate ads of 25 words with a photo are $40, without photo $20. each additional word is 35¢.

CONCERT THEATER approved? SPORTS

Classified Ad rates

rates start at $20. classified ad $20 for 25 words, 35¢ each additional word. add photo for $20. all classifieds running three months or longer are posted on the Web at no additional cost to the advertiser - a saving of $10/month.

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Placing Classifieds Ads

Free Ads for Diplomats

LEGA

Placing Your Ad

call (301) 933-3552 and ask for a sales representative.

Deadline

the deadline for ads is the 15th of each month at the close of business.

Washington Nationals W Washington Redskins Taylor Swift W Jimmy Buffett W Iron Maiden W Green Day 2012 September

MED

The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, su will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are cons

Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes to your If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 The Washington Diplomat

REAL ESTATE

needs changes

(301) 933-3552

Approved ______________________________________________________

CLASSIFIED ADS

September Changes2012 _______________________________________________________

NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure yourAlthough ad is freeevery of mistakes spelling and your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and NOTE: effort is in made to assure _______________________________________________________________ content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. content it is ultimately up to the the final proof. To place an ad in the classified section, call (301)customer 933-3552toor make email sales@washdiplomat.com

COMMERCIAL

The first two faxed changes will be made at The no cost thefaxed advertiser, subsequent changes firsttotwo changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. ads are considered approved. will beSigned billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved.

FOR SALE OR RENT

FOR RENT

rESiDENTiAL, CommErCiAL

mcLEAN/

FOR SALE

Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes your ad. Pleasetocheck this ad carefully. Mark any changes to your ad.

EmBASSY roW ArEA —

If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs If the ad is correct signchanges and fax to: (301) 949-0065

needs changes

Living Large

SALES, uPPEr-END rENTALS — TYSoNS CorNEr — embassy office Space- Dc/nyc in oBservatory CirCle chancery Buildings/residential Since 1975 - reliable, knowledgeable, in rotonda of Mclean/ Brand new, Diplomat professional, (301) The (301) 933-3552 Buildings - embassy rowThe areaWashington with prompt933-3552 service —Washington Diplomat tysons corner, luxury large-scale parking. ideal for embassies, law Kalorama, Georgetown, capitol hill, apartment ready to move rooms flow firms, foundations, etc. lease or sale. Mass. avenue, Wesley heights, etc. 2,000 sq. ft., 5th floor, 3 from gracious Approved __________________________________________________________ Approved __________________________________________________________ lPc (202) 491-5300. Sir James Patricia henryk, Broker- Pat henryk real estate Brs 3 FBs, huge living and party-size foyer. the Diplomats agent Changes ___________________________________________________________ (202) 362-7155 or (202) 528-1042. dining room, indoor garage and storage, facing pool, all Changes ___________________________________________________________ Customized, email: pathenryk@verizon.net rooms hardwood floor, 24/7 concierge, gated complex, Agent has numerous other properties to show! chefs kitchen, ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ $2,900 per month. condo fee included. amenities and 3-car garage, floor plan aa open: http://www.rotonda.org/home.asp 3 luxurious levels, contemporary finishes EmBASSY roW — inquiry: hoss - (703) 937-7263. throughout! Offered at $2,925.000. View online at Diplomat Classifieds Sell - 301.933.3552 elegant chancery style mansion in close proximity http://www.homevisit.com/misTour?ver=l&id=58619 to embassy row. adjacent to the DuPont circle FOR SALE Metro Station. Parking. lease/Sale. lPc commercial Kathleen Bridget Mcgovern NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure yourinc. ad(202) is free of mistakes in spelling and Services 491-5300. CommErCiAL oFFiCE SALES/LEASiNG — Long & Foster Chevy Chase

content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof.

embassy chancery commercial office Sales/leasing

Cell/210-833-6156 • office/202-363-9700

er y m r ss a alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. Fo ba ram em alo K Please call Guy d’amecourt for consultation. Heart of Historic DC in Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes to your ad. (202) 415-7800 or (202) 682-6261

over the pastfaxed 30 yearschanges we have specialized The first two will bein made working with embassies to find suitable chancery willand beoffice billed at a rate of $75 per faxed properties to buy or lease.

at noFOR cost RENT to the advertiser, subsequent changes

SiLvEr SPriNG, mD — impressive colonial on corner lot in Silver Spring. 3 finished levels. 2-story foyer. 4 Brs, 3.5 Bas. this home is great for entertaining. conveniently located. easy commute to Washington, D.c. list price: $629,000. cell: (301) 412-4130 Dawn Burgess re/Max 2000 realtorS 12301 old columbia Pike, Ste 310 Silver Spring, MD 20904 email: houses4you@mris.com

Beautiful Bloomingdale

real Estate, LLC to: (301) 949-0065 If theSummiT ad is Commercial correct sign and fax needs changes Upscale English Basement Apartment. 950 sq ft. New Construction. 1 br / 1 ba. Gourmet Kitchen. The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 Granite Countertops. Stainless Steel Appliances. SELL - BUY - RENT: 301-933-3552 Fully Furnished, incl. Tableware, Cookware, Bedding, Linens. Split Heat and A/C. Heated Bathroom Floor. Approved __________________________________________________________ Metal Security Gates, Alarm System. Secured Patio. kalorama DuPoNT CirCLE — No Pets, NO 2310 Smoking. Ideal for a nw Person on Travel Changes ___________________________________________________________ tracy place, washington, dc Walking distance 1325 18th Street: office condo available for purchase Orders. Zoned Street Parking. ___________________________________________________________________ or lease in Dupont circle. call clark turner or andrew to Bus and Metro. Available Immediately. Genova with WlS realty – (202) 835-3388. $2,250 per month. Refs Required. elizabethj8560@yahoo.com

To place your ad here, call (301) 933-3552.

202-340-3434

PHOENIX, ARIZONA INVESTMENT PROPERTY Large Home with In the warm we Pool — $175,000 at this stucco ho her of Arizona, me has a priva te pool and man y upgrades.

More than 3,00 0 of luxury living. square feet 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and 2-car garage.

WASHINGTON F I N E P RO P E RT I E S , L L C

2310 tracy place, nw CLEvELAND PArK — washington, dc

Four bedroom family home in cleveland Park - classic center hall colonial within earshot of the national cathedral: four Brs, two full Bas on the second floor, finished spacious attic as either a fifth bedroom or a family room, plenty of built-in bookshelves throughout, au pair suite including another full bath in basement, off street parking for three cars (including a one-car detached garage), large professionally landscaped yard with flagstone patio, formal dining room seating 12 comfortably, spacious three-season sunroom looking out on the garden. rent: $5,500 plus utilities, includes year-round professional maintenance of the gardens. lease term: two years starting September 2012. contact information: Jeff alpher, jeff@alpher.org. cell: (202) 537-1603.

WASHINGTON F I N E P RO P E RT I E S , L L C

LAND/LOTS mASSACHuSETTS AvE. HEiGHTS — estate land assemblage. unique Diplomatic Church School Compound-Style Property. can build. approximately 30,000 sq. ft. with parking. Metro 2 blocks. lPc (202) 513-6708.

SELLING? BUYING? RENTING?

Foreclosure af fects more than just you. It af fects your whole family. A million families will face losing their homes this year. Call today for help. Because nothing is worse than doing nothing.

Newer hom maintenance and H rd story, low ya care of front yard. takes

1-888-995-HOPE

SAMIR RAFEEDIE, President CEO

DiPLomAT rEAL ESTATE CLASSiFiEDS —

15256 N. 75th Ave. 300, Peoria, AZ 85381 samir.rahomes.com • (623) 815-1900 http: www.realtyambassadors.com

Get superb results! Place your classifed or real estate classified in D.c.’s leading international newspaper, the Washington Diplomat. to get your ad in the next issue of the Diplomat, call (301) 933-3552.

REALTOR

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

T: 5.25 in

$124,000e tw>o — w e N st o lm A ed in, nic OA e hardly liv

September 2012

Your customers will see this ad too!

kalorama

T: 7.625 in

FOR YOUR INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY IN PHOENIX, CALL SAMIR. aths oms, 2.5 b ing, 3 bedro rowave, stove, in d l a rm ic Fo mmunity. M in a new co and dryer included. er wash

BoBBie Brewster Washington Fine Properties Office: 202-944-5000 Direct: 202-415-8515

call today to Place your real estate classified.

(301) 933-3552

The Washington Diplomat Page 63

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The Washington Diplomat

September 2012