Global Outreach 2011

League of Women Voters^®
of La Plata County

Global_Outreach_11

Enabling and educating local citizens in a global world
To reference the 2007-2010 LWV-LPC activities related to Global Outreach, click on the Global Outreach Archive pages to your left.

Upcoming Events. Great Decisions 2012. Great Decisions Series 2011. US Global Positions. Global News. LWV Positions. La Plata County Outreach. Correspondance. Past Events. Reference Info.

Upcoming Events

Great Decisions 2012

*Please note that the Great Decisions study materials are now available at the 2nd floor reference desk of the Durango Public Library. If you pre-ordered your reference book, you may pick it up now. It is not too late to order the reference books just by clicking Great Decisions 2012 to view the series flier and a detailed view of the discussion topics for 2012. Checks for $22 for each briefing book should be made out to "LWVLPC" and mailed with the bottom of the flier form by December 30 to: Pat Chatfield, 50 Brookstone Court, Unit A, Durango, CO 81301.

*Our 2012 Great Decisions Series will begin Tuesday, January 19 and Thursday, January 21 in Program Room 2 at the Durango Public Library. Please join from 11:45AM to 1:45PM for a lively discussion

Topics for the 2012 session include:

Middle East realignment January 17 & 19
Promoting democracy January 31 & February 2
Mexico February 14 & 16
Cybersecurity February 28 & March 1
Exit from Afghanistan & Iraq March 13 & 15
State of the oceans March 27 & 29
Indonesia April 10 & 12
Energy geopolitics April 24 & 26

Great Decision Series 2011

*The 2011 Great Decisions series sponsored by the League of Women Voters of LaPlata County and the Durango Public Library has concluded on April 28.
Please plan to join us next year for Great Decisions
Discussion topics for 2011 will include

Rebuilding Haiti
U.S. National Security
Horn of Africa
Responding to the Financial Crises
Germany Ascendant
Sanctions and Nonproliferation
The Caucasus
Global Governance

* It is time to sign up for the 2011 Great Decisions series sponsored by LWV of La Plata County and the Durango Public Library. Click Great Decisions flier to view the series dates and information about ordering your 2011 GD books.
Checks for $20 for each briefing book should be made out to "LWVLPC" and mailed with this form by December 30 to:

Pat Chatfield, 50 Brookstone Court, Unit A, Durango, CO 81301
Questions may be directed to : Pat Chatfield via patchwork@gobrainstorm.net
More information about Great Decisions and the Foreign Policy Association http://www.fpa.org or click on our web site http://www.lwvlaplata.org

US Global Positions

*12/17/11 Durango Herald:Ending the war in Iraq The American people are past ready to be done with it
In a ceremony held Thursday in Baghdad, the U.S. military officially ended its mission in Iraq. The approximately 4,000 combat troops still in Iraq are expected to leave the country by Dec. 31.
With that ends a confused and confusing part of U.S. history, one that most Americans are probably glad to put behind them. U.S. involvement in Iraq was by turns divisive, infuriating, embarrassing, tragic and a source of great pride. Sorting that out will take time.

*7/24/11 Durango Herald opinion Honor the vet; pay the war debt Crisis stems from refusal to raise taxes for wars by James Callard, retired Air Force colonel.
The real taxation and deficit issue Americans face is not the debt, but how we pay for an unsustainable foreign policy supported primarily by the poor and middle classes' blood and treasure. We can solve the majority of our financial problems by creating a sustainable national security strategy and making sure the tax code is progressive, thereby ensuring that wealthy Americans pay their fair share of defense spending. In the long run economic policy trumps military policy in providing national security...

*6/22/11 NY Times: Obama Opts for Faster Afghan Pullout By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 "surge," by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision. These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama's military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public...

*5/21/11 NY Times:Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Obama on Friday that he shared his vision for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and then promptly listed a series of nonnegotiable conditions that have kept the two sides at an impasse for years.
Sitting at Mr. Obama's side in the Oval Office, leaning toward him and at times looking him directly in the eye, the Israeli leader bluntly rejected compromises of the sort Mr. Obama had outlined the day before in hopes of reviving a moribund peace process. Mr. Obama, who had sought to emphasize Israel's concerns in his remarks moments earlier, stared back...

Global News

*11/30/11 NYTimes:Clinton Arrives in Myanmar to Assess Pace of Change By STEVEN LEE MYERS
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here on Wednesday to measure the depth of the political and economic opening the country's new government has unexpectedly begun.
After years of abysmal relations between the United States and Myanmar, the Obama administration has promised to respond to progress -- Mrs. Clinton's trip being the most significant reward so far -- even as it presses for more significant steps to end the country's repressive rule and international isolation. Those include freeing hundreds more political prisoners, an end to often violent repression of democracy advocates and ethnic groups, and clarification of the country's illicit cooperation with North Korea on developing ballistic missiles and, possibly, nuclear technologies.
Mrs. Clinton, speaking in Busan, South Korea, before flying here, said that the United States hoped that initial steps toward what President Obama has called flickers of progress would "be ignited into a movement for change that will benefit the people of the country."...

*10/31/11 Durango Herald:NATO ends victorious 7-month Libya campaign By KARIN LAUB and SLOBODAN LEKIC Associated Press
NATO's triumphant, 7-month air campaign against Libya ended Monday, setting the country on the path to a democratic transition less than two weeks after the capture and killing of ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The alliance turned down a Libyan request to extend the protective umbrella for a few more weeks, apparently eager to exit on a high note and wrap up a costly mission at a time of financial austerity.
The relatively quick victory in Libya represented a major boost for a Cold War alliance bogged down in a 10-year war in Afghanistan, a 12-year mission in Kosovo and the seemingly never-ending anti-piracy operation off the Somali coastline.
The operation's critics - including Russia, China and the African Union - have argued that NATO misused the limited U.N. resolution imposing a no-fly zone and authorizing the protection of civilians as a pretext to promote regime change...

*10/16/11 Durango Herald:Challenges loom as world population hits 7B By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees. "I regret to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe. "If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."... But in Burundi, Uganda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic news is mostly sobering as the region staggers under the burdens of the world's highest birthrates and deepest poverty. The regional population of nearly 900 million could reach 2 billion in 40 years at current rates, accounting for about half of the projected global population growth over that span.
"Most of that growth will be in Africa's cities, and in those cities, it will almost all be in slums where living conditions are horrible," said John Bongaarts of the Population Council, a New York-based organization.
Is catastrophe inevitable? Not necessarily. But experts say most of Africa + and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan + will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives.
"Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other," says Lester Brown, an environmental analyst who heads the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families." Without such intervention, Brown says, food and water shortages could fuel political destabilization in developing regions.
"There's quite a bit of land that could produce food if we had the water to go with it," he said. "It's water that's becoming the real constraint."...

*9/18/11 Durango Herald:Palestinians' UN agenda looms largest By Edith M. Lederer Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS + The spotlight will be shining on the Palestinian bid for U.N. membership when world leaders gather at the United Nations starting Monday, but the U.N. is hoping the glow will spread to other pressing global issues, including killer diseases, nuclear safety, terrorism and the aftershocks of the Arab Spring.
More than 120 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs will be meeting under heavy security at the General Assembly and in sideline events, just a week after the 10th anniversary of the terrorist bombings that shook the United States.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the high-level meetings are taking place "at a moment of uncommon turbulence and high anxiety," with famine in Somalia, turmoil in the Mideast, and the global economic crisis continuing to shake banks, businesses, governments and families. This year's agenda is jam-packed, and "the pace even faster than usual," he said.
The General Assembly ministerial session is almost certain to be dominated by the Palestinians' quest for internationally recognized statehood. More than 120 of the 193 U.N. member states have already recognized a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Israel, according to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he will seek approval for Palestine to become the 194th member state of the United Nations, a move certain to trigger a diplomatic confrontation with Israel and the United States, its staunchest ally. The U.S. is a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, which must give its backing...

* 7/17/11 Global Post:How Europe lost its military might While Europe has more troops, the United States has invested in military infrastructure. by Paul Ames
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- From the stern-faced Foreign Legionnaires to the gleaming sabers of the cavalry guards and the Mirage fighters roaring overhead, the French military put on an impressive display as they marched down the Champs-Elysee this July 14.
Behind the annual Bastille Day pomp however, France is at full stretch keeping over 12,000 troops deployed on an array of international missions from wars in Libya and Afghanistan to keeping peace in former African colonies like Chad and Ivory Coast.
"The armed forces now are fragile and vulnerable," Admiral Edouard Guillaud, France's chief of defense staff admitted in a recent speech. "We cannot deny it or look the other way. It's a fact that we are in a difficult situation."
France is not alone. Across Europe, defense budgets are shrinking as governments wrestle with budget deficits and public debt...

*4/26/11 NY Times:Report Urges Storing Spent Nuclear Fuel, Not Reprocessing It By MATTHEW L. WALD
Experts on nuclear power predict that Japan's Fukushima crisis will lead to a major rethinking of how spent nuclear fuel is handled in the United States but have cast doubt on a proposed solution: reprocessing the fuel to recover plutonium and other materials for reuse...

*3/17/11 Durango Herald:U.N. Approves Airstrikes to Halt Attacks by Qaddafi Forces By DAN BILEFSKY and KAREEM FAHIM
UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations Security Council approved a measure on Thursday authorizing "all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians from harm at the hands of forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
The measure allows not only a no-fly zone but effectively any measures short of a ground invasion to halt attacks that might result in civilian fatalities. It comes as Colonel Qaddafi warned residents of Benghazi, Libya, the rebel capital, that an attack was imminent and promised lenient treatment for those who offered no resistance...

*2/11/11 New York Times:Mubarak Steps Down, Ceding Power to Military By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ANTHONY SHADID
CAIRO -- Egypt erupted in a joyous celebration of the power of a long repressed people on Friday as President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned his post and ceded control to the military, ending his nearly 30 years of autocratic rule.
Shouts of "God is Great" competed with fireworks and car horns around Cairo after Mr. Mubarak's vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced during evening prayers that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders, bowing to a historic popular uprising that has transformed politics in Egypt and around the Arab world...

* 1/20/11 Durango Herald: Hu admits human rights need work At White House summit, Obama presses China only so hard By Ben Feller AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON + In a rare concession on a highly sensitive issue, Chinese President Hu Jintao used his White House visit on Wednesday to acknowledge "a lot still needs to be done" to improve human rights in his nation accused of repressing its people. President Barack Obama pushed China to adopt fundamental freedoms but assured Hu the U.S. considers the communist nation a friend and vital economic partner.
Hu's comments met with immediate skepticism from human-rights advocates, who dismissed them as words backed by no real history of action. Hu contended his country has "made enormous progress" but provided no specifics...

* 1/12/11 Voice of America News.com Haiti Mourns Earthquake Victims Haiti is holding observances ahead of the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook the country, leaving more than 200,000 people dead, 1 million others homeless and widespread destruction...

LWV Positions

La Plata County Outreach

*8/8/11 Durango Herald:Dr. Tom Grams killed in Afghanistan a year ago by John Peel
Lengthy silent pauses. Cracks in their voices. And poignant spoken words, too. All give proof of the waves of sadness still stirring in the friends of Tom Grams. "It's a hard week, you know," Sandy Bielenberg said.
It was a year ago Friday that Grams, a Durango dentist who traveled the world's far reaches to care for patients in dire need, was randomly murdered along with nine others in Afghanistan. Although they've moved on, his friends haven't forgotten.

*5/10/11 Durango Herald:Durango not bitter toward Three Cups of Tea author Locals raised $200,000 for nonprofit group By Emery Cowan Herald Staff Writer
Since a "60 Minutes" segment in April aired allegations that Greg Mortenson falsified parts of his best-selling book and used donations to his nonprofit for his personal benefit, the Three Cups of Tea author has been unable to escape a harsh spotlight.
But here in Durango, that spotlight seems to be a bit kinder. Locals who worked to bring the author to Durango three years ago and helped raise money for his organization didn't want to let the accusations overshadow the value of Mortenson's work and his visit here.
"I think the cause is very noble, and I think Mortenson prosecuted it very successfully over a number of years + that's where I think the emphasis should be," said Bob Chaput, who helped organize a community breakfast during Mortenson's visit. "The fact that he behaved like he behaved is also true, but it's negative and doesn't add anything to his stature."
Durango's connection to Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea started when Fort Lewis College chose the book for its Common Reading Experience in 2008. A requirement of the program is that the book's author can visit and speak at the college.

*3/22/11 Durango Herald:United Way busy with projects by Tim Walsworth, President and CEO for United Way and a member of the Durango High Noon Rotary Club.
United Way of Southwest Colorado's board of directors and staff are keeping busy with several projects of interest to our community. Here are some updates about our work and a couple of things we need you to help us accomplish.
United Way is proud to announce that for the first time since 2007, we beat our fundraising goal. A total of $728,000 was pledged, surpassing the goal of $711,000. United Way's board and staff thank the communities of Southwest Colorado for their trust and support. As the funds are collected, United Way will forward them to our partner agencies or to the organization the donor selected.
We already are starting to look ahead to the next fundraising drive. Several events are on the calendar...

Correspondance from our Members

Past Events

*Monday, October 24, 2011 is United Nations Day. Click Learning From Hammarskjold By BRIAN URQUHART, NY Times, 9/16/11 to read more.

*8/30/1 Durango Herald:Monks bring 'Peaceful Hearts' to Durango Tibetan refugees spread teachings and values with Buddhist art Herald Staff Report
No, the gentlemen you may see strolling along Main Avenue and elsewhere this week are genuine Tibetan monks, the Gaden Shartse Monks of Mundgod, India, to be exact. "Peaceful Heart Durango" is the group's third visit since 2006 and promises to be the busiest yet for the six-man delegation. Representatives of the Tibetan Refugee Settlement in Mundgod have been touring the U.S. since 1989. Their mission is twofold; to raise funds for the monastery, which is home to more than 1,000 monks, and to be of service through their traditional teachings and lifestyle of peace, harmony, compassion and tolerance.
"It's going to be a wonderful week," said Louise Edwards of the Durango Dharma Center, which will host a daylong "lo-jong", or mind training, retreat Wednesday.
The monks will spend most of their time in Durango constructing the Chenrezig Sand Mandala at Open Shutter Gallery...

Reference Information

*10/12/11 NY Times:A Quest for Hybrid Companies That Profit, but Can Tap Charity By STEPHANIE STROM
A new type of company intended to put social goals ahead of making profits is taking root around the country, as more states adopt laws to bridge the divide between nonprofits and businesses.
California is the latest state to adopt a statute permitting what is called flexible-purpose corporations, new companies that are part social benefit and part low-profit entities. The companies are now allowed under laws in more than a dozen states and two Indian tribes.
States like New York and Massachusetts are weighing comparable legislation -- sometimes also known as low-profit limited liability or benefit corporations -- and efforts are afoot to get federal legislation passed that would lower hurdles to the creation of such companies, including a quiet push to get preferential tax treatment for them...
"Directors of many companies want to do the right thing, but they're so busy looking at how not to get sued for failing to maximize profits that they don't think more aspirationally about creating a great company that helps the planet and people and also makes money," said R. Todd Johnson, a lawyer who is among the leaders of the movement to get states to create new legal structures...

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