The Cherry Orchard

The 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly has begun, and today will bring speeches from an awe-inspiring series of world leaders (I use the term “awe” mostly in its sense as the root of “awful”, not to mention “shock and awe”, a sensation many Earthlings are currently familiar with).

Here are some of the names that will be stepping up to that big open mic today: Kofi Annan and Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of the United Nations, Luiz Da Silva of Brazil, George Bush of USA, Thabo Mkebi of South Africa, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Jacques Chirac of France, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo, Vicente Fox of Mexico, King Hussein of Jordan, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Evo Morales Aima of Bolivia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Kjell Magne Bondevik of Norway and Ivo Sanader or Croatia.

What will they all say? Supposedly this page at UN.org will have audio and video, and I hope to report more on the outcome as soon as the podcasts arrive. Will it all amount to no more than a choreographed assault of hypocrisy by an assemblage of professional liars? That’s how some would describe the UN’s general assembly, and they may have a point. Let’s actually watch this year, and find out for ourselves.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 6:29 am and is filed under United Nations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.