Ambon. As thousands gather here this week in the lead-up to the main event of Sail Banda 2010, officials hope Maluku will finally be able to shed the shadow of its conflicted past.

Agung Laksono, coordinating minister for people’s welfare, said in a media conference on Sunday that Sail Banda — an international maritime event — would showcase how the province had overcome years of interethnic conflict.

“This is our way of telling the outside world that Maluku is safe and peaceful,” he said.

The region experienced one of the country’s longest ethnic-religious conflicts after the fall of former President Suharto.

The conflict between the area’s Christian and Muslim populations erupted in 1999, when a trivial dispute at a bus terminal in Ambon sparked violent clashes in the surrounding islands.

A government-brokered peace deal between the two sides was implemented in February 2002, but not before the ensuing violence left thousands dead.

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) was established by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) in 1966 primarily “to provide to the participating countries high quality graduate study in agriculture; promote, undertake, and coordinate research programs related to the needs and problems of the Southeast Asian region; and disseminate the findings of agricultural research and experimentation. ”  The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) invites applications for its graduate scholarship (MS and PhD) in agriculture and related fields (including biological sciences, social sciences, economics and statistics, forestry and fisheries, environmental sciences, agro-industrial technology and engineering, biochemistry, and development management).

PhD Research Scholarship

Launched in November 2005, the SEARCA PhD Research Scholarship provides financial support to a limited number of qualified PhD students whose researches are relevant to the priority thrusts of SEARCA.

This scholarship program aims to:

1. Provide PhD students the opportunity to use the resources and facilities available at SEARCA and its network of universities for their research;
2. Produce quality research papers for publication; and
3. Enable them to work with SEARCA’s R&D personnel on mutually identified areas of concerns/interests in agriculture and rural development.

New Europe College (NEC) is an independent Romanian institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences founded in 1994 by Professor Andrei Pleşu (philosopher, art historian, writer, Romanian Minister of Culture, 1990–1991, Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1997-1999) within the framework of the New Europe Foundation, established in 1994 as a private foundation subject to Romanian law.

Its impetus was the New Europe Prize for Higher Education and Research, awarded in 1993 to Professor Pleşu by a group of six institutes for advanced study (the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Wassenaar, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).

New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, Romania – announces the competition for Fellowships. The program targets young international researchers/academics working in the fields of humanities, social studies, and economics.