Mr. Ridge, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group here, cast his comments as advice to Michael Chertoff, chosen by President Bush on Tuesday to succeed him.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress on Tuesday, he called such comparisons "absolutely reprehensible."

"Kyrgyzstan is a country of human rights," he said in Russian, speaking through a translator to an audience of diplomats, journalists and policy analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy group.

Mr. Powell spoke today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy institute, and Mr. Blix spoke to reporters at the United Nations.

Prominent khateebs who have spoken at the Islamic Center include Suhaib Webb.

In October, Mrs. Rubin returned to Shanghai for the first time since 1947 to speak at the Center of Jewish Studies there.

To test my notions about the ties connecting the nation's past to the present, especially in the West, I spoke with Charles Scoggin, a board member at the Center of the American West, a doctor and a high-technology entrepreneur.

He recently spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studieson the position of the Republic of China on the Diaoyutai issue.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Edwards, who is supporting Mr. Bush's request to use force in Iraq, said: "American leadership is about more than our ability to dominate others.

On April 2, 2011, Phillips spoke at the Center for the Artistic Revolution's 2011 fundraiser in Little Rock, Arkansas.