Palagummi SAINATH (Free-lance Journalist)

Mr. Sainath, one of India's leading journalists based in Mumbai, is committed to shedding light on marginalized people living in rural areas, and to bettering their condition through his reportage. After receiving a M.A. in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University, he launched his career as a journalist at the United News of India in 1980. Later he joined the Blitz, a major South Asian weekly in Mumbai, where he worked as deputy chief editor for ten years until winning a Times of India fellowship in 1993 and setting out on two-year-long travels to the ten poorest districts in India. His reports during this period were published as the award-winning book Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts (Penguin, 1997). In the last decade, he has spent on average three-fourths of the year with village people, sending articles to various newspapers. The photographs he has taken in rural India have resulted in several highly acclaimed photo exhibitions. He has received numerous awards both within and outside India, including the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in its inaugural year (2000).

Research Interest: Mass Media versus Mass Reality

HAM Samnang (Assistant Director/Senior Research Fellow, Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP))

Mr. Ham is one of the few Cambodian journalists and now researchers who can write in a critical way. He is currently the Assistant Director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), an independent, neutral, and non-partisan research institute based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Besides conducting research, he facilitates conferences, seminars, and workshops within and outside the country, and he himself has been invited to numerous conferences abroad. Before joining the CICP in 2002, he was an associate editor of the Cambodia Daily (the only English-language daily in Cambodia) and has been active in writing about the mass media in Cambodia and about Cambodia's democratization. His responsibilities at the Cambodia Daily included reporting and helping expatriates in their Khmer communication in the Khmer cultural/historical context.

Research Interest: Media and Democratization in Cambodia

YANG Guang (Professor and Director-General, Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Since 1978, Mr. Yang has been a researcher/professor at the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he currently serves as the Director-General; he is one of China's leading scholars in Middle Eastern Studies. He has published numerous articles and monographs on development, economics, and energy issues in Middle Eastern countries. His recent publications include "Development Report for the Middle East and Africa" (Social Scientific Documentation Publishing House, 1997-2003) and "The Social Security Systems of the West-Asian and African Countries" (The Publishing House of Reform, 2000). He also serves as executive president of two national associations, namely the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies and the Chinese Society for Asian and African Studies, both of which have hundreds of members. He received a master's degree in law from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1999. Having studied in Paris and Wisconsin, USA, in the 1980s, he has a good command of both English and French.

Research Interest: China's Energy Security--with a Specific Focus on Oil Supply

CHUNG Chin-Sung (Professor, Department of Sociology, Seoul National University)

Ms. Chung is a well-known sociologist in Korea whose publications are also esteemed internationally. Having received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1984, she has taught sociology at several universities. She has also dedicated herself to gender and human rights issues on both the governmental and non-governmental level. She has served as a member of several Advisory Committees for women's issues for the Korean national government, and also has been active in NGOs in such areas as the "comfort women," those women who were drafted for military sexual slavery by Japan during the World War II. Wartime violence against civilians is one of her main interests, and she has published numerous books and papers on this matter both in Korean and English. Currently she is serving as an Alternate Member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

Research Interest: Human Rights in Asia; Identity and Social Movements of Koreans in Japan

Hamid BASYAIB (Writer/Activist, AKSARA Foundation)

Mr. Hamid is one of the leading Muslim intellectuals who speak, with a great deal of courage and determination, for a radical reexamination of Islamic precepts, including the issues of Islamic law, an Islamic state and personal freedom. Currently, he is a writer and researcher for the Aksara Foundation, a non-profit organization contributing to the peaceful development of an intelligent and interactive civil society in Indonesia. Before joining the Aksara Foundation, he had been editor-in-chief of several magazines and daily newspapers since 1983. Not only is he a contributor to newspapers and magazines, but also he is often cited by the media for his insights into Indonesian politics. He has published several books on world and domestic politics. He conducted his graduate study at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Gadjah Mada.

Research Interest: The Views of Indonesian's Islamic Fundamentalisms on Democracy

Supara JANCHITFAH (Reporter/Writer for the Bangkok Post)

As an investigative reporter/writer for the "Perspective" section of the Bangkok Post, Ms. Supara conducts in-depth research and interviews, with special emphasis on environmental and social issues. She holds a master's degree in Rural Development Management from the University of the Philippines, and before joining the Bangkok Post in 1993, she had been involved with NGOs in the fields of community development, agricultural and rural management, and women's development. She has spent years working in the field to gain a deeper understanding of conflicts caused by governmental development and the people's perspective on its effects. Among numerous honors, she recently received the 2001 Human Rights Press Award from Amnesty International Thailand for her outstanding and consistent reporting on human rights issues, including the rights of children, tribal people, refugees and women. She also won the Reuters Fellowship, which enabled her to conduct research at the University of Oxford in 1999-2000.

Research Interest: In Search of a 'Minority Report'

NAKANO Yoshiko (Honorary Lecturer, Department of Japanese Studies, University of Hong Kong)

Ms. Nakano is currently a research assistant professor in the Department of Japanese Studies of the University of Hong Kong, where she has initiated a number of innovative teaching programs in business, communication and media studies. She received her Ph.D. in sociolinguistics from Georgetown University, and has worked as a researcher for documentary programs produced by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). Her firsthand experience as a researcher for award-winning media programs is well-reflected in her later work: a co-edited volume Reporting Hong Kong: Foreign Media and the Handover (Curzon, 1999) provides an in-depth look at how the international media reported this Asian milestone, and her recent articles consider Japanese pop culture on Chinese campuses. She was an Abe Fellow in 2000-2001, a prestigious fellowship awarded to academics and professionals who are committed to research on pressing global issues.

Research Interest: The Transnational Flow of Japanese Products: A Hong Kong Perspective

Marian Pastor ROCES (Critic and Independent Curator; President, Tao, Inc.)

Ms. Roces is an independent curator and critic who works, lectures and writes internationally. Her theoretical work is grounded in the politics of cultural representation, mainly in museums, but also in relation to larger agendas dealing with indigenous cultures, the traumas of modernization, and power as it operates in urbanization. She is also the president of Tao, Inc., a corporation specializing in the development of museum and exhibition projects, and cultural planning and management, focused by a social justice agenda. Her recent curatorial work includes "Sheer Realities: Body, Power and Clothing in 19th Century Philippines" (Asia Society, New York City, 2000); "Laon-Laan," which deals with the politics, science, and culture of rice in the Philippines (National Museum, 2003); and "Science Fictions," a major international exhibition of contemporary artists who are critiquing the orders of knowledge promoted by specific sciences (Earl Lu Gallery, Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore Art Museum, and the Esplanade, Singapore, 2003).

Research Interest: A Critique of "Heritage": The Aestheticized Construction of the Past in Service of Current Power Arrangements