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I agree and with the leaders of some of the Brics passing on UN
General Assembly for G-20 it will likely require greater and deeper
reach into the intelligence products. I think the test of Australia is
excellent since the Prime Minister sent her Forign Minister to address
the UNGA - in this cse it is a former PM but it does show some of G-20
members are passing o UN.

Cameron, Lula Absence Shows UN Losing Ground to G-20 Summits
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By Peter S. Green


Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders are cutting back their visits to
the United Nations General Assembly session this week as they find the
Group of 20 and other smaller gatherings more effective venues to
debate international problems.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Brazilian President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva, whose countries both sit on the UN Security
Council, won’t be in New York. Nor will Russian President Dmitry
Medvedevand Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Chinese President Hu Jintao
is skipping the UN week, handing off the duty to PremierWen Jiabao.

“The UN is where you give a speech but there’s no group meeting,” said
Jeffrey Shafer, who organized Group of Eight meetings as President
Bill Clinton’s “sherpa” or personal representative to the gatherings.
“The G-20 will have a more focused agenda than the UN, and it shows
the primacy of the economic agenda.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a one-day appearance in New York
yesterday to speak to a session on fighting developing-nation poverty.
Like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is staying for two days,
Sarkozy will leave before the major speeches start Sept. 23 from the
podium of the General Assembly hall.

“It’s the 80-20 rule,” said Michael Hodin, an adjunct senior fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. More issues are being
decided at smaller groups, including the Group of 20, which holds its
next meeting in Seoul in November, Hodin said.

“If you’re dealing with something in the G-20, you’re already dealing
with the 80 percent of world leaders who can make a difference,” he
said.

Corridors, Hotels

Since the UN was founded in the aftermath of World War II, the annual
opening of the General Assembly has been a place for leaders to meet,
often informally in the UN’s corridors or the conference rooms of
Manhattan luxury hotels, away from the media attention and political
expectations that accompany state visits and formal encounters.

Last year’s G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, held immediately after the main
General Assembly session in New York, let leaders get two meetings out
of a single trip. And a major issue on the UN agenda got an airing
there, too.

In a joint appearance in Pittsburgh, Obama, Sarkozy and then-U.K.
Prime MinisterGordon Brown announced that Iran had been secretly
building an underground nuclear fuel plant in violation of
international rules.

Doubts About UN

The failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to produce a
comprehensive treaty to combat global warming showed many leaders the
world body’s inability to move swiftly, said Daniel Price, a sherpa to
President George W. Bush for G-8 and G-20 summits.

Add to that the crowded slate of summit meetings to attend and it is
understandable that high-level participation at the UN meeting is
waning, said Price, now a partner at law firm Sidley Austin in
Washington.

“There’s a measure of leader fatigue setting in,” he said. “When it
comes to solving specific, identifiable problems, leaders are finding
smaller groupings are more effective.”

Sarkozy, whose country has the G-20 chairmanship next year, has called
the UN anachronistic. “We can’t confront the 21st century with the
institutions of the 20th century,” he said in May.

Domestic Agendas

Domestic priorities also are playing a role this year, say several
governments. Merkel will return to Germany from New York to pursue
health-care policy at her weekly Cabinet meeting. The day the general
debate opens at the UN, she will speak at the opening of a new
pharmaceutical research center.

The U.K.’s Cameron, whose wife had a baby in mid-September, is sending
his junior coalition partner, deputy Prime Minister and Liberal
Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Brazil’s Lula is staying home to campaign on behalf of his handpicked
successor,Dilma Rousseff, before Oct. 3 presidential elections.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hasn’t confirmed whether he will
attend and miss the final days of campaigning before Sept. 26
legislative elections.

South African President Jacob Zuma will stay home for a ruling party
conference at which he is battling criticism about economic policies.
He will participate in the UN gathering via video conference and co-
chair a session on climate change.

President Barack Obama, who has the shortest travel time of all
leaders, will stay for three days, addressing both the UN’s Millennium
Development Goalssummit and the opening of the General Assembly. He
will also meet with Southeast Asian leaders and hold a summit on Sudan.

China Talks

Obama will take advantage of his visit to confer with China’s Wen on
topics including Hu’s planned January visit to Washington.

The U.S.-China relationship requires a lot of maintenance, resembling
couples therapy for a fraught marriage, and the UN meeting provides an
ideal venue for handholding, said Orville Schell, director of the
Center for U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The dearth of world leaders at this year’s UN session may not be
surprising, said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow with the Washington-
based Brookings Institutionpolicy organization.

“They probably made a mistake to schedule the development summit and
the general debate back to back, because not a lot of world leaders
have six days to spend in New York,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in New York atpsgreen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 21, 2010 00:01 EDT
On Sep 21, 2010, at 8:03 AM, Neil Callahan wrote:

> The BRIC concept has been around for 10 years, but I think we are at
> the mainstream tipping point which could put deeper market
> intelligence products and services in high demand.
>
> Brazil-India-China
>
>
> --
> Neil Callahan
> Rosemont Seneca Partners
> 917-945-9516
>