Tag: Chatham House

  • President Gül wins 2010 Chatham House prize

    President Gül wins 2010 Chatham House prize

    LONDON – Anatolia News Agency

    AbdullahGul
    Turkish President Abdullah Gül. DHA photo

    The U.K.’s leading think tank, Chatham House, has awarded Turkish President Abdullah Gül with the 2010 Chatham House prize due to “his national, regional and international qualifications,” the organization’s president said Friday.

    “President Gül is recognized for being a significant figure for reconciliation and moderation within Turkey and internationally, and a driving force behind many of the positive steps that Turkey has taken in recent years,” Chatham House said in statement on its Web site.

    The think tank drew attention to Gül’s efforts to deepen Turkey’s traditional ties with the Middle East, mediate between rival groups in Iraq and bring together the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships to try to resolve disputes during 2009.

    “He has also made significant efforts to reunify the divided island of Cyprus and has played a leading role, along with his Armenian counterpart, in initiating a process of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia,” the statement said.

    www.hurriyetdailynews.com, March 19, 2010

  • Chatham House Prize 2010

    Chatham House Prize 2010

    All members are now invited to take part in choosing this year’s winner of the Chatham House Prize. The details of the three short-listed nominees can be found below. The award ceremony will take place in the autumn.

    PROCEED TO VOTING FORM >>

    Voting closes at 17.00 on Monday 15 March 2010. Members must be logged in to the website in order to vote.

    All those voting will be automatically entered into a draw for two pairs of free tickets for the award ceremony and dinner.

    Chatham House Prize 2010 Nominees

    HE Abdullah Gül, President of Turkey

    Abdullah Gül has been a significant figure for reconciliation and moderation within Turkey and internationally, and a driving force behind many of the positive steps that Turkey has taken in recent years.

    Mr Gül has worked to deepen Turkey’s traditional ties with the Middle East, mediate between the fractious groups in Iraq and bring together the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships to try to resolve disputes during 2009. He has also made significant efforts to reunify the divided island of Cyprus and has played a leading role, along with his Armenian counterpart, in accelerating the unprecedented search for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, including through the so-called ‘football diplomacy’.

    President Gül is an unwavering proponent of anchoring Turkey in the European Union. Under his leadership, Turkey has consolidated civilian democratic rule and pursued extensive political and legal reforms to bring the country closer to European standards of democracy and human rights.

    HE Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister, France

    Christine Lagarde has adeptly steered the French economy through stormy economic times while being a leading protagonist in efforts during 2009 to forge international consensus on reforming the international financial and monetary architecture.

    Ms Lagarde was a key spokesperson for the euro area on the international stage throughout the year. She consistently and eloquently promoted the need for debate on stronger and more effective regulation of the international financial and monetary system. In particular she pushed for the end of guaranteed bonus payouts, which some regarded as having encouraged excessive risk-­taking in the banking sector, and keeping a close watch on the openness of the international economy in the face of the rising risk of protectionism.

    Ms Lagarde’s credibility in financial matters has already been recognized by the Financial Times, which voted her European Finance Minister of the Year in 2009 for her handling of the financial crisis – as demonstrated by the greater resilience of the French economy relative to its European partners.

    Stjepan Mesić, President of Croatia (2000­-10)

    Stjepan Mesić has shown consistently strong and effective leadership in Croatia at a time when the country has been transformed into a modern democratic European state following the regional wars of the 1990s.

    During his two terms in office as President of Croatia the country evolved from a post­-war state on the fringes of Europe to one integrated into NATO and well advanced in negotiations to join the European Union.

    From early on in his presidency Mr Mesić showed courage in his efforts to foster better relations with Croatia’s neighbours. In the face of domestic criticism he sent alleged Croatian war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and dismissed a number of generals when they publicly protested against that decision, thereby setting the tone for the rest of his tenure and opening Croatia’s accession route to EU membership.

  • A Better Way to Promote Financial Stability

    A Better Way to Promote Financial Stability

    aDr DeAnne Julius, Chairman, Chatham House, and former MPC member

    An unseemly turf battle broke out at the Mansion House last week over who should be in charge of spotting and squelching future threats to financial stability: the Bank of England or the Financial Services Authority. Neither the Bank nor the FSA covered itself with glory in the early stages of the current crisis. Both are secretive organizations with hierarchical decision-making. Such a culture works well for handling confidential information but it does not foster open debate or the early recognition of external change.

    I propose that the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee be given the task of promoting medium-term financial stability. In addition to its current remit of targeting inflation by setting interest rates, it would need an additional instrument, outlined below. It would also need an adjusted membership and monthly process. But fundamentally it has the expertise and governance structures to take on this new role – and would have significant advantages over either the FSA or the Bank’s internal bureaucracy. Putting a re-shaped MPC at the centre of the tripartite arrangement for preventing future financial crises would also add cohesion and coherence to crisis resolution – led by the Treasury – should that need arise.

    The MPC, with its independent external membership, its published minutes, its transparent votes and its good track record in controlling inflation is well suited to make judgments about the build-up of systemic risks in the economy. It already monitors household debt, asset price changes, financial market spreads and money and credit aggregates. These are important indicators of financial stability. In addition, the FSA could provide the MPC with aggregate data on financial institutions such as borrowing ratios and liquidity mismatch.

    The membership of the MPC should be adjusted for the new task. The governor of the Bank should remain chairman but two of the four internal Bank members should be replaced with two FSA members, including either the FSA chairman or chief executive. And at least one of the four external MPC members should have financial market experience. External members might also need to be full time, rather than working three days a week, to handle the extra workload.

    At every third monthly meeting, the MPC would give special attention to financial stability concerns – with pre-meeting briefings from FSA staff – and it would decide if a change were warranted in the target capital adequacy ratio of UK-regulated banks and other financial institutions. The lower bound of this ratio, the amount of capital that must be held, is set internationally by the Basel II agreement, but subject to that minimum the MPC would decide if it should be adjusted for UK institutions in accordance with our economic cycle. A change in the capital adequacy target announced by the MPC would become a regulatory requirement three months later, giving banks time to adjust. The aim would be for gradual movements in bank capital to provide a cushion that would be built up in good times and available in downturns, similar to the Spanish system.

    During the adjustment period, the FSA staff would work with individual institutions to determine whether other changes in their leverage or funding profiles were also warranted. The FSA would continue to have sole responsibility for the regulation of financial institutions and products, such as mortgages and insurance. So, for example, the FSA could decide to impose maximum loan-to-value ratios on mortgages to complement a decision by the MPC to raise the aggregate capital adequacy ratio.

    The Treasury is the third leg of the stool of financial stability. It would continue to send a non-voting representative to MPC meetings, thereby ensuring frequent and substantive tripartite communication. If, despite this new system of regular monitoring and action on capital requirements, a banking crisis should arise, then the Treasury would take the lead as crisis manager to convene meetings and decide what risk the taxpayer should bear. But for crisis prevention, a non-political MPC, with clear lines of responsibility, transparent procedures, and the best internal and external expertise available would be a major improvement over the current arrangements, where responsibility is muddled and false demarcation lines between monetary and financial stability have created dangerous gaps.

    The Chatham House

  • The Global Economic Crisis and Turkey

    The Global Economic Crisis and Turkey

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    Friday 3 April 2009 09:00 to 10:00

    Location

     Chatham House, London

     Participants

    HE Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey

    The Prime Minister will discuss the global economic crisis and its effects on Turkey and will outline measures taken by the government to overcome the present crisis. HE Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Prime Minister of Turkey since March 2003.

    The Prime Minister spoke in Turkish. The audio translation is available below.

    Click to Listen to the audio recording of this event.

  • Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Written by William F. Jasper

    Friday, 21 November 2008 13:31

    Zbigniew Brzezinski, a senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama on matters of national security and foreign policy, was the featured speaker at Chatham House in London on November 17, 2008. The title of his lecture was “Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President.” Although Chatham House events are known to attract “the great and the good” of England’s political, financial, and academic elites — as well as many of its top media representatives — there has been virtually no word as to what Brzezinski had to say in any of the world’s press.

    Type “Brzezinski” and “Chatham” into your Internet search engines and you will come up with … virtually zilch, nada, nothing.

    The esteemed Times of London had only this to say on November 16, the day before the lecture: “Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser … will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.” No report on the event the day after — or since. Ditto for the Telegraph, the BBC, and other British media. Same for the U.S. media: no reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CNS, CNN, Fox, etc.

    This is but the latest example of the hermetic seal known as the “Chatham House Rule,” which states:

    When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

    Chatham House, in St. James Square, London, is the headquarters of the powerful Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), founded in 1920 as the principal front organization of the secret Round Table network of Cecil Rhodes, famous for his fabulous wealth from Africa’s gold and diamond mines. The RIIA was founded in conjunction with its sister organization in the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is headquartered at the Pratt House in New York. Pratt House also has formally adopted the Chatham House Rule, as has the U.S. State Department (which has been dominated by CFR members for seven decades) and other U.S. agencies.

    Thus, we frequently have top U.S. officials speaking privately to audiences of American and foreign elites concerning matters of great importance to the American people, but the content of those talks is off-limits to the American public. This especially should be a matter of concern if the matters these elites are discussing involve plans that will dramatically impact our society, our economy, and our political system.

    Brzezinski and his friends at the RIIA and CFR assure us that nothing of the sort ever happens at these gatherings. However, I did attend one of Brzezinski’s lectures at a globalist conference, where the content certainly was disturbing. It was Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1995 State of the World Forum in San Francisco, and Brzezinski was one of the key speakers. He was frustrated that the new millennium was only five years away, but his long-sought goal of world government was still far off.  “We do not have a new world order,” he told the audience, a veritable Who’s Who of world finance, business, politics, media, and academia. “We cannot leap into world government in one quick step,” Brzezinski noted. Attaining that objective, he explained, would require a gradual process of “globalization,” building the new world order “step by step, stone by stone” through “progressive regionalization.”

    Through his writings — as well as his policies while President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser — Brzezinski has demonstrated that he is committed to the globalist world view of the RIIA/CFR and the Trilateral Commission (which he helped found, becoming its first director) rather than the constitutionalist view of our Founding Fathers. Rather than a sovereign, independent, constitutional republic, he is committed to a “new world order” that proposes steadily encroaching international controls and institutions, leading gradually, steadily to an America that is submerged and subsumed in a world government.

    Those familiar with the writings, speeches, policies, and public records of the many public figures who attend (and speak before) these globalist gatherings understand that Brzezinski’s views on these matters are not his alone; they are shared by many (if not most) of those in attendance. They are the people who set policies and determine the course our nation will take. They prattle regularly about their commitment to “transparency” in government. Yet they themselves speak at off-the-record gatherings such as the recent Chatham House event where Brzezinski was the featured speaker.

    Source: www.thenewamerican.com, 21 November 2008

    [This is what Chatham House website has about the event -h]

    The Whitehead Lecture: Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President

    Monday 17 November 2008 18:30 to 19:30

    Location

    Held at Chatham House

    Participants

    Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee, Center for Strategic and International Studies; National Security Advisor to the President of the United States (1977-81)


    Type: Members event

    In the wake of the US election the speaker will discuss the major foreign policy issues which will confront the incoming President from the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the competitive pursuit of resources.

    This event will be followed by an open reception.

    Resources:

    Meeting Recording
    Q&A Recording

    Source: www.chathamhouse.org.uk

  • Strategic Focus on Turkey Project (SFT)

    Strategic Focus on Turkey Project (SFT)

     

     

    This project is designed to adopt a distinctive approach on Turkey. Most of the research and policy work undertaken on Turkey in the US and Europe concentrates either on the complications for bilateral US-Turkey relations of the US intervention in Iraq, or on Turkey’s internal economic and political developments and their impact on the negotiations over Turkey’s accession to the European Union (EU).

    The dimension that appears to receive far less attention in current policy and contemporary academic discussions is Turkey’s pivotal geo-political and geo-economic position and, therefore, the impacts that Turkish policies will likely have upon the long-term stability and prosperity of the region that surrounds it.

    In essence, Turkey is assessed currently in the US within the prism of Iraq and in many European capitals only as a problem that the EU needs to confront. A better understanding of how Turkey can help deal with some of the biggest geo-political and geo-economic challenges facing the US, EU and beyond will assist in building a more sophisticated comprehension of Turkey’s role as a constructive partner to the US, the EU member states and other countries.

    Doğan Holding, one of Turkey’s preeminent business groups, is generously supporting this project.

    Areas of focus for SFT:

    • Turkey’s role in the Middle East
    • Turkey’s role in establishing a diversified set of energy options for the EU
    • Turkey’s role in the economic development and regional integration of the Black Sea area
    • Turkey’s relationships with the Caucasus and Central Asia and political stability in the region
    • Turkey’s contributions to EU and NATO-led peace-keeping missions and other security operations
    • Turkey’s role as a magnet for Foreign Direct Investment and as a growing investor regionally

    Advisory Board

    Chatham House is forming an Advisory Board for the project. This will be composed of individuals with extensive experience and expertise from international affairs, media, civil society and business. The Board’s purpose is to provide long-term guidance to the project.

    SFT Contact

    The Strategic Focus on Turkey Project is run by Fadi Hakura, Associate Fellow at Chatham House. If you would like to find out more about the project, please contact:

     

     

     

     

     

    Fadi Hakura
    +44 (0)7970 172541
    Email Fadi Hakura