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Office For Global Concerns
Office For Global Concerns What's New Latest Analysis and advocacy on justice and peace issues that affect the communities where Maryknollers live and work. 
| Maryknoll and its work for peace The following article was taken from the November-December 2011 issue of NewsNotes, published by the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns.
From their founding 100 years ago, Maryknoll missioners have encountered violence and its aftermath. In China, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Hawaii and other Pacific Islands they knew the horror of repression and war. At times the violence was local or national. At other times, it seemed to be part of a regional or even global conflagration. From El Salvador to East Timor, Sudan and Chile to Cambodia, Guatemala, Vietnam, Peru and on and on, Maryknoll missioners accompanied the survivors and often knew the consequences of violence themselves. They have seen close at hand the tremendous importance of making and sustaining peace as an essential expression of their missionary vocation.
Faith grounds and shapes the work of Maryknoll for peace. They have tapped well the spiritual energies in our own tradition. A small community of contemplative Maryknoll sisters lived for years in the midst of war in Sudan. Their mission and that of other Maryknoll contemplative communities – to pray for a just peace – has been a powerful witness to peace that surpasses all understanding.
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 | Office For Global Concerns
QDDR, the Global Health Initiative and AIDS The First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), issued by the State Department in December 2010, is the result of a wide-ranging consultation that examined U.S. diplomacy and development policies and practices "to make them more effective and efficient." The QDDR identifies the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative (GHI) as one of the six main areas of focus (others are food security, sustainable economic growth, climate change, democracy and governance and humanitarian assistance). It emphasizes structural change; relies on host countries' systems and organizations; and concentrates in countries where U.S. assistance can make a difference.
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 | Office For Global Concerns
Nuclear policy in 2011 On February 2, President Obama officially ratified the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which focuses on nuclear arms reductions by the U.S. and Russia and was approved in Congress with wide bipartisan support. [See previous articles on the "New START" in the May-June 2010 and January-February 2011 issues of NewsNotes.]
New START mandates that Russia and the U.S. reduce their nuclear warheads to 1,550 each, and limits the number of deployed warheads 700 allowed in delivery systems and 100 in reserve. The treaty lasts 10 years with the option of extending it five more years at the most. (The first START took effect in 1991 and expired in December 2009.) |
 | Office For Global Concerns: Africa
Zimbabwe: SADC’s cautious push forward An Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State and Government met in South Africa June 11-12 to consider the situations in Madagascar and Zimbabwe. The outcome document was publicly welcomed by political leaders on both sides of Zimbabwe’s political divide, according to allAfrica.com, though their interpretations were significantly different.
The Summit “noted the decisions of the Organ Troika Summit held in Livingstone, Zambia in March 2011” when the Troika, SADC’s security organ, expressed its “impatience” at delays in implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which created Zimbabwe’s unity government, and noted its “grave concern [at] the polarization of the political environment as characterized by, inter alia, resurgence of violence, arrests and intimidation.”
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Office For Global Concerns
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