October 28, 2002

Korean Ambassador to Talk About U.S.-Korean Relations

Sung Chul Yang, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States, will speak on "The Challenges of U.S.-Korea Relations" on November 7.

Ambassador Yang has had a long and distinguished career in academic and politics. Prior to his posting in Washington, he served as a member of the Korean National Assembly.

During that time, his posts included the presidency of the Unification and Policy Forum and the chairmanship of the International Cooperation Committee.

He has also been a member of the advisory committees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Ministry of Unification.

Prior to his involvement in government, Yang was a professor of political science at the University of Kentucky and dean of academic affairs at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University in Seoul.

He is the author of many books on Korean issues, including The North and South Korean Political Systems: A Comparative Analysis.

He will deliver his talk, which is sponsored by the political science department, on Thursday, November 7, at 3 p.m., in the Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Ninotchka Rosca to Discuss Trafficking in Human Beings

Ninotchka Rosca, the founder of an organization fighting against trafficking, the mail-order-bride industry, the prostitution of Third World women, and the role of the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization in creating a global sex trade, will give a lecture addressing trafficking in women and children on November 13.

Trafficking in human beings for prostitution and forced labor is big business on a scale that's behind only drugs and guns and generates billions of dollars every year.

Between 1 and 2 million women and children are trafficked each year worldwide. An estimated 50,000 people are trafficked each year to the United States.

Rosca is the founder and first national chair of the GABRIELA Network, and a member of the Survivors Committee, a network of former political prisoners and human rights activists.

Her presentation, part of the Asian American Studies Guest Lecture Series, will take place on Wednesday, November 13, at 2 p.m., in the Culpeper Video Theater 2, Homer Babbidge Library.

Environmental Author McKibben to Speak on Moral Issues

Internationally known author and environmentalist, Bill McKibben, will give a lecture on "Crossing Thresholds: The Environment as Moral Challenge" on November 14.

His 1989 book, The End of Nature, published in 20 languages on six continents and still in print, sounded one of the earliest alarms about global warming. The book is a plea for radical and life-renewing changes in the way people relate to nature, and an exploration of philosophies and technologies.

"The largest environmental questions, like global warming, usually present themselves to us as practical problems, which indeed they are," says McKibben. "But to deal with them, we also need to engage these issues as serious moral challenges, to our very notion of what it means to lead a decent life."

In another of his books, The Age of Missing Information, McKibben asked, "Which provides more information - 93 cable channels or a weekend in the woods?" He then spent 24 hours watching 93 cable channels in Fairfax, Va.: the "Brady Bunch," cheetahs, newscasts, infomercials, game shows; and spent another 24 hours atop an Adirondack mountain, watching insects and vultures, swimming in a frigid stream, and studying nature from high in the trees, in order to demolish the notion that we are better informed than any previous generation.

The lecture, part of the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment, will take place on Thursday, November 14 at 4 p.m., in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.