June 5, 2016
To members and friends of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations (thepcfr.org; pcfremail@gmail.com).
Please see query about June 22 dinner below.
Our next meeting comes on Tuesday, June 7, with Michael Soussan, author and former U.N. whistleblower.
He will talk about global corruption as the driving force behind the rise in extremism and instability in the world today.
Mr. Soussan, formerly at CNN and the UN and the NYU Center for Global Affairs, has commented on international Affairs for CNN, The BBC, NPR, The New York Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, among others. He is the author of Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course In International Affairs, soon to be a movie starring Ben Kingsley, Theo James and Catherine Bisset.
As usual, the dinner will be at the Hope Club, 6 Benevolent St., Providence. Drinks start at about 6, dinner by 7, then the talk and a Q&A and the evening ends by 9. We will make all possible efforts short of physical violence (psychic violence is allowed) to ensure that the talk ends with plenty of time left for questions and get people out by 9.
Please let us know whether you will join us June 7 by replying to pcfremail@gmail.com.
Thanks very much to those who have already let us know!
The Hope Club needs good estimates no later than the day before a PCFR dinner.
Dues and dinner cost information may be found at: thepcfr.org. Other membership information may be found there, too. (A member asked if (the modest) dues and dinner fees for this nonprofit educational and civic membership organization are deductible for business purposes. In some cases. Ask your tax adviser.)
Our last speaker of the season will be Evan Matthews, a key thought leader at the North Atlantic Ports Association and director of the Port of Davisville. He will talk to us on Wednesday, June 22, on changes in world shipping, including the widening of the Panama Canal and other changes of huge interest to New England ports, especially Quonset/Davisville. Since this will be in some part about Narragansett Bay, it’s a good summery topic to end the season with.
We’d greatly appreciate knowing soon about how many people will come to the June 22 dinner.
We’ll be sending a list of some new-season speakers in the next few weeks. Topics will probably includethe role of Germany in the E.U.; the mess in Brazil; Central Europe facing right-wing populism and an aggressive Russia; Mongolia; the Zika virus; ocean fishing, the Silk Road Project; Japan and God knows what other topics current history might throw at us.
Suggestions are appreciated.
We look forward to seeing you.
