Allen Keiswetter, a Scholar at the Middle East Institute and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, has just returned from a trip to the Arab Peninsula.  He will share his insights into the forthcoming Iraqi elections, US policy toward Iran and Gulf perceptions of Obama's first year in office.

Mr. Keiswetter has taught courses on global security, Islam and the Middle East at the National Defense Intelligence College, the National War College, and the University of Maryland.  A retired Senior Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State, he has been Senior Advisor on the Middle East for the US Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs in the Near East Bureau, and NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs in Brussels. He also held posts at the US Embassies in Riyadh, Sanaa, Tunis, Khartoum, Baghdad and Beirut.

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Stuart J. D. Schwartzstein has worked as a foreign-affairs professional for more than 30 years, having served in the Defense and State Departments in a wide range of capacities, including as a diplomat, an analyst, negotiator, advisor and planner. He has also held positions in several think-tanks, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS) in Washington D.C.  His work has ranged broadly, both geographically and in subject matter, including defense industrial cooperation with European allies, technology transfer and export control issues, "information revolution" issues, encryption policy, international science and technology policy, chemical and biological weapons issues, refugee policy, Horn of Africa issues, relations with European allies, ASEAN countries and the Middle East. While at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1992-96), he did a good deal of work on Iraq issues, particularly focusing on human rights violations by Saddam Hussein and his regime. In 2004, he served in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad as an advisor to the Minister for Science & Technology and to the president of the Iraqi National Academy of Sciences.   He has continued to follow events in Iraq and has maintained contact with a number of Iraqi friends, including several in senior Iraqi government positions, as well as officials and experts in the US. Mr Schwartzstein is currently an independent consultant based in Washington, D.C.

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Asma T. Uddin is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of altmuslimah. She joined The Becket Fund as an International Legal Fellow in 2009.  She has several years of experience practicing commercial litigation at prestigious national law firms, and she has handled a significant number of asylum, prisoner’s civil rights, constitutional, and employment discrimination cases. Most recently, she played an integral role in a case brought by a Muslim policewoman against the City of Philadelphia for its refusal to allow the plaintiff to wear the Muslim headscarf on the job.

Asma also sits on the Board of Directors for Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, and is the editor-in-chief of altmuslimah. As an editor, Asma has worked with Dr. Umar F. Abd-Allah on a number of articles for scholarly journals on Islamic Law. She also helped edit the entire manuscript of Dr. Abd-Allah’s A Muslim in Victorian America, which was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. As Associate Editor and legal columnist for Islamica Magazine, Asma focused her writings on how American Muslims can rethink their social position within the American legal framework.

Asma’s writing has appeared in Muslim Girl Magazine, altmuslim, beliefnet, and the Washington Post/Newsweek blog, On Faith. Her more scholarly work has been published in the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion and The Review of Faith & International Affairs. In May 2008, Asma was part of a U.S. State Department delegation to Norway, Belgium, and Ireland, where she met with Muslim and other minority groups as well as politicians, journalists, and a number of prominent anti-discrimination organizations. In April 2009, Asma was selected as a “Muslim Leader of Tomorrow.” Most recently, she was named a weekly On Faith expert panelist for the Washington Post.

Asma is a 2005 graduate of The University of Chicago Law School, where she was a member of The University of Chicago Law Review.

Moderator :

Sarah Sayeed is Founder and President of oneblue.org and a freelance journalist who covers State Department and other news in the Washington, DC area. She meets regularly with community leaders, scholars and business entities to foster and develop intercultural  and religious awareness.  An integral part of her work at oneblue.org consists of providing outreach to Muslim communities for entities such as PBS/WETA, foreign news media and the State Department. Sarah is currently developing an interactive internet website project surrounding America and Islam as her main project at oneblue.org. She has served as a member of the Women's Empowerment Action Team on Education at the State Department led by Ambassador Shireen Tahir-Kheli,  where she was involved in suggesting and discussing ways media can be used to make education more accessible to women and girls around the world and especially in Muslim countries. Sarah completed her A' Levels in History and Economics in Kuwait and graduated with a triple major in Economics, Political Science and International Studies from Southern Methodist University. Sarah currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Women's Centre a non-profit counseling and resource facility that addresses the personal, professional, legal and financial concerns of women and their families.

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Tuesday, January 5^th
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Eighty-fi ve percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2008, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.6 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were up from 11.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, in 2007, and were the highest recorded since 1995, when the fi rst national food security survey was conducted. The typical food-secure household spent 31 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-fi ve percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2008 survey. Download 2008 USDA Report on Household Food Security in the United States.

Dr. Mark Nord is a sociologist at the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He leads the Agency's work on measuring and monitoring household food security and conducts research on measurement and determinants of food security. Previous work includes research on natural resources, rural poverty, and migration at ERS and at the Pennsylvania State University, management of relief and development programs of a non-government organization in Bangladesh, and bush flying in the jungles of Borneo. He received MS and Ph. D. degrees in rural sociology from the Pennsylvania State University.

Moderator :

Mr. Tariq Shafi, CPA, has over twenty-five years of accounting and tax experience in the Washington metro area and London, England. He was a tax and accounting manager for six years at a prestigious firm in Old Town Alexandria before venturing out on his own in 1995. Since then, his practice has grown steadily as word has spread about his firm's high reputation for quality service at a reasonable cost. Mr. Shafi and his staff believe strongly that building ties with the community involve giving their time and effort to worthwhile causes and they are active participants in local charitable and educational institutions.

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Wednesday, January 20^th
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

The idea of Christian-Muslim common ground remains controversial. There are calls for harmony, but there are also unique truth claims that cannot be ignored. There are positive examples of interfaith action, but events show that religion can divide as well as unite. What is clear is that a powerful spirit of truth is a work in religious communities, offering guidance and meaning to millions of believers. If the power of God is guiding one community, is it guiding all communities? The approach we take to this question will have undeniably important consequences for the way Christians and Muslims live and act together. Scholars have a contribution to make here. By exploring the mechanics of faith traditions, by examining the way communities think about and respond to the spirit of God, by describing in detail the way believers live out of a God-consciousness on a daily basis, scholars can point to ways in which the hearts of believers are similarly moved. Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism is one attempt to put the scholarly enterprise at the service of one of today’s more pressing issues, demonstrating that the highest standards of academia are essential part of the way religious communities fully appropriate the prompting of God’s spirit in their lives.

*To read more about Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism please visit http://www.press.georgetown.edu/detail.html?id=9781589015074

Paul L. Heck, associate professor in Georgetown's Theology Department since 2004, received his doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago. He is author of The Construction of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization (2002) and Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism (2009); and is editor of The Politics of Sufism: The Power of Spirituality (2006). He was a member of Princeton University's Society of Fellows in the Humanities (2001-2004), held the Touhy Chair in Interreligious Studies at John Carroll University (Spring 2007), and taught at Muhammad V University as a Fulbright Senior Scholar (2008-2009).

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