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Published on 09/18/1995 All articles from this issue

Cranston to lead discussions among leaders at World Forum The "State of the World Forum," to be held Sept. 27- Oct. 1, will bring together more than 400 leaders from more than 50 countries to discuss the priorities needed for the next century. The forum will be held in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

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Participants will include Mikhail Gorbachev, Carl Sagan, Ted Turner, George Shultz, Jane Goodall, John Naisbitt, Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Paul Krugman and Manjit Singh, among others.

Former U. S. Senator and Los Altos resident Alan Cranston is co-organizer for the World Forum. As chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation, Cranston said he visits with Gorbachev often to discuss what the foundation is doing. The idea of the forum is to first discuss the state of the world, what might be done about it, what the options are and what practical steps might be taken. Issues include how to get weapons under control, mediating disputes, protecting the environment and creating a climate for rational development.

"The UN is celebrating its 50th birthday with less emphasis on the future than we are going to put at this session," Cranston said. "The hope would be if the UN can be strengthened and become an instrument, that could be very effective. It hasn't been given the resources to be as effective as the world had hoped it would be up to this point."

According to Cranston, the UN faces the problem of extreme nationalism and ethnic conflict. On the one hand, he pointed to an emerging global community due to travel, instant communication and instant financial transactions. On the other, he noted ethnic conflicts over territory.

"The UN was created to try to keep the peace between nations, now the major problems are within nations not between nations," Cranston said. "It hasn't had its own resources and it can be hamstrung by a veto."