Richard Quest Quotes
Every year, the World Economic Forum decides on a theme for its meeting of the world's elite in Davos, Switzerland. Usually, it's highfalutin nonsense that no one understands and everyone ignores.
Quest, Richard. "Davos Diary." CNN, Cable News Network, Jan. 2014.
At the time the Permanent China Seat in the United Nations was held by Chang Kai Chek and his nationalist forces who had abandoned the Chinese Mainland and were holding out on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). The Chinese Communists who represented 800 million Chinese wanted the China Seat. Most of the world saw the solution as recognizing the two de facto Chinas and having them both in the U. N. The Communists insisted that there was only one China and they were the legitimate representatives. The Nationalists, ironically took the same one China position, deluding themselves into thinking that they would get control of the Mainland. They put pressure on the U. S. and we adopted the “One China” policy which was adopted by most of the world. Soon it became evident that Taiwan was a small island of people who represented no one else in China, and the single Chinese seat went to the Communists. Later, many in Taiwan regretted the one China policy and would have loved to be recognized as an independent country.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), an organization supposedly devoted to financing poverty elimination had supported the building of a luxury 5-Star hotels in Ghana, Egypt and several other poor nations. The construction creates jobs as does the operation of the hotel, but critics complain that the impact on poverty is small compared to the size of the investment. The fancy hotels are too expensive for the local small businessmen and women to use in their commercial development. The elites and the AID givers and NGOs of course have better—and more expensive—accommodations.
At the time English democracy was still suspect especially among the aristocracy.
He was responding to the United Nations Security Counsil resolution calling on Israel to stop the building of settlemetns in the "occupied" territories. Normally such resolutions such as these were vetoed bu the United States, but this time it was not and Secretary of State John Kerry made a major speech urging the Israels not to keep building settlements which in his view inflamed the Palestinians and made the prospects for a peace less likely. The Israelis argued that the particualar areas--Jerusalem, Judea and Summaria were consecrated by God for the Jewish people who have inhabited the area for over 3000 years, and while they do not insist on sovreignty over the Judea and Summaria, from which Jews had been ethnically cleased, they do demand that the Jewish People who want to should be allowed to fulfill God's mandate and settle in their traditional territories. The traditional view of the United States on the settlement issue is that what God had done thousands of years cannot be allowed to override the obligagtion of israel and teh Palestinians to negotate the status of the territories that became an obligation when the Oslo Accords were signed in the recent past. Trump was very sympathetic to the Israeli position and was one of the many Americans who ha little or no respect for the United Nations.
Describing the annual conference in Davos, Switzerland where the very wealthy of the world gather and discuss mutual concerns.
Richard Austin Quest is a British journalist and non-practicing barrister working as a news anchor for CNN International. He is also an editor-at-large of CNN Business.
