[Modelun] A couple of events..

[Rada Dogandjieva]

I think we should have a Model UN team for the trivia competition (see
below). Who's up for it?

International Trivia Competition!
Wednesday, November 15th 9:00 p.m.
The Pier

Back by popular demand, the Office of International Education will sponsor
an international trivia competition on Wednesday, November 15, at 9 p.m.
in the Pier. All questions in the competition will pertain to
international affairs, geography and global facts. Students, faculty or
staff are asked to form teams of 4, but individuals and teams of less are
accepted and will be made into teams. Prizes will be awarded. If you would
like to enter a team or submit a question about your own country, please
e-mail Catherine Orr at corr at richmond.edu.


Also, thought you guys might be interested in this lecture (being globally
aware and all):


"Why I Gave 16 Years of My Life to Imprisonment"

Xu Wenli, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown
University Wednesday, November 8th at 5:30 p.m.
Jepson 118

What moves an individual to incur great personal risk and sacrifice to
affect democratic political change in an authoritarian regime?  What if
that regime happens to be China – aspiring global power, economic giant,
and home to one-fifth of the world’s population?  Has the ongoing
struggle to promote democracy and human rights in China impacted the way
that nation thinks about domestic governance and its role in the
international system?

Xu Wenli is one of China's most prominent dissidents.  He led the
Democracy Wall movement and founded the political journal, April Fifth
Forum.  During the 1980s and 1990s, he was labeled an enemy of the state
for his pro-democracy and human rights activism in China.  The charges
levied against Xu included “damaging state security” for attempting to
register the Beijing branch of the Chinese Democracy Party as the first
opposition party since the 1949 establishment of the People's Republic of
China, and “illegally organizing a clique to overthrow the government”
for publicly protesting the arrests of fellow Democracy Wall activists. 
Arrested and tried on two separate occasions, Xu spent a total of 16 years
in prison between 1982 and 2002 – 11 of them in solitary confinement. 
The Chinese government finally released Xu in December 2002 on early
medical parole, a euphemism for political exile. For more information on
Xu, see http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/storydetail.cfm?ID=2201

This event is open to the public and has been generously co-sponsored by
Richmond Quest, the Political Science Department, the International
Studies Program, the Office of International Education, and the UR student
chapter of Amnesty International.  For more information, please contact
Melissa Labonte (mlabonte at richmond.edu).

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