New York City, August 21, 2005

This past week the UN corridors were quite empty. The Secretary General is away until September 6, and most journalists do not bother coming to the only daily (noon) press conference that was shortened to ten minutes. The press accreditation office was removed from its location, that was taken over by the office of the protocol. The NGO accreditation was put in limbo and the press accreditation in a tent at the northern outskirts - in the distance of Siberia. This Friday, because of a rainy day, one had to wade through water at boots high deep. All this because in September there is expected the high level meeting to commemorate UN’s 60’s birthday, the effort to push to the forefront the Millennium Development Goals, the Reform of the UN, the need for Human Rights - you name it and its on the menu.

7-9 September there is the 58-th Annual DPI/NGO Conference - this year appropriately titled: “Our Challenge: Voices for Peace, Partnerships and Renewal”;

14-16 September - the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly with 197 inscriptions (that is 190 member states plus the host country for the total of 191 as the number of members of the UN (the US did not participate in the lottery that assigned the speaking order as the host state has the prerogative to lead the event), the Holy See, Palestine, and five observer organizations - the League of Arab states, the African Union, the European Community, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Organization of Islamic Conference. At the event, according to Protocol, at the head of the known 190 states’ delegations will be 122 Heads of State, 55 Heads of Government, 2 Vice Presidents, 2 Deputy Prime Ministers/Foreign Ministers, 9 Foreign Ministers. The US, as it did not have to participate at the lottery organized by Protocol, did also not have to declare the level of its representation, but one could safely assume that President Bush will have to contemplate sitting in and speaking at the opening on September 14 when the speaker lineup starts with the Heads of state for Rwanda and Madagascar, followed by the Head of state for the Islamic Republic of Iran, whom President Bush said he will not forbid from coming to the UN.

17-23 September and 26-28 September there will be the general debate of the General Assembly. Here the first speaker, by tradition since the first meeting in 1045 in San Francisco, will be Brazil followed by the United States; again, both do not have to be represented by the Head of State. Then will follow the Heads of state Nigeria, Panama and Ghana.

Also, the final Volcker report will give the UN its certificate that will probably contain failing grades suggesting once more the need for change. The problem, there are many interests here that like the “is”.

All of the above will not lead to great results in the 3-5 minutes the speakers will have for their presentations, and the social events will be where the action is. In anticipation, the UN people are spending now the time traveling to capitals, beaches, and mountains. Eventually it builds up to a lot of smoke, but I am yet to believe in the possibility that there will emerge visibility and vision.

At midweek it seemed that the hassle may really not be worthwhile, and extension of beach or mountain time advisable.

At weekend things seemed much brighter for September thanks to an effort published in a full page announcement in the August 20/August 21, 2005 Financial Times of London - a page I have not seen yet on this side of the Atlantic. Seemingly the two greatest politicians of troubled times - Former President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair, decided to put some meat on the bare bones of UN Secretary’s Kofi Annan’s effort to redirect world’s attention from the UN failures to the UN promise.

THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE, a nonpartisan project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, underwritten in major part by McCain Republican Tom Golisano - see www.clintonglobalinitiative.org - has called for a three days meeting in New YorkSeptember 15-17, 2005 to be held at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers on Sixth Avenue.

The page says: WE’LL TACKLE POVERTY. CLIMATE CHANGE, RELIGIOUS CONFLICT AND GOVERNANCE; AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST SESSION.

The page has eight portraits of organizers: besides, Clinton, Blair, Annan, also Sonia Gandhi of India, Shimon Peres of Israel and King Abdullah II of Jordan, and two further Heads of state from developing countries.

The “non-pictured” participants include a powerful list of wise money and idea men, besides Mr. Golisano who neatly put his own name at the end. These are: Charles O. Hoiliday Jr, CEO DuPont; Jeffrey Immelt, CEO General Electric; Rupert Murdoch, CEO News Corporation; Richard Parsons, Chairman & CEO Time Warner; Henry Paulson Jr, Chairman & CEO Goldman Sachs; Robert Rubin, Director and Chairman Citigroup; George Soros, Chairman Soros Fund Management; Howard Stringer, Chairman & CEO Sony Corporation of America; Vinod Khosla, Founding CEO Sun Microsystems; Ted Turner, Chairman UN Foundation; HH Mohammed Al Gergawi, CEO Dubai Holdings; Jim Donald CEO Starbucks.

Also included idea people: Dr. Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director Grammeen Bank; and government people - Dr. Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, an academic; Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey.

These people, and possibly others from business, government academia and NGOs, will meet for three days IN PARALLEL WITH THE HIGH LEVEL UN MEETING. In effect they will start the second day of the UN meeting and overlap the September 15 - September 16 days of the UN high level meetings and the opening day of the general debate of the General Assembly. In effect, in this real world, with people that can do - the attempt to jump start the UN shows also demonstratively the weakness of the UN. While some of the world’s tin-pot dictators will use their allowed minutes to rave against demons, Mr. Clinton, and his crowd, will try to inject ideas of what can be done. The list of his participants includes the likes of Soros and Turner, who have done for people much more then what the governments in those countries were ready to do for their own people. All what I could think of when I saw that page was - why not suggest Bill Clinton for next UN Secretary General when Mr. Annan’s time comes to an end?

I opened the web-site www.clintonglobalinitiative.org and learned that the New York Magazine of tomorrow - 08/22/2005 will deal with the Clinton Initiative. The title of the article by Jennifer Senior: “BILL CLINTON’S PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION”. the September 15 meeting at the Sheraton is the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative intended to develop an agenda for action that all participants can help implement during the coming year. Senior thinks that this will also be “A Third Inauguration” for President Clinton. Perhaps indeed he will be able to help do on a global level what he was not allowed to do for the US. Personally I am full with anticipation to see how far he and Tony Blair will be able to push the climate change issue which, correctly, they introduce as: CLIMATE CHANGE BUSINESS - CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY. This is the third point in a four point agenda that also includes: (1) The Escape From Poverty; (2) Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation; and (4) Enhancing Governance.

That is now the September New York challenge - who will come up with a program - Bill Clinton or the UN 198 ? Will the Press in New York avail itself from this great opportunity to compare between the two events, report proceedings, look for ideas, and dare to make recommendations?