In a busy day on Capitol Hill in Washington today, the U.S. Senate passed a number of bills, with perhaps the biggest one being the ratification of the New START Treaty with Russia, which will lower the number of nuclear weapons each country is allowed to have and it will enable the return of on-the-ground inspections in each country.
The treaty was a priority of the Obama administration, which also drew on broad bipartisan support in its campaign to get the treaty passed. The bill passed today by a vote of 71-26. A two-thirds majority is required by the U.S. Constitution for the ratification of treaties by the Senate.
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, a former nuclear arms negotiator in the Clinton administration, will discuss this new treaty tomorrow (Thursday, December 24) at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time on KQED Radio's "Forum with Michael Krasny." That's 88.5 FM in San Francisco or 89.3 FM in Sacramento, or you can listen to live streaming from the KQED web site.
The newest edition of The Commonwealth, the members' magazine of The Commonwealth Club of California, is in the mail at this moment. If you're a member, watch your mailbox for the October/November 2010 issue, which is filled with interesting people and thought-provoking and even controversial ideas.
The cover story features a bipartisan duo of former U.S. secretaries of state: Madeleine Albright and George Shultz, who discuss with veteran journalist Marvin Kalb the most important issues facing our country today and tomorrow. Other articles include author and Iran expert Stephen Kinzer discussing the relationship between Iran and the United States; Anglican priest Kapya Kaoma on America's export of its culture wars to Africa; author Anna Quindlen discussing family with writer Ellen Sussman; an all-star panel (Laura Tyson, Paul Saffo, Nancy Pfund, Robert Klein, Robert Hertzberg, and Sydnie Kohara) discussing California's economic future; journalist Sebastian Junger on the ground with our troops in Afghanistan; author Nicholas Carr (in conversation with Google's director of research, Peter Norvig) talking about whether the internet is making us stupider; Commonwealth Club President & CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy on financial abuse of the elderly; and we say good-bye to a longtime friend of The Club and a giant of California's modern history, Bill Lane.
If that doesn't keep you occupied for the next month, check out the magazine's calendar of upcoming Club events and start marking your schedule for our great lineup of speakers, travel, and other opportunities in the Bay Area and beyond.
Now that Gavin Newsom’s run for lieutenant governor is official, the issues that will define his final months as mayor and carry over into his possible new role have come into focus. During his April 7, 2010, visit to the club, he referenced several topics that have since gained significant attention in the city.
Gavin Newsom catapulted himself to the public awareness beyond San Francisco in 2004 when he granted same-sex couples marriage licenses at the beginning of his term as mayor, but it was his work as a city supervisor and his stance on a far more alternative lifestyle that proved more controversial: homelessness.
Nation’s Premier Public Affairs Forum Appoints Former KQED Chief to Lead Club
Dr. Mary Bitterman, president of The Bernard Osher Foundation and former president and CEO of KQED, has been named the 2010-2011 chair of the Board of Governors for The Commonwealth Club of California, the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Dr. Bitterman succeeds Mary Cranston, leading attorney and senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, to become the ninth woman to head the Board of Governors of The Commonwealth Club since its inception in 1903.
"It is a privilege and challenge to lead such an important public service organization at this critical juncture in the history of our state and nation," said Bitterman. “Now more than ever, our democracy depends on an informed public -- knowledgeable of the affairs of our society and of the world in which we live.”
Dr. Gloria Duffy, president and CEO of The Club, noted, “Mary Bitterman’s rich leadership experience in public broadcasting, philanthropy, higher education, and corporate governance will prove invaluable to The Club. Our board and staff look forward to working closely with her.”
Born in San José and daughter and sister of Santa Clara County Superior Court judges, Dr. Bitterman is a fourth-generation Californian who has demonstrated unwavering dedication to the public good in her native state. She recently was commended by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors for her work with the Osher Foundation on its $50 million pledge to the California Community Colleges Scholarship Endowment, the largest single gift to a community college system in the nation’s history. During her tenure as president of KQED from 1993 to 2002, she was credited with restoring fiscal integrity, rebuilding board and staff morale, and undertaking KQED’s Campaign for the Future which raised funds for conversion to digital systems and for a Program Venture Fund to support local production. She significantly expanded the stations' local programming, beginning with KQED Public Radio’s “Pacific Time” and “The California Report,” now in its 15th year of broadcast. KQED Public Television produced such programs as “The Neighborhoods of San Francisco,” with “The Castro” earning the Peabody Award, and started the arts magazine, “Spark.” She has also produced several documentaries for public television and has written about the role of media and telecommunications in developing societies.
Before coming to KQED, Dr. Bitterman headed the Hawaii Public Broadcasting Authority, the Voice of America, the Hawaii State Department of Commerce, and the East-West Center’s Institute of Culture and Communication. Her board service has included chairing the boards of PBS and the East-West Center and membership on the Board of Trustees of Barclays Global Investors, purchased recently by BlackRock.
Currently, as president of The Bernard Osher Foundation, Dr. Bitterman focuses on the foundation’s national priorities (postsecondary scholarships; lifelong learning institutes for seasoned adults; and integrative medicine programs) and on its local arts and humanities grant-making that benefits organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and the State of Maine. A trustee of the foundation, she serves also as lead independent director of Bank of Hawaii and board chair of the PBS Foundation. Additionally, she is a member of the advisory councils for the Bay Area Council Economic Forum, Pacific Forum/CSIS, the Public Policy Institute of California, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Dr. Bitterman is an honorary member of the National Presswomen's Federation, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a recipient of the Ralph Lowell Award for national leadership in public broadcasting. She received her B.A. from Santa Clara University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern European History from Bryn Mawr College. She is the recipient of honorary doctoral degrees from Dominican University of California, Santa Clara University, and the University of Richmond.
--By the Commonwealth Club Media & Public Relations Staff
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy will discuss the situation with Iran's nuclear actions and policies tomorrow, October 1, on KCBS Radio, at 2:20 pm (Pacific Time). You can tune into 740 AM at that time or listen live on the KCBS news site.
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy will appear on KGO TV, Channel 7 in San Francisco, tonight at 6:00 p.m. (Pacific time). She will be discussing the nuclear situation in Iran.
Bay Area audiences might want to catch Dr. Gloria Duffy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, who will appear on KTVU TV's live morning news show, "Mornings on 2," tomorrow morning, September 11, at 8:15 a.m. (Pacific time). She will share her thoughts on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, as well as the international situation today.
Gen. Anthony Zinni (left) discusses the crisis in leadership, during a discussion at The Commonwealth Club with President and CEO Dr. Gloria C. Duffy. (Photo by John Zipperer)
With an estimated three-fourths of Americans seeing a widespread leadership crisis, a high-profile veteran of America's foreign wars came to The Commonwealth Club on Tuesday (August 18) to talk about where leadership has succeeded and failed. In conversation with Commonwealth Club president and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, General Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of the United States Central Command, told a lunch hour Commonwealth Club crowd that as of late there has been a leadership crisis in all aspects of society -- both at home and abroad. He underscored how the leadership lessons he learned on the battlefield could actually be applied to help people understand how to succeed in many areas of everyday life.
The surveys Zinni conducted for his new book Leading the Charge: Leadership Lessons from the Battlefield to the Boardroom, indicated that by 2008, 77 percent Americans felt that there was a leadership crisis in every facet of society. “In not one element of society did the leadership rise above 50 percent in approval rating. Not one political leader in the world received an approval rating of over 50 percent,” he said. From the corporate world to the political arena, leaders are failing.
General Zinni argued that in the current technological environment, a new and different type of leader must emerge. Factors and personality traits that contribute to successful leadership citing include “thinking creatively and strategically, knowing how to guide and communicate, being a unique decision maker, understanding the complexity of a new environment, and having a visionary approach,” he said.
Dr. Duffy, a former nuclear arms negotiator and assistant deputy of defense under Bill Clinton, remarked that we have witnessed numerous examples of failure in leadership recently -- from Detroit to the airline industry to Katrina -- and asked Zinni to share examples of good role models. General David Petraeus is a great leader who executed a “different approach to Iraq,” Zinni responded. “He liked to think out of the box.… He was more analytical and invited in contrary views. He operated outside the norm and did things on the ground that went far beyond the military dimension. Patreus saw the scope of what was required.” Zinni also highlighted how Patraeus deployed his troops to assist in all aspects of Iraqi life, from helping rebuild communities to job training. On a recent visit to Iraq, Petraeus told Zinni, “You’re not going to shoot your way to success here.”
Zinni observed that great leaders sometimes have to take great risks and suffer the most, doing their utmost to understand the needs of the people they lead. It was Israeli leader Shimon Perez who told Zinni that great leaders must also ignore “the righteous and the debaters.” Zinni commented that good leaders allow people to fail and show them how to improve saying, “They reach across lines to help others and believe in participatory decision making.” Amongst great world leaders, Zinni cited Jordan’s King Hussein, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, and Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also said the Bush administration failed to adequately acknowledge the leadership skills of Colin Powell, whom Zinni thinks was a tremendous asset to the country.
In the business world, Zinni attributed the success of Toyota and Honda to “the ability of their leadership to assess consumer desires, needs and expectations.” He also praised the charismatic attributes and skills of airline magnate Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airways. In an industry of bankruptcy and failed models, Zinni noted, Branson succeeded.
Though he mentioned all of those leaders whose qualities impressed him, Zinni lamented that “we are living in confusing, complex times. The focus and cry now is for leadership. We are going to have to find human solutions.”
Zinni, who currently teaches at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, is a retired four-star general in the United States Marine Corps and former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command. In 2002, he was selected to be a special envoy for the United States to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. While serving as a special envoy, Zinni was also an instructor in the Department of International Studies at the Virginia Military Institute.
--Commonwealth Club Media & Public Relations Department
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, a veteran of international diplomacy during the Clinton Administration, will be on the Ronn Owens program this morning at 10 am to discuss North Korea and the return of the two journalists.
You can listen live to the program on KGO Newstalk AM810 here. If you miss it, you should be able to catch the archived audio here.
Duffy has also spoken about this topic to KGO TV news, KTVU Channel 2, and KCBS Radio.
In his private mission to North Korea today, former President Bill Clinton secured the release of the two American journalists arrested along the Chinese North Korean border in March. In this unpublicized visit, Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong II and negotiated the release of Euna Lee and Laura ling, the reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV. The two young women had been sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and allegedly committing “hostile acts.” It has now been reported that the two journalists are returning to the United States on Clinton’s plane.
The official Korean central news agency said that Clinton and the North Korean leader discussed a wide range of topics, including the release of Ling and Lee and the status of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
The dramatic events come at a time of heightened international tensions. The Obama administration had voiced concern about North Korea’s recent testing of nuclear and ballistic missiles, which violates UN Security Council resolutions. In late May, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned North Korea that it could face “unspecified consequences for this aggressive behavior.” Meanwhile, for the past several months she had also been working to negotiate the release of the two journalists.
Senior North Korean officials greeted Clinton with a warm welcome and bouquet of flowers at the airport, after which he was treated to a banquet at the state guesthouse. Analysts say that, though Clinton is no longer president, the broad smile on Jong II’s face indicated a possible upturn of events in what seemed to have become a downward spiral of Western-North Korean relations.
Experts believe that Bill Clinton’s visit came at the behest of North Korean leaders, who had indicated they might release the two young women with a formal apology and a visit from a high-profile U.S. emissary.
When asked in a KCBS radio news interview for her reaction to Clinton’s success, Dr. Gloria Duffy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Club, responded, “I not surprised. I am very pleased by the pardon. And I am wondering what this will lead to. What other topics were discussed? Why was North Korea so interested in opening the door to perhaps further positive developments?
Duffy, who worked with President Clinton as a nuclear arms negotiator during his first term in office, added, “The last successful agreement that was negotiated with North Korea about its nuclear program was under the Clinton administration. So there is a positive history there. That was the Agreed Framework negotiated in 1994 that was dispensed with some years later during the Bush administration. That’s important symbolism. The North Koreans have wanted to meet with a United States president for some time. Kim Jong Il has wanted to be seen as a world leader…, so the symbolism is very important to him being equated with a senior American leader –again, one [Clinton] who had a relatively positive relationship with North Korea. In fact under President Clinton’s leadership, many positive things happened.”
--Commonwealth Club Media and Public Relations Department
When Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy asked retired CBS newsman Walter Cronkite what was his "all-time favorite news story or event" that he'd covered in his legendary career, he replied impishly, "Well, I think actually the victory of the University of Texas in their last major football game ..."
More than two decades removed from his last broadcast as head of the "CBS Evening News," Cronkite at that February 23, 2007, event was full of stories and, as noted above, more than a little tease. After all, this is the man through whom millions of Americans got their news of World War II, the Kennedy assassination and funeral, the moon landings, Watergate, and so much more.
He was the giant in a field of giants, but also a media personality from a time before hundreds of cable channels were available in nearly every home, and before TV news personalities were expected to yell at the camera. "CBS Evening News" was at the pinnacle of the network newscasts, a position it has not held since, but when he spoke to Duffy, he was most concerned about the integrity of news, expressing some worry over whether amateur news reporters (i.e., bloggers) could report news effectively. "There are all these various little news blogs, and they are without supervision," he said. "It's a rather dangerous way for our news to be disseminated."
When he appeared at The Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley in 2007, his advanced years were apparent. Still full of good spirits, a sharp mind taxed by waning hearing, Cronkite told stories of his career, emphatically endorsed journalistic ethics and courage, and discussed whether he could have had an effect on a modern president similar to the effect he had on President Johnson when he urged a pullout from Vietnam.
Asked by Duffy to repeat his famed signoff line from the news, Cronkite first joked about his memory, then complied:
Cronkite: What's the date again? You'd be surprised at how many times I forgot the date before I got on the air. Finally, one of the writers on our evening news program every day was assigned to write the date down and see that it was on my desk before we went on the air.
Duffy: February 23, 2007.
Cronkite: And that's the way it is, February 23, 2007. Good night.
North Korea has an uncanny ability to shape its geopolitical reality despite the weak hand it's dealt itself, noted author and Korea expert Gordon G. Chang during a Commonwealth Club speech May 25, 2007: "[The U.S. is] the strongest nation in history. North Korea is one of the most destitute states. Yet for more than five decades, the regime run by the Kim family has outmaneuvered us at almost every turn. The situation is even more peculiar than that, because North Korea is not only outmaneuvering us; it's outsmarting the rest of the world." [Listen to entire program.]
Global attention is once again focusing on North Korea amid reports that Pyongyang is preparing a long-range missile test sometime around July 4. As a result, additional protections have been ordered for Hawaii in the event a missile is launched. While North Korea denies it is threatening the United States, the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun stated, “As long as our country has become a nuclear power, the U.S. should take a correct look at whom it is dealing with.”
In an interview with CBS News’ Harry Smith, President Barack Obama said he did not want to “speculate on hypotheticals.” But at the same time, Obama stated, “This administration – and our military -- is fully prepared for any contingencies.”
Meanwhile, North Korea also claimed last week that Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two U.S. journalists who had been sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp, admitted entering the country illegally in order to slander the country’s human rights record. There are no independent accounts of exactly where the journalists were captured, and the U.S. has asked for the release of the two women. However, many speculate that the journalists are being used as bargaining chips by North Korea against the United States.
As we near the possible launch of the missile toward Hawaii and we await an outcome of the prisoner saga, it might be a good time to dig a bit deeper into Korean politics, culture, and history. In recent years and months, The Club has hosted many programs concerning North Korea, featuring experts from a variety of viewpoints. Several of these discussions were moderated by Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, who served as U.S. Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the 1990s. To view these programs, visit our video partners at Fora.tv.
--Commonwealth Club Media and Public Relations Department
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she was surprised that President Barack Obama decided to give his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt. She had expected him to do it in Indonesia, she told Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy today during a conversation before a large Commonwealth crowd.
There were a number of reasons that Indonesia would have made a logical place for the speech, not least because it would highlight the fact that most Muslims do not live in the Middle East, said Albright. But she said that the decision to go to Egypt, what she called the center of situation, is indicative of how Obama operates: He doesn't dance around the question, but he addresses it head on, as he did with opposition to his speech at Nortre Dame and other examples.
The former top diplomat -- and the first to hold that position in the United States -- says she was very pleased with Obama's speech, noting that he probably was well received by most of the audiences to whom he was speaking.
You can see more of her discussion of Obama's speech and his approach to the Muslim world in this homemade video from the event:
On Thursday, May 28 East Bay Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher delivered her final farewell to some 200 Commonwealth Club members and guests at Lafayette’s Veterans Memorial Hall. Though she covered a lot of ground in a wide-ranging discussion of policy and her past, she opened her remarks with anecdotes about her daughter, Katherine, and her tremendous love for California.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Tauscher, who served California’s 10th district for past 12 years, will be leaving her post to become senior adviser on arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament issues to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. In this position, Tauscher will take on national and global security relations, and international peacekeeping policy direction. In the conversation with Commonwealth Club CEO and President Dr. Gloria Duffy, herself a former nuclear arms negotiator for the Clinton administration, Tauscher told audience members she is committed to upholding The Constitution, and trusting her conscious as well as her constituents.
“The United States needs a new visibility,” said Tauscher, “to show that we can indeed lead the world in issues of security and arms negation.”
Though unable to discuss details of nuclear policy due to her pending Senate confirmation process, as the conversation turned to issues of nuclear nonproliferation, Tauscher shared her expertise and voiced her pledge to moving U.S. policy toward total nuclear disarmament. She addressed a wide range of topics -- from U.S. national security policies to where Tauscher’s daughter was going to college, (Bucknell, to play Division I Volleyball). When asked about her future with the Obama administration, Tauscher described how she believes America “can have national security and civil rights at the same time.” When questioned about the state of our economy Tauscher emphasized, “The U.S. needs to get ‘back to basics’ and is in need of a complete overhaul, like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
Regarding the 10th District, Tauscher expressed her admiration for what she called the “California lifestyle” and how she believes the state can be a leader in both alternative energies and transportation innovation for the rest of the country. Advocating for high-speed rail and enhanced carbon-free methods of transportation such as bicycles, Tauscher said that Californians “have more opportunity and more reason to get it right than anyone else.”
Tauscher, who is currently the chair of the Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, has served as the representative of California’s 10th Congressional District since 1997. She has strengthened and expanded nonproliferation programs by creating the White House Office of the Coordinator on Nuclear Non-proliferation and a commission to study our nation’s role in the nuclear arms debate. Before running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, Tauscher was an active fundraiser for the Democratic Party. She chaired Dianne Feinstein's successful 1992 and 1994 Senate campaigns. Previously, Tauscher worked as an investment banker and became a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The Newark, New Jersey, native earned her B.S. from Seton Hall University in 1974. She lives in Alamo, California.
– Written by The Commonwealth Club's Media and Public Relations Department
Film industry billionaire David Geffen wants to buy The New York Times. Not a copy here or there; not subscribe so it’ll be delivered to his doorstep every morning. No, Geffen wants to buy The New York Times Company.
That may seem like an odd thing for a successful businessman to desire. With print news organizations suffering from a mix of economic crisis, the loss of their cash-cow classified advertising business, and some poor decision-making, we’ve already seen some major changes in the newspaper landscape in this country, and we can expect to see some more. The Tribune Company, owners of the Chicago Tribune and more recently (and controversially) of the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy after it was bought in a debt-laden deal by real estate billionaire Sam Zell. The San Francisco Chronicle reportedly just barely escaped being closed or sold for parts, and the Boston Globe is losing more than $80 million a year.
Huge debt overloads, depressed advertising revenue, and still largely unproven online revenue models have driven a number of papers to the brink of insolvency. Newspapers were traditionally very profitable ventures, and in turn they play crucial roles in informing, uncovering, entertaining, and occasionally provoking citizens. Is the for-profit life of papers over? Can citizens get the news and critical information they need from the new wave of journalism ventures?
One such is the brand new East Bay Citizen, a news blog created and just launched by Steven Tavares, a Commonwealth Club intern who has contributed to this blog. It takes its inspiration from the idea that hyperlocal news is not covered well by the aging and money-losing giant news organizations. Tavares predicts the growth of many very localized news sources to fill in the gap.
But Times is a different animal, a local newspaper that has become a national and even international news brand. What can be done with it?
Geffen is planning to turn The New York Times into a nonprofit news organization, according to a report in Newsweek. The idea has been implemented elsewhere, such as the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, which has been run by a nonprofit for decades. Newsweek says that its sources tell it that Geffen "envisions himself as the next Nelson Poynter, the late proprietor of the St. Petersburg Times and a legend in journalistic circles for his fierce independence. The Florida newspaper ... is the widely recognized prototype of the nonprofit structure that is now generating growing interest in some quarters of an industry facing an existential crisis. Poynter, who died in 1978, willed his control to the nonprofit and highly influential Poynter Institute, viewing the mechanism as the optimal way of preserving the St. Petersburg Times' independence and local ownership. Today, under the complex ownership structure, the St. Petersburg Times operates in many respects like a for-profit newspaper."
Would it work for The New York Times? First of all, Geffen's not even assured of gaining control. He failed in a bid to buy a minority interest in the company. And The Financial Times' John Gapper urgesThe New York Times' Ochs-Sulzberger family, which controls ownership of the firm, not to sell until they've returned it to profitability.
But the effort is likely to be watched intently, including by northern Californians.
"Here in the Bay Area, a group led by investor Warren Hellman and attorney Bill Coblentz has been discussing how to preserve the Chronicle by changing its business model," Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy wrote in her May 2009 InSight column in The Commonwealth magazine. "Active consideration has been taking place in the philanthropic community about what donors can do to help preserve media capabilities to inform the public about important societal issues."
"I would make an appeal, to every philanthropy at all levels, and lay it all on the line," journalism legend Jim Lehrer told Duffy during an April 5, 2009, Commonwealth Club program in Lafayette. "This is important. And I would try to figure out a way to create a serious nonprofit major news-gathering organization for everybody. In other words, you would do the Walter Reed [Army Hospital] story, but you wouldn't do it just for the Washington Post -- anybody could run it." He went on to describe a news service that would be available to everybody at no cost. It would have to be constructed in a way that "it has the trust of everybody. But it would have to be serious; you'd have to be willing to break some china every once in a while. Or otherwise, forget it."
Perhaps Geffen and Lehrer will sit down together to discuss the future of news. In the meantime, you can watch the entire Lehrer-Duffy conversation here:
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the third person in the line of succession in the federal government, spoke to The Commonwealth Club of California this afternoon about appreciating and using power in one's personal and professional lives.
Pelosi, in conversation with Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy (at right in photo above), discussed her steady rise to political prominence from a San Francisco housewife and mother to the leader of her party in Congress (and the highest-ranking woman in American politics). She said she wrote her book, Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, partly to get out of having to explain her history to everyone who asks but also to encourage more women to get involved in leadership positions, and of course to inspire girls to aim high when making life plans.
Pelosi concluded the discussion by praising her interviewer, noting the prominent role in American policy and public thought that Duffy has played, both at The Commonwealth Club and earlier at the Defense Department.
In 2007, Duffy wrote about getting to know Pelosi back in 1985 when the two of them were part of a bipartisan fact-finding mission to Nicaragua, where they met with Sandinistas and Contras and others. You can read a PDF of the article, "Dedicated Woman" (January 2007) here.
With the news that Russia was cooperating with the United States in developing an approach to deal with Iran's nuclear program, there are questions about how that cooperation will evolve as the two countries confront a host of other pressing issues, including the worldwide recession.
To get insight into the topic, view the video of Columbia University professor and Russia expert Robert Legvold, in conversation with Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, herself a Russia expert and veteran foreign policy professional. Levgold is also on the steering committee at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences oon Desiging U.S. Policy Toward Russia. Visit the academy's web site for background on that project, as well as a wealth of related resources.
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy touched off a spirited debate among Huffington Post readers with her recent article on that site, "Bad News Bears: Economic Fear Mongering by the Media." As of this morning, 60 responses had been posted to the article's comments section. In true Internet fashion, the comments range from hearty agreement to vociferous disagreement.
President Barack Obama has reportedly requested and received GM CEO Rick Wagoner's immediate exit from the company he's headed for nine years (and where he's been employed for three decades).
The move comes one day before Monday's announcement by the White House of its plans for the auto industry, which has received billions of dollars in aid from taxpayers but has not yet satisfied the Obama administration's criteria for submitting a workable recovery plan. Chrysler and GM have between them taken $17.4 billion in government money, and they're seeking more than $21 billion more.
When Wagoner made a high-profile speech to The Commonwealth Club less than a year ago, on May 1, 2008, the executive touted the company's efforts at adopting green technology and responded to audience questions about GM's commitment to delivering on those promises. (See video, above.) At the time, the big question was the price of oil, which had spiked at more than $140 a barrel; that would, of course, fall, but only as the economy went into a tailspin. (Read a PDF of Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy's column about her ill-fated GM electric car, the EV-1, a column that Wagoner referenced in his address to The Club.)
By the time many of you have read this blog posting, the Obama recovery plan for the carmakers will have been announced. Will it help drag Chrysler and GM out of the murk and back into profitability? Will it be a money-pit for taxpayers? What would you suggest the government do? Leave a comment and join the discussion.
While most of the industrialized world prepares to fix the world's economy next week in London, an important geopolitical sideshow will be taking place when the U.S. and Russia discuss an old Cold War sticking point.
With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) due to expire this December, old diplomatic ploys and negotiations are returning to the table while both sides have retained suspicions of each other's intentions. Back in 1982, President Reagan presented the then-Soviet Union with an offer to reduce the number of strategic nuclear weapons pointed at each other. The beginnings of the START suffered many starts and stops during the 1980s. The treaty was not signed until 1991.
The Bush Administration's announcement late last year to install weapons interceptors in Poland and radar capabilities in the Czech Republic -- two former members of the Iron Curtain -- is reminiscent of an earlier tactic engineered in 1983 when Reagan announced plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as "Star Wars". The Soviets perceived it as a threat, even though the plan's feasibility and cost was widely questioned. The presence of SDI and, in hindsight, last-ditch efforts by the dying Soviet empire to show strength were a few of the reasons the agreement took nine years to ratify.
The other piece to the puzzle, then as it is now, is growing Russian insecurity over its Central Asian border, namely Afghanistan and Iran. The Obama Administration deftly linked missile defenses in Eastern Europe with the need to limit Iran's growing nuclear capabilities. A not-so-secret letter between Obama and Medvedev laid out this tit-for-tat reasoning that U.S. missiles in Poland would not be needed with a nuclear-neutered Iran.
Columbia University Political Science Professor Robert Legvold told the Voice of America that while Russia and Iran have strong commercial ties, he believes they have limited power in persuading the Iranians politically.
If the route chosen by the United States and Europe is to try to increase the pressure of sanctions, particularly in terms of petroleum and the export of refined petroleum products to Iran, then Russia would become crucial in that respect. But it's not clear that even tougher sanctions with everybody participating will force Iran's hand. So I think at the end of the day, there's a limit to how much the Russians can do in shaping Iran's choice.
Whether Russia has any real influence over Iran is also clouded by the suggestion that the U.S. and its NATO partners are unlikely to bargain with Russia at the expense of the Cold War organization's solidarity. During a meeting yesterday with the general-secretary of NATO, Obama said as much and reiterated support for former Russian satellites of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO in the future -- a topic already infuriating the Kremlin.
U.S.-Russian relations as it relates to Afghanistan will also take prominence during the April 1 summit. Legvold, who with Stanford professor Coit Blacker will discuss U.S.-Russian relations with The Commonwealth Club's CEO Gloria Duffy this Monday, said Russian's attitude towards Afghanistan has been inconsistent.
They clearly are uncomfortable with a NATO and a U.S. military presence in Central Asia. But I think they genuinely are concerned about failure in Afghanistan, which would allow the Taliban back into power and create potential instability in Central Asia, which is their southern front. So we will have to see where they go in the longer run. But right now they have not been as helpful as they could have been, even if you put the best face on it.
The problem today may not be nuclear war between the one-time super rivals, but a consensus of how post-Cold War Europe and Central Asia should be divided. Both sides seem committesd to renewing START on the basis of nuclear warheads as deterrents rather than vehicle of threats. The question is whether both sides can reconcile their differences with the common need to quell instability in the Middle East.
Columbia University professor Robert Legvold and Director and Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations Coit Blacker will discuss U.S.-Russian relations with CEO Gloria Duffy Monday at The Commonwealth Club of California at 6 p.m. Click here for more program information.
Cerita Dewasa Bercinta Sambil Liat Film BF
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*Cerita Dewasa Bercinta Sambil Liat Film BF* - pada kesempatan ini kami
ingin mencoba memberikan kepada anda sebuah cerita seks terbaru, mungkin
saja ada ...
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, a former nuclear arms negotiator in the Clinton administration, will discuss this new treaty tomorrow (Thursday, December 24) at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time on KQED Radio's "Forum with Michael Krasny." That's 88.5 FM in San Francisco or 89.3 FM in Sacramento, or you can listen to live streaming from the KQED web site.
