Just give Gorby Charley Weaver's old space and be done with it.
Posted on 07/13/2006 10:20:55 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
THE nation's (Australia) two main political leaders have snubbed a top international security, energy and environment summit headed by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mr Gorbachev will co-chair the Earth Dialogues conference in Brisbane next week.
But Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley had both declined invitations from conference organisers to attend, a spokeswoman for Earth Dialogues said today.
World experts in energy, security, climate change, water resource management and sustainable development will attend Earth Dialogues, which runs July 22-24 and is part of this year's Brisbane Festival.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie will co-chair the summit with Mr Gorbachev. They and the city's Liberal Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, will hold a news conference in Brisbane next Friday.
Mr Beazley is unable to attend but will send his environment spokesman Anthony Albanese.
Conference organisers had two overtures to Mr Howard turned down and they have been unable to attract any other federal government ministers.
The most recent invitation to Mr Howard was on June 8 after he announced the setting up of a uranium mining processing and nuclear energy review task force.
Parliamentary secretary to the PM Malcolm Turnbull has also declined personal overtures from Earth Dialogues organisers while other knockbacks have come from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Trade Minister Mark Vaile, Education Minister Julie Bishop and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.
The conference has an impressive line up of Australian and international speakers with four Nobel Laureates, including Mr Gorbachev, involved.
Other Nobel laureates coming to Brisbane include Irish peace activist Betty Williams, Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi and Argentinian activist Aldolfo Perez Esquivel.
Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson is one of the keynote Australian speakers.
Mr Beattie is "disappointed" the Commonwealth will be "under-represented" at the conference to be held at Brisbane's City Hall.
Mr Gorbachev, now 75 and the chairman of environmental lobby group Green Cross International, last visited Australia in 1999.
The Soviet president from 1985-91 is renowned for his contribution to the demise of communism in the USSR through his reforms glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring).
His role in ending the Cold War resulted in him being awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize.
BTW, there was one man who ended the Cold War and that was The Great Ronald Reagan!
LMAO! Tomato Gorby.
What a coincidence.
Wise of them not to attend. There might be some interesting aspects to the gathering but on the face of it, it looks like it's being taken over by the usual crew of leftist, new age, jet-setting moonbats.
When the best you can show for all your efforts is a couple Queenies and the president of a state that's been dead for ten+ years, you probably ought to get out of the granola organizing business.
Just give Gorby Charley Weaver's old space and be done with it.
<< Gorby comes DownUnder to discover he's nowhere near as important as he thinks he is. LOVE IT!!!!
BTW, there was one man who ended the Cold War and that was The Great Ronald Reagan! >>
Aussies are the best, Dasher!
That failed dictator, Gormless Gorby, who, even when commanding the world's second-biggest nuclear arsenal, couldn't frighten a single Soviet slave, now-days couldn't run a Brizzie smoko truck, clean John Howard's shoes -- or Malcolm Turbull's republican clock.
And, to be fair, America's greatest twentieth century president, Ronald Reagan, did organize a little help from his friends, Pope John-Paul II and Lech Walesia -- and use it in levelling liberalism's favorite wall.
Nobel Laureates IIRC should be spelled c-o-m-m-i-e a-h-o-s. You nailed it q_an_a.
Thanks, AD. This is wonderful news and makes me admire our Aussie friends even more than I already did. Goes to eleven now (out of ten).
If Gorby had his way, everyone would be living in cardboard shacks with a 15 watt bulb for heat and waiting in line all day for a roll of toilet paper.
We need to open up the Presidio to hunt commies.
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