WVU student, alum to attend NATO Young Leaders Forum

Morgantown, WV, November 13, 2006:  Two young leaders from WVU will join representatives from around the world in Riga, Latvia, at the end of November to discuss issues facing the global community.

Among those gathered at the NATO Young Leaders Forum will be Brent Eastwood, a WVU alumnus selected to represent the United States, and current WVU political science graduate student and French native Vivien Exartier, who will be representing France.

Held in conjunction with the 2006 NATO Summit, the forum, held Nov. 27 to 29, aims to bring together young leaders from countries and backgrounds to share their views and offer new solutions to regional and global security problems.

“The 2006 NATO Summit is historic because the alliance has recently taken command of the Afghanistan security and stabilization mission. This is the first time NATO has deployed outside of Europe,” said Eastwood. “I look at this as an opportunity to help the US improve relations with our transatlantic allies.”

On Nov. 27, the forum participants will be divided into five working groups, each of which will discuss a different issue. The topics include “Challenges in Afghanistan: Bringing stability or building democracy?”; “NATO and its Partners: How to improve the cooperation?”; “Western policy towards Russia: We need a coherent policy.”; “NATO Enlargement in the Future: Who will open the doors?”; and “Energy Security: A new challenge for NATO.”

On Nov. 28, the young leaders will join the International Think Tank conference, and on the 29th, the group leaders will present the results of the working group discussions and make policy recommendations to the NATO Secretary General.

Eastwood graduated from WVU with an MS in journalism in 2002 and an MA in international studies/political science in 2006. He will defend his PhD dissertation in political science at WVU and hopes to graduate in December. Eastwood currently lives in Alexandria, Va., and is the president of Personal Identity Solutions, a biometrics company with offices in Washington, D.C. and New York, N.Y. He is also a defense analyst for Turner Government and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Exartier is a political science graduate student in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences whose emphasis is in European Union and European security issues. He earned his MA from Oklahoma State University and a business graduate degree from Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Dijon, France. Last fall, he participated in Model NATO within the NATO summit of ministers of defense in Slovenia.

For more information on the NATO Summit, visit http://www.rigasummit.lv/en/id/cats/nid/690/.

For more information, please visit the Native American Studies Web site at http://www.wvu.edu/~nas or contact Bonnie Brown at BonnieM.Brown@mail.wvu.edu or at 304-293-4626.

W-V-U