Anders Åslund joined the Institute for International Economics in 2006. He has served previously as the director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace since 2003 and as codirector of the Carnegie Moscow Center's project on Economies of the Post-Soviet States. He joined the Carnegie Endowment as a senior associate in October 1994. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. His work examines the transformation of formerly socialist economies to market-based economies. While the central areas of his studies are Russia and Ukraine, he also focuses on the broader implications of economic transition.

Åslund has served as an economic adviser to the governments of Russia and Ukraine and to President Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan. He was a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics and director of the Stockholm Institute of East European Economics. He has worked as a Swedish diplomat in Kuwait, Poland, Geneva, and Moscow. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and an honorary professor of the Kyrgyz National University. He is co-chairman of the Economics Education and Research Consortium and chairman of the Advisory Council of the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), Warsaw.

He is the author of Building Capitalism: The Transformation of the Former Soviet Bloc (Cambridge University Press, 2001), How Russia Became a Market Economy (Brookings, 1995), Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform, 2d ed. (Cornell University Press, 1991), and Private Enterprise in Eastern Europe: The Non-Agricultural Private Sector in Poland and the GDR, 1945-83 (Macmillan, 1985) and editor or coeditor of several books, including with CDDRL Director, Michael McFaul, Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006).

This event is co-sponsored with the Center on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Feisal Istrabadi is Deputy Permanent Representative of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations, which position he has held since 2004. In 2004 he was also appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs. As a legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. al-Istrabadi negotiated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 (June 2004). He was also a principal legal drafter of the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, i.e. the transitional constitution of the country (2003-2004) and author of the bill of Fundamental Rights. Before engaging in the reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. al-Istrabadi had been a practicing barrister in the United States for 15 years, with approximately 70 jury and bench civil trials in federal and State courts, and numerous administrative hearings. He is a Senior Fellow for Legal Reform and Development in the Arab World, the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

Ambassador Istrabadi holds a JD degree from Indiana University and a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University.

Rami Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. He is an internationally syndicated journalist, author, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is currently a visiting fellow with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Mr. Khouri will speak about the war in Lebanon this summer. He will provide an analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war and discuss its fallout for Lebanese society and government, and its impact on the region's power dynamics. He will also comment on escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and heightening tensions between the U.S. and political movements in the region, including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

Evgeny Kiselev, b.1956, educated in Moscow University, Institute of Asian and African Countries, majored in Middle Eastern Studies, history of modern Iran and Farsi language. He started his career by serving in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in 1979-1981 as Farsi interpreter. He took to television journalism in 1987 and quickly rose to prominence as television reporter and news anchor during the years of Gorbachev's reforms. In 1993 co-founded NTV, the first independent television company in the history of Russia. For many years NTV was setting up the highest standards of modern broadcasting journalism in Russia and was considered the most popular television channel among Russian newly emergent middle class, educated people, liberal intellectuals, supporters of democratic reforms etc. During the 90s and the early 2000s NTV was famous for its bold and outspoken style of reporting on the major issues, including such touchy ones as the war on Chechnya, political intrigue in the Kremlin, high-level corruption in the government and many others. For more than a decade Evgeny Kiselev was hosting "Itogi" (Results) - a weekly show that combined in-depth reports, journalistic investigations, live interviews with leading politicians and newsmakers, opinion and commentary. It was famous for its outspoken criticism of government policy. "Itogi" was the longest-running political show on Russian television and was closed only due to the events that changed Evgeny Kiselev's career. In 2001, following the election of Vladimir Putin to Russia's presidency, the government started to crack down on independent media. NTV was put under the control of the government after a hostile takeover by Gazprom, Russia's gas monopoly, and Evegeny Kiselev, who by that time was general director of NTV, had to leave the company. He was involved in two other major projects aimed at preserving the independent voice of television in Russia, but both television stations were closed by the government. Evgeny Kiselev remains active as an independent columnist and political analyst, he has a popular weekly program on the "Echo of Moscow", the leading Russian radio station, he also lectures at home and abroad.

His new television project - "Vlast" ("Power"), a show that will concentrate again on Russian politics and power struggle that is already starting in Russia on the eve of the next presidential election in 2008, is scheduled to appear in December on RTVi, the last remaining independent Russian station.

Rami Khouri is an internationally syndicated political columnist and the Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He also hosts a weekly radio program, and spent the 2001 academic year at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. Khouri was editor-in-chief for the Jordan Times newspaper for seven years. He often comments on Middle East issues for the BBC, NPR and CNN. He is currently Editor at Large for the Beirut based Daily Star in Lebanon. At CDDRL he will continue his work on the Middle East and domestic political trends within the Arab world.