Citizens for Global Solutions - Minnesota Chapter

WORLD SAVVY EVENT MARCH 6, SATURDAY
Theme:Water around the World
Click here for details on Second Annual World Affairs Challenge

CGS-MN THIRD THURSDAY GLOBAL ISSUES FORUM
Free and open to the public.
Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, 511 Groveland Avenue, Minneapolis
(at Lyndale & Hennepin) Park in church lot.

These forums are jointly sponsored by the United Nations Association of Minnesota, the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers and the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church.

Thursday, March 18, 2010, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
TSAR PUTIN: THE RISE OF RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY
In the wake of Russian failed experiment with democracy in the 1990s,Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin has forged a political culture that synthesizing the autocratic and nationalist elements of the Tsarist and Soviet traditions. Above all else, he has restored in the executive office – first as President, now and Prime Minister –the traditions of Russian autocracy as the cornerstone of the state. His personalization of power has even extended to the fostering of a “cult of personality” in the Stalinist style. In foreign affairs, Putin’s priorities fall upon, first of all, the re-assertion of the core lands of the former Soviet Union as “a sphere of Russian’s special interest” and, secondly, the restitution of Russia as a global power.
Presenter: NICK HAYES
Nick Hayes is a professor of history and holds the university chair in critical thinking at Saint John’s University. He is a frequent commentator on international affairs for public television and radio and a contributing writer for MinnPost.com (www.minnpost.com/nickhayes). His book – And One Fine Morning Memories of My Father (http://employees.csbsju.edu/nhayes/memoir.htm) will be published this March. He is currently working on a book of his essays on Russia from the Brezhnev era to the present.

Thursday, April 15, 2010, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (R2P):
NO MORE RWANDAS? NO MORE HAITIS?
In 2005 the UN adopted a new international norm, the “responsibility to protect,” stipulating that sovereignty gives a state not only rights, but also the responsibility to protect its people against war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing. When a state is unable or unwilling to fulfill this responsibility, the international community has an obligation to help. If offers of help are rejected, the UN may intervene, with the use of force as a last resort. Some have argued that the R2P concept should be expanded to cover situations such as the one now faced in Haiti. But, because of lingering sovereignty concerns, no R2P intervention has yet been authorized. What, then, are the chances that R2P will become a full-fledged norm? Will it ever be more than mere words?
Presenter: PROFESSOR MICHAEL BARNETT.
Stassen Chair of International Relations at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. He is best known for his writing on IR theory, the Middle East, the UN, humanitarian action and security communities. Among his books are the following: the award-winning Confronting the Costs of War (1992), Dialogues in Arab Politics (1998), Eyewitness to Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (2002), Rules for the World: International Organizations in World Politics (2004, winner of multiple awards), and Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power and Ethics (co-edited with Tom Weiss, 2008).