Clinton to be U.N.’s envoy on tsunami relief
Annan picks former president to keep Asian disaster in spotlight
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UN tsunami envoy Bill Clinton to ensure pledges are
paid up, money wisely spent
 |
Former US President Clinton and Kofi
Annan
|
13 April 2005 – Declaring that "no one could possibly be
better qualified," Secretary-General Kofi Annan today formally introduced
former United States President Bill Clinton as his special envoy to head United
Nations operations spurring recovery in the dozen Indian
Ocean countries devastated by December's tsunami.
Among Mr. Clinton's tasks will be to
ensure that donors not only pledge but disburse the money needed for recovery
and reconstruction, and that it actually reaches the communities who need it
most, as well as mobilizing support for a regional early-warning system and
disaster mitigation mechanisms.
"It's vitally important that we
have someone capable of sustaining international interest in the fate of the
survivors and their communities – and someone with vision and commitment to
ensure that this time the international community really does follow through
and support the transition from immediate relief to longer-term recovery and
reconstruction," Mr. Annan told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
"Too often, in the aftermath of
previous natural disasters, that has not been the case," he said of the
"truly amazing" international response in which billions of dollars
have been pledged to the UN and other organizations for relief and recovery
after the tsunami killed more than 200,000 people and left up to
5 million more in need of basic services, many of them deprived of their very
livelihood.
The giant waves destroyed whole
towns, thousand of houses and fishing boats, and coastal infrastructure and
factories.
Mr. Annan originally announced in
February his intention to appoint Mr. Clinton as his Special Envoy for Tsunami
Recovery but the formal introduction was delayed first by the former
president's initial mission to the devastated area on behalf of US President
George W. Bush and then by his surgery to remove scar tissue after a heart
operation.
Today Mr. Clinton praised UN
officials for their "terrific job" in emergency relief and recovery
so far and said the mission, if done right, could serve as a template for other
humanitarian disasters, such as in Sudan's
Darfur region, where millions faces hunger and disease after being uprooted by
fighting, and in Somalia.
"As we move from relief into
recovery and reconstruction, the most difficult period is upon us," he
declared, citing the need to rebuild homes, restore jobs, replace fishing
boats, reconstruct sanitation facilities and rehabilitate roads. "My job
is to ensure first of all that the money which has been committed by the donor
countries be invested, [and] that we assure the donors that it is spent
effectively, responsibly and in a transparent manner."
But it is also necessary to
coordinate the work of the UN, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
to rebuild the areas better than before, with improved housing, schools,
sanitation and a more diversified economy, and to establish a list of
"best practices" for early-warning systems and disaster mitigation,
he added.
"Now, if we do all these things,
then we will have a model which not only the United Nations, but the NGO
community and the world can use in future crises," he said, stressing that
he would make sure the finances that have been promised are provided and that
the money is "well spent and accountably spent."
"If we can do a good job here,
if we do our job, if we can report back to not only the big donors and the
governments, but the NGOs and individual donors, if we can be accountable, if
we can be transparent and if we can be effective, I hope that then the
Secretary-General will be able to issue a call, if we ever get an ultimate
resolution of what should be done in Darfur, for example, and in Somalia, for
people to help there, and then we'll know what we're worth because we'll have a
model here," he added.
***
UN tsunami recovery envoy Bill Clinton urges
protection of marginalized communities
 |
Special Envoy
Bill Clinton
|
27 October 2005 – The United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami
Recovery, former United States President Bill Clinton, today held a series of
meetings in New York to underscore the
importance of restoring livelihoods and protecting marginalized communities in
countries devastated in the Indian Ocean
region last December.
He met with senior representatives
of the UN, World Bank, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector
companies in an effort to tackle the challenges facing the tsunami-affected
countries, UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Among those with whom Mr. Clinton
discussed problems and solutions were the UN's Special Representative on the
Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Walter Kalin.
The UN Resident Coordinator for Indonesia, Bo Asplund, briefed President Clinton
on the conditions endured by the hundreds of thousands of displaced people
living in temporary shelters in Aceh,
Indonesia, Mr.
Dujarric said.
***
1. February, 2005
Clinton made UN's tsunami envoy
 |
|||
Former US President Bill Clinton has been chosen to
be the UN's special envoy for tsunami relief in Asia.
Secretary General Kofi Annan selected him because of
the "energy, dynamism and focus" he would bring to the job, a UN
spokesman said.
Mr Annan wanted someone who could address conflicts
in the tsunami zone, as well as the aid effort, he added.
Mr Clinton has already been asked by US President
Bush to lead efforts to raise relief donations from Americans.
He and Mr Bush's father, former President George
Bush senior, have been travelling the US to raise private funds.
Mr Clinton said he would continue his work with Mr
Bush "to urge people to contribute to this cause, and the two of us hope
to visit the region together later this month".
'Sustaining interest'
After that trip, the secretary general and Mr
Clinton are expected to make a formal announcement about his appointment as
special envoy.
The tsunami death toll continues to rise, with more
than 200,000 people now thought to have died, the UN says.
"The secretary general is confident that
President Clinton will bring energy, dynamism and focus to the task of
sustaining world interest in the vital recovery and reconstruction phase
following the tsunami disaster," Mr Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said
in a statement.
"He believes that no-one could possibly be
better qualified for this task."
Mr Eckhard told the Associated Press that Mr Annan
wants to appoint a special envoy not only to focus on the clean-up and
reconstruction, but to try to push for the resolution of conflicts in the two
worst-hit countries, Indonesia
and Sri Lanka.
|
|||
*********
Source: UN
News Service
Date: 12 Apr 2006
Date: 12 Apr 2006
UN
tsunami envoy Bill Clinton launches major review of key challenges
Former United States President Bill Clinton continued his advocacy as United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery today by launching a six-month intensive examination of key challenges facing groups working in the area affected by the disaster, which sparked unprecedented financial contributions for relief efforts.
“I am very grateful for
the willingness of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to undertake this
review,” he told InterAction, a coalition of 160 US-based NGOs at its annual
Forum in Washington, DC. “It demonstrates the commitment of your
community to effective relief and development aid, and to the highest standards
of professionalism.”
Among the areas to be
addressed by the review are accountability, capacity-building, professionalism,
coordination, and human rights as they relate to the relief effort, which is
benefiting from the largest-ever mobilization of funds for an emergency and
reconstruction effort.
“The size of the
challenge and the unprecedented resources at our disposal have raised the
stakes,” said President Clinton. "Now more than ever, we need to do things
right; we need to spend money wisely.”
In another development
today, Secretary-General Kofi Annan lauded President Clinton for being awarded
the Fulbright Prize for International Understanding. In a video message to the
ceremony, Mr. Annan praised the US
leader’s contributions for peace, development, human rights and other global
goals.
Mr. Annan cited in
particular the former president’s work as the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami
Recovery, saying he had worked to “build back better” than what was there
before. “In this way, you have given practical meaning to your passion for
development, and helped improve millions of lives,” the Secretary-General said.
With
the exception of public UN sources, reproduction or redistribution of the above
text, in whole, part or in any form, requires the prior consent of the original
source.
Related Documents:
Latest Emergency Updates: South Asia: Earthquake and Tsunami - Dec 2004
Latest By Country: Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Thailand; India
Other ReliefWeb documents by: UN News Service
Source URL: http://www.un.org/News/
Related Documents:
Latest Emergency Updates: South Asia: Earthquake and Tsunami - Dec 2004
Latest By Country: Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Thailand; India
Other ReliefWeb documents by: UN News Service
Source URL: http://www.un.org/News/
*********
1
UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery
President Bill Clinton
Transcript of Remarks to the Third
International Conference on Early
Warning
27 March, 2006
Bonn, Germany
Thank
you very much and good afternoon. Minister Erler, thank you for your remarks
and your introduction. Moderator Kausch, my friend Jan Egeland, Ladies and
Gentlemen, thank you for coming here today. I hank the German government and
the United Nations for the opportunityto
address this group in my capacity as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for
Tsunami Recovery.
I
do this with some humility. I am well aware that in conferences like this, the
usual practice is to ask the politicians who know nothing to address the
experts who already know everything, so that the cameras will cover your
meeting and hopefully the recommendations which will come out of it. However, I
hope that the last couple of years I have spent working on tsunami recovery as
well as the work I did as President and before that for a decade as the
Governor of my home state in dealing with natural disasters, the problems and
challenges of early warning may give me something
to offer this meeting.
The
Indian Ocean tsunami, as you all know, killed an estimated 230,000 people on
December 26, 2004. It was the loudest wake-up call of many about the need to
reduce risk and improve management of natural hazards. Alongside the ongoing
efforts to rebuild and recover from the last tsunami, the houses, the schools,
the health clinics, the livelihoods, the UN Mission has been to build back
better, to ensure that these recovery efforts do not simply restore communities
to their pre-tsunami vulnerability, but instead leave the survivors of the
disaster safer than before, including with effective early warning systems. We
owe it to them and the memories of their loved ones to deliver on that promise.
Of
course, we gather here because making communities safer is a global priority
that goes far beyond the tsunami's reach. From Sri Lanka to Haiti, to Turkey,
to recent events in Mississippi and Louisiana in the United States, we have
seen years of development wiped out in a matter ofmoments
or days. These have taken a heavy social and economic toll and will continue to
do so.
The
total number of people affected each year by natural disasters vastly increased
in the last decade. In the 1980s, an average of 147 million were affected by
disasters and in the 1990s, 211 million. Last year, there were more: 97,000
people lost their lives in nearly 150 disasters, the largest number of deaths
of course coming in Kashmir. In 1998, disasters caused 65.5 billion dollars in economic
losses worldwide. In 2004, because of the tsunami, hurricane Ivan and other
disasters, losses
were about 120 billion. In 2005, losses were 220 billion. People in the
insurance industry tell me that aggregate losses in the last ten years were
three times greater than in any previous decade on record. From Aceh to New
Orleans to Kashmir, unfortunately, the main victims of disasters don't have
insurance. They are the poor and the vulnerable and
often those with the least political influence to get the changes needed that
guarantee them and their families a decent life. Why are there more disasters
with greater economic and social cost? I think part of the aggregate cost is
simply a function of growing population. We now have 6.5 billion people in the
world. We are likely to have 9 billion by 2050. Almost without exception, the
population growth is occurring in the poorest countries where they will be
least able to do what you are here recommending that we all do. In other words,
almost all the people who will be most vulnerable to disasters are also most
vulnerable to the hazards of daily life, with the least amount of political
influence. So we will
have to work very hard as a group to do whatever is recommended and I hope we
will never forget that. The rich countries will pay sooner or later if we let
the disasters occur, will just wind
2
up
spending more money. But we have a very bad habit of ignoring the problems of
our poorer brothers and sisters until they are too grave, too painful and,
alas, too expensive to ignore. In recent years, we have added about 76 million
people to the planet annually, with higher fertility rates,
lower infant mortality rates and longer life expectancy.
The
second major factor is rapid urbanization, more people living in concentrated
areas. More often than not, driven by poverty, these populations mostly settle
into the more hazard-prone areas: flood planes, coastal areas, unstable hillside
slopes or near active volcanoes.
Third,
their and our economic activities take a toll on natural defenses against
hazards. Witness the lesser impact of the tsunami in places where the coral
reefs or the mangrove trees remain intact. The recent landslides in the
Philippines occurred often on totally deforested slopes. Sustainable development,
therefore, is imperative for human and economic as well as environmental reasons.
Fourth,
our economic behavior is plainly affecting the climate. Nearly 90 percent of
all natural hazards are climate or weather-related. And these extreme weather
events are increasing in their number and intensity. Last year was a record
hurricane season, reflected in part where the hurricanes so severely battered
the Gulf Coast or the United States, Katrina and Rita. There is a whole new
spate of books out just in the last few weeks and a number of new studies which
vary in their particular predictions, but the trend they articulate is clear:
The planet is warming faster than most experts thought even as recently as two
years ago. The ice is melting more quickly, not simply on the North Pole and
the South Pole, but – particularly troubling for those of us in the northern
half of the planet – on Greenland. If the North Pole melts in the summer time,
it could have a sea route across the north and it won't lift the sea level. But
if the Greenland icecap melts in total, it could raise the level of the North
Atlantic by about 40 feet.
And
at predicted levels, it's going to raise the level of the North Atlantic enough
to cause calamitous damage some time in the next 30 to 40 years. Just a few
days ago, there was an article warning of water refugees all over Africa
because of global warming. Already over a billion people have no access to
clean water. A few months ago, there was an article pointing out that,
perversely, global warming would lead to very, very bitter winters, almost
dangerously bitter winters in the North Atlantic, in the United Kingdom,
particularly in the northern parts of Scotland and Ireland, and in some parts
of Norway. Why? Because, as you put more fresh water into the Atlantic in the
north from the melting of the Greenland icecap, it will interrupt the flow of
tides in the oceans which moderate the impact of winters in the North Atlantic.
We know that continued climate change will force almost all agricultural
production north if you are in the northern hemisphere, or south if you are in
the southern hemisphere which could create tens of millions of food refugees in
the next few decades. Finally, it is nearly a certainty that by 2050, unless we
do something to reverse this trend, we will have the loss of many, many cities along
the coastal planes and whole island nations. Indeed, I often think about one of
the nations that I have worked hard to help in the tsunami, the Maldives, a
small country with only 130,000 people
for which I have developed a great affection. My successor in interest at some
future point will not have to worry about them anymore; we will just take a
bunch of boats and take them away as their little nation vanishes under the
water. I speak of this in some length because I gave all kinds of climate
change speeches when I was President and nobody even laughed, they just yawned.
They were bored. They thought that my Vice President Al Gore and I were
afflicted by some bookish disease and we read too many things that were
confusing us. But if you want a disaster prevention system that works, we have to
address this. We have to do more to address the underlying causes of
vulnerability.
But
I think there are some other things that we have to do as well. Even as we
tackle climate change -- I hope that the Kyoto Protocol will lead to more
carbon-trading systems as well as the development of clean energy systems and energy conservation
systems. And I can't go any further
3
without complementing our host nation here: Germany is the number one producer
of electricity from wind in the world. They have proved that if you get it to
certain volumes with certain technologies, you can bring wind energy prices
down to the cost of coal-generated electricity nearly anywhere. It just
requires, like anything else, a certain amount of volume of production. The
Japanese are leading the world in solar energy. It's not as inexpensive yet,
but there is all kinds of research going on, particularly using nano technology
to spray the solar-generating capacity onto far less expensive metals which
could change the economics of that. There are small solar packs now in use in a
million homes, mostly in Latin America, which generate sufficient energy
to heat the home and provide cooking and can be paid off in a year and a half
for a month's supply of candles for the same price. If there are to be 500
million homes or a billion homes heated in such a fashion among poor people,
that would be God-sent in warm climates, just
enough electricity to turn on the lights and cook the food. And it would
generate untold numbers of jobs. But anyway, I can see, as we used to say at
home, that I am here preaching to the saved, so I won't belabor this. But this
is very, very important.
In
addition to that, there are other practical steps that we can take. We know
that hazard and vulnerability mapping can give vital advance knowledge of
potential risks and information on where best to invest to reduce suffering in
the future. But awareness and knowledge do little if there
is no actual implementation of the preparedness measures. In fact, it was right
here in Bonn at the Second Early Warning Conference where participants spoke of
the higher risk of devastating tsunamis in the Indian Ocean region, but there
was no early warning system and now we are living
with the results.
My
government clearly was aware of the risk of New Orleans. Back in 2001, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency said that there were three great threats to
America that could cost a lot of lives. One was a terrorist attack on the East
Coast, the other was a big earthquake on the West
Coast, the third was a devastating hurricane which would wipe out New Orleans.
But not only did we have inadequate preparedness, the very levies that were
supposed to protect the people themselves were improperly constructed. We know
that urbanization, if managed properly, needs not increase risks, but there
must be building codes and there can be building codes and standards even in
poor countries that save lives. We know that if the mangrove trees had not been
torn down anywhere where they previously stood in the tsunami-affected
countries, the losses would have been substantially smaller in those places.
In
the Kashmir earthquake last October, schools crumbled, crushing to death 18,000
students and nearly a thousand teachers. Even though it's a poor area, they
could have had simple basic building standards which would have saved lives. I
saw the same thing in 2001 in India, in Gujarat, where
the earthquake did so much damage to hundreds of villages as well as the
largest cities in the province. When hurricane Luis hit Saint Martin in 1995,
with stricter building codes on the French side of the island, the buildings
there were far less damaged than those on the Dutch side, even though the
center of the storm was closer to the French side. We know that markets can be
effectively harnessed to help households transfer risks and protect livelihoods.
Micro insurance should be vastly expanded so that poor people around the world
can transfer risk and recover more quickly. Only one percent of the households
and businesses in low-income countries have any kind of catastrophic insurance
coverage, compared with 30 percent in high-income countries. We
know that education and awareness can play a vital role and sometimes
traditional knowledge is as good as science. When the tsunami hit Simeulue
Island of Aceh, people rushed to the highlands. Only
seven people out of the total population of 80,000 died. Early in the last
century, Simeulue suffered a tsunami and through an oral history, generations
of island residents had been
4
educated
about changes in the oceans just before a tsunami strikes. That lore saved many
thousands of lives. While many prevention methods may seem expensive, we know
that disaster prevention and preparedness in fact yields substantial economic
returns. When I was President, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, James Lee Witt, estimated that every dollar spent on disaster
medication saves between 3 and 5 dollars in future economic losses – something
all the wealthy countries who were donors in this effort would do well to remember
when we are asked to keep on schedule and complete the early warning system for
the Indian Ocean as well as to undertake other prevention and reduction
efforts. Early warning systems are the key to effective risk reduction. They do
save lives and livelihoods. And, as I said, in the world we live in, with so
much division between rich and poor, they also save an enormous amount of
investment for the donor countries who will be called upon to help when people
die from such disasters.
Bangladesh
learned about the value of these things in 1970 when a cyclone resulted in more
than 300,000 deaths. The government and people subsequently put in place
effective early warning and preparedness measures involving modern
cyclone-forecasting systems and more than 5,000 people to get the message to
the villages. When a cyclone of similar force struck in 1997, 200 people were
killed, which brings up to mind a point I want to make. The interesting thing
to me is
what Bangladesh did to marry old-fashioned communication with modern
technology, the socalled ‘last mile’ of the early warning system. It's
something that we dare not forget in our UN work for the tsunami and in general
we dare not forget. We know the most effective early warning takes more than
scientifically advanced monitoring systems. All the sophisticated technology
won't matter if we don't reach real communities and people. Satellites, buoys,
data networks will make us safer, but we must invest in the training, the institution
building, the awareness raising on the ground. If we want effective global
early warning systems, we must work together, government to government, federal
and local officials, scientists with policy makers, legislators with teachers
and community leaders.
I
hope very much that this Conference will lead to a new global effort to put in
place effective early warning systems everywhere and to more comprehensive
disaster reduction efforts. As documented by the Global Survey of Early Warning
Systems unveiled by Jan Egeland on behalf of
the Secretary-General earlier this morning, there are still big gaps in the
early warning systems. In an all familiar pattern, developing countries,
disproportionately affected by disasters, still often have ineffective or
non-existent early warning systems. So I urge all of you to support the
implementation of the survey's recommendations for progress. And I hope you
will be generous in funding, those of you who are funders, these early warning projects
that you have on your desks this week. Their continued cost, their total cost
of 200 million dollars is a tiny fraction of what we will spend just this year
on humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of disasters and worth every
dollar.
While
planning to prevent these disasters in the future is very important, there are
hundreds of thousands of people who are still recovering from a disaster: the
tsunami, the Pakistani earthquake, the Gulf Coast hurricanes. These people must
continue to be a priority. In the tsunamiaffected region, we are working hard
to help the survivors get back on their feet. Economic and social
infrastructure was wiped out across the region. Homes and families, schools and
teachers, health clinics were devastated. Recovery is going to take years, but
we are making progress. About 100,000 new homes have been built or are under
construction today across the tsunamiaffected region. Thousands more are in the
pipeline. Some 400 permanent schools are under construction
and with the work on temporary facilities, children went back to school more quickly
than I thought they would. Tourist numbers are on the rebound in Thailand, in
the Maldives. In Sri Lanka, over 70 percent of households are reported to have
regained a steady income.
5
I
am still frustrated that close to 50,000 people remain in tents in Aceh, but I
am pleased that the temporary shelter construction has been moving much more
rapidly. Reconstruction in this region must be coupled with progress on risk
reduction as well. There has been significant progress toward creation of an
Indian Ocean tsunami early warning system with an interim system up and running
by April of last year. With the help of the 29 nations engaged in the Indian
Ocean process, they have quickly set up a regional network and they started to
upgrade their telecommunication systems. The initial Indian Ocean system will
be inaugurated by July of this year, with real-time data coming from new
seismic tide gauge stations and buoys. I congratulate the governments for the
work so far. I thank the donors that have helped financially, including our
host government Germany. But so much more needs to be done. The biggest
challenge of an end-to-end warning system will lie in ensuring the last
engineering mile, as I mentioned before, so that we are certain that the warnings
not only reach communities on the coastline, but the communities and people
know how
to react. The past few years have shown that disasters can strike anywhere any
time. In the United States, hurricane Katrina was the most destructive disaster
in our history, overwhelming an area across Alabama,
Louisiana and Mississippi, about the size of the United Kingdom. More than
1,300 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were displaced, 400,000 jobs were
lost. I have been working with former President Bush to raise money for Katrina
relief and renewal. And we are trying
to help the affected communities there. I am also trying to help the people
there, again, who are most vulnerable, at least not to be left behind when it
comes to receiving tax cuts and other benefits they have earned. I was
profoundly touched by the number of nations who gave aid to the United States,
a wealthy country, many of them in response to what we have tried to do in the
tsunami, where I must say – for all of my differences with the current
administration – I was very proud of what my government did in tsunami relief,
the military, the civilian agencies, the private, religious and nonreligious groups.
We have all learned a lot from the things that have happened. The question is whether
we have learned enough. Most governments here participated in Yokohama eleven
years ago and more recently in the Kobe meeting that took place after the
tsunami. Thanks to your efforts we now know much more about what we need to do
to manage risk. The question is whether we will put what we know
into action. In the end, disaster reduction is about making the right
development choices: where to locate a school, how to protect buildings better,
how to build them better, how to pursue sustainable development. It's about
investing in practical and effective people-centered early warning
systems. And it's about addressing the long-term challenges that will give us
more natural disasters, particularly climate change.
I'd
like to close with just a story to remind you of what this is all about. The
last time I went to Aceh, I went to one of the camps for the internally
displaced where there were thousands of people living. All these little
communities, these little makeshift communities elect a community leader
to represent them while they are there. I had at my side a young Indonesian
woman who had been a television reporter. She quit her job to be an interpreter
and to work with people in the camps until the reconstruction was done. So we
walked into the camp and I was greeted by the elected leader of the community,
a fellow just like everybody else living in the camp, and his wife and his son.
This little boy of theirs, nine years old, was the most beautiful child I have
ever seen. It was
shocking;
I could hardly get my breath when I looked at him: luminous eyes, bright smile.
So I said to my young interpreter: I believe that's the best-looking boy I ever
saw in my life. She said: “Yes, he is a beautiful boy. And before the tsunami,
he had nine brothers and sisters. Now they are
all gone.”
6
There
are thousands upon thousands of stories like this every year. It's very
important when we meet in these grand and beautiful places that we not forget
what this is about. The last stop I made in this little tent city was the
Maternal and Child Health Clinic and as I was about to leave, the mother of
this little boy who had lost nine of her own children came up to me holding a
baby. She informed me that this baby was the youngest baby in the camp – it was
two days old – and that she was bringing it to me because in their culture – I
have to be careful here because
it might be adopted everywhere – a woman does not get out of bed for 40 days
after she gives birth. Her family simply cares for her and she rests for 40
days. On the 40th day she gets up and they name the kid. So this woman who has
lost nine of her own children is holding this baby and says: “We want you to
name this child.” So I looked at her and I said: What is the word in your
language for "new beginning"? And she said: “Well, lucky for you, in
our language the word ‘dawn’, which is a girl's name in English, is a boy's
name. So we will call this boy Dawn. And whenever we see him, we will think of
a new beginning.” I could not imagine the courage of that mother having lost
nine of her own children, holding that baby and smiling and talking about new
beginnings. So think about them when you make these recommendations and when we
see them through.
Thank you
very much.
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