2005 18
Pictures from the Conference
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Here are some pictures from the conference that give a sense of the gathering.
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2005 18
Clinton
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2005 18
Kofi Annan at CGI
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Last night a resolution to reform the UN was passed. Key issues are: Human Rights, Responsibility to protect and Intervention. Rwanda was used as a prime example. Annan expressed great pleasure in the passing of the reformation. He also received much praise from Clinton, which he reciprocated on the organizing of the Clinton Global Initiative. Challenges require collective action. You cannot have development without security and you cannot have security without development… and you can´t have either without respect for human rights.
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2005 16
Clinton on Being Out of Office
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The great thing about being out of office is that you can speak your mind, the bad thing is that nobody cares!
Shimon Peres started the session by saying that even though President Clinton had worked hard at bringing solutions to the Middle East conflict, unfortunately “we were more successful at bringing problems.” Another phrase of his was, quoting Ghandi, “When a cat is chasing a mouse there´s no sense if the mouse declares a ceasefire.” This he said to Nasser to ask the Palestinian Authority to stop Hamas, the cat in this picture. “Time has come to privatize peace” he also added in the sense that civil society has to play a huge role demanding peace.
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2005 16
Clinton Global Initiative
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I am attending the Clinton Global Initiative. It was this year in January, at Davos, that President Clinton announced that he liked Davos, so much so that he was going to start his own. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum laughed nervously. It took a lot of guts to announce the conference that was going to be the most important Davos competitor…at Davos. But that´s Clinton. He saw a political void. He occupied it. There´s already a novelty here that I like. To attend this conference everyone has to write a pledge to help with money, effort or a combination in one of the four areas: fight against poverty, better governance, combat climate change, or conflict resolution. As Dennis Ross said “the Clinton Global Initiative is geared to problem solving”. Solving may be too ambitious, but alleviation is certainly achievable.