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Annual Summer Garden Party

The World Affairs Council of Orange County is partnering with the British American Business Council (BABC) for their Annual Summer Garden Party!

We cordially invite you, your friends and business collegues to join The British American Business Council and The World Affairs Council of Orange County for a wonderful afternoon on the cliff top at the Montage Resort, Laguna Beach.

• Sumptous Afternoon Tea With Pimms, champagne, lemonade and tea

• Silent Auction (Benefiting our Scholarship Program)

• Hat Competition (optional) Prize for the best hat

• Enjoy & shop British accessories

Sunday June 4th 2017

Time: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Location: Montage Laguna Beach (30801 Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651)

REGISTER HERE!

SPECIAL RATES FOR WACOC MEMBERS

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TRUSTEES SOCIAL

Thursday May 11th, 2017

WACOC Trustee and long- time members, Dr. Harry Sahota and his wife Dr. Asha Sahota, would like to invite the Trustees of the World Affairs Council of Orange County for our Spring Trustees Social & State of the Council by Chairman Serge Tomassian. There will also be a special meeting of the Board of Trustees to fill vacancies in the Board membership.

Special Guest – Congressman Ed Royce

TO RSVP YOU MUST BE A WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL OF ORANGE COUNTY (WACOC) TRUSTEE

To reserve your ticket please call 949-253-5751 or e-mail at orangecounty@worldaffairscouncil.org

Please RSVP by Friday April 28th, 2017

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Lecture Style Event – NOT A DINNER EVENT

Wednesday May 3rd, 2017

“The Crisis in Syria – What Are the Causes? What Are the Options?”

Special insight from the

Former US Ambassador to Syria (2011-2014)

Former US Ambassador to Algeria (2006-2008)

Ambassador Robert S. Ford

Ambassador Robert S. Ford spent 4.5 years working for the US Mission in Iraq and another 3 years working on Syrian issues, including as the US Ambassador. As a former US ambassador to Syria he has special insight into the causes and complexities of the bloody Syrian civil war, which tragically has caused the death of nearly ½ million people and refugees that number in the millions.  Ambassador Ford will address the factors that caused the unrest in both Iraq and Syria and spawned the Syrian civil war and which allowed the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), now straddling across the two countries’ borders. The Ambassador will also asses current US and international efforts to contain the conflicts and opine on the signs that may predict the next steps of the US administration in this volatile region.

AMB. Ford completed a 30-year career with the Peace Corps and the U.S. Department of State in April 2014 and now is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, where he writes and speaks about Syria, Iraq and North Africa. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Syria 2011-2014, receiving wide recognition for his work defending Syrians’ human rights. He received the annual Profile in Courage award in 2012 from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston for his human rights work and a Presidential Honor award in 2012 for his stewardship of the American Embassy in Damascus during a crisis period. AMB. Ford was the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria 2006-2008, boosting bilateral cooperation in education and the rule of law. He also served five years in Iraq helping the Iraqis establish their permanent government through three rounds of elections and preparation of a new constitution. He received from Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2014, the Distinguished Service award, the State Department’s highest award. The Ambassador has appeared on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Fox, NPR, the BBC, Arabic networks speaking in Arabic as well as in numerous print media, including The New York Times. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and is a devoted fan of the Baltimore Orioles.

REGISTER HERE!

 Location: Hotel Irvine (17900 Jamboree Road, Irvine, CA 92614)

Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

$10 Students/ $20 Members/ $30 Non-Members/ $45 Limited Reserved seating for the first 5 rows

$8 Self-Parking / $10 Valet

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 Dinner

{Thursday April 20th, 2017}

“How Will ISIS End?”

with

 Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer

Professor of Sociology, Global Studies & Religious Studies, Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair of Global and Sikh Studies & Fellow of the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at University of Santa Barbara

 Founding Director of the Global & International Studies Program & the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at UCSB

Past President of the American Academy of Religion

In 2014, ISIS brutally controlled over 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq, from the Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad. Its genocidal campaign went unchecked and contributed to the immigration havoc unseen in recent history. Now as the US and allied forces engage in fierce battles to recapture the two remaining ISIS strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa, the difficult question becomes, how will ISIS End?  And what will come in its place?

Dr. Juergensmeyer, an expert on ISIS and its malignant doctrines, will attempt to answer these questions by exploring three different movements within ISIS aligned in an uneasy coalition, each with its own violent agenda and its own possibilities for long-term continuity even after the fall of ISIS’ territorial claims.  He’ll look at how ISIS is simultaneously a purported movement for Sunni Muslim empowerment, an apocalyptic cult, and a global cyber community of young activists.  Drawing from his recent visits to Iraq and from detailed monitoring of jihadi internet postings, Dr. Juergensmeyer will discuss how each of these movements have different trajectories and in their own way may be around in one form or another long after the roads from Baghdad to Mosul and from Damascus to Raqqa have been secured and freed from ISIS’ control.

Location: Westin Hotel (South Coast Plaza, 686 Anton Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA 92626)

Time: 5:30 PM Registration/Reception

6:30 PM Dinner/ Speaker Event

$70 Members / $55 Students/ $80 Non-Members

REGISTER HERE!

The World Affairs Council of Orange County

&

The Richard Nixon Foundation

REGISTER NOW!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28th, 2017

 “Assessment of President Trump’s Emerging “America First” Foreign & Economic Policies”

Dinner with General (Ret.) David H. Petraeus

Venue: The Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum

Member $150

Non-Member $175

For Sponsorship Level seating please contact our office at (949)-253-5751 or e-mail us at orangecounty@worldaffairscouncil.org

REGISTER HERE!

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Luncheon

{Friday, March 31st, 2017}

                       “Playing In The Edge: American Intelligence In The Age of Terror”

with

 General Michael Hayden

                                                                           United States Air Force General, ret.
              Former Director of National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

 Book Signing

Our Council is pleased to announce its very special guest speaker this month, Gen. Michael Hayden, retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Hayden also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy. Under President George W. Bush, his tenure as Director of the NSA and CIA involved sweeping changes and modernization to our Nation’s intelligence gathering methods and organizations. In the face of terrorist threats while addressing domestic critics on privacy & civil rights, he navigated a precarious path during a critical time of this nation’s security history. His involvement at the highest levels of our country’s security and his personal account of those years including where we stand today with our nation’s “state of intelligence”  in view of the ongoing terrorist threats, will be the subject of his speech and in more depth his recommended book.

General Michael Hayden’s book, Playing to the Edge, was published on February 27th, 2017.

PLAYING TO THE EDGE chronicles Hayden’s tenure (1999-2009) when American intelligence had to respond to terrorism, a major war, and the most sweeping technological revolution in the last five hundred years. For ten years, he participate in every major event in American national security, the fallout and consequences of which are still unfolding today.

       Location: Westin Hotel (South Coast Plaza, 686 Anton Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA 92626)

Time: 11:30 AM Registration

REGISTER HERE!

If you would like to purchase a table, please call our office at (949)253-5751

Save the Date

{ Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 }

“The Russian Threat to the US and the Democracies Around the World”

Congressman Adam Schiff represents California’s 28th Congressional District, and throughout his tenure in Congress, he has focused on growing the economy, bolstering national security, strengthening our communities, helping small businesses and improving education, safety and healthcare for our children. In his eighth term in the House of Representatives, Schiff currently serves as the Ranking Member, or top Democrat, of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which oversees all of the nation’s intelligence agencies) and as a Member of the Benghazi Select Committee.

Before he was elected to Congress, Schiff served as State Senator for California’s 21st State Senate District, chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Juvenile Justice and the Joint Committee on the Arts. He also worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles for six years, most notably prosecuting the first FBI agent ever to be indicted for espionage.

Building Our Global Community

SAVE THE DATE

{Wednesday, March 1st, 2017}

“Where Obama Was & Where Trump Is Going in the Middle East, with Russia, Iran & Syria”

with

Michael Doran

Senior Director for the National Security Council under President George W. Bush

                                   Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute

Location: The Westin Hotel South Coast Plaza

(South Coast Plaza, 686 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626)

Time: 5:45 PM Registration/Reception

REGISTER NOW!