Women Building Peace | ROUNDTABLE l Three women leaders from Africa, Sadiga Washi, Lona LoWilla, and Kaliza Karuretwa, spoke about their losses and hopes for peace in Rwanda and Sudan during a panel discussion in May sponsored by the Women in Public Policy Program. “We watched hopelessly as our husbands, sons, and fathers were murdered,” said LoWilla, a native of the Sudan who works for OXFAM. “But women are now playing a key role in the reconstruction.” Challenges in the years ahead include the AIDS crisis and teaching a “culture of peace” to children raised with violence and bloodshed.

U.S. Can’t Go it Alone l FORUM l Speaking in April at the Forum, U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) criticized the United States for failing in recent years to develop stronger relationships with international allies, leaving the U.S. military to go it alone in protecting the world against terrorism and extremism. “Terrorism, extremism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Those are not a threat to the United States alone, or to Western Europe or Eastern Europe alone, or Japan alone. They’re a threat to mankind,” he said.

Hispanic Community Thrives l FORUM l “These are exciting times for the Hispanic community,” Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, a domestic policy advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, told a Forum audience at the Eighth Annual Latino Law and Public Policy Conference in April. “There is no limit to what this community can accomplish.”