06-01-2007, 11:37 AM
2007 BILDERBERG PARTICIPANT LIST LEAKED
Author Danny Estulin has managed to get hold of this year's participant
list BEFORE the event. Please circulate it to all your National Press and
broadcast media to give them as littyle excuse as possible for ignoring
argulblty the most important global political event of the year.
This years' Bilderberg conference is the big one. If Kissinger and the
steering committee can convince the Turks, through threats and bribery, to go for the NeoCon 'regime change' agenda for Iran we can expect a further Middle Eastern bloodbath and Islamic genocide.
Let's hope and pray that the Turkish decision makers and political classes are not that stupid. For anyone planning to travel to witness the conference this year please do keep me informed over the weekend and/or use the new(ish) Bilderberg forum.
Breaking news direct from the 2007 Bilderberg conference
http://www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3710
So here this year's Bilderbergers! Here's hoping the Turkish police will
surround the hotel and arrest all the steering group members for
questioning while the Turkish Secret Service deal with the CIA. Fingers
crossed! And well done over-safe Danny Estulin. Nuff respect for getting
the leaked participant list BEFORE the conference - this is unheard of.
http://www.bilderberg.org/2007.htm
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/b...participan
t-list/
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=9197
George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece);
Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey);
Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK);
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime
Minister (Portugal);
José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission
(Portugal/International);
Franco Bernabé, Vice Chariman, Rothschild Europe (Italy);
Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France);
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden);
Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium);
Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France);
Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France);
Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain);
Kenneth Clark, Member of Parliament (UK);
Timothy C. Collins, Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings,
LLC (USA);
Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge (France);
George A. David, Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A. (USA);
Kemal Dervis, Administrator, UNDP (Turkey);
Anders Eldrup, President, DONG A/S (Denmark);
John Elkann, Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A (Italy);
Martin S. Feldstein, President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic
Research (USA);
Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
(USA);
Paul A. Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal (USA);
Dermot Gleeson, Chairman, AIB Group (Ireland);
Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company (USA);
Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former
Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings (the Netherlands);
Jean-Pierre Hansen, CEO, Suez-Tractebel S.A. (Belgium);
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (USA);
Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA);
Jaap G. Hoop de Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO (the
Netherlands/International);
Allan B. Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Director
National Economic Council (USA);
Josef Joffe, Publisher-Editor, Die Zeit (Germany);
James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA);
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
(USA);
Anatole Kaletsky, Editor at Large, The Times (UK);
John Kerr of Kinlochard, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc (the
Netherlands);
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates (USA);
Mustafa V. Koç, Chariman, Koç Holding A.S. (Turkey);
Fehmi Koru, Senior Writer, Yeni Safek (Turkey);
Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs (France);
Henry R. Kravis, Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (USA);
Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc. (USA);
Neelie Kroes, Commissioner, European Commission (the
Netherlands/International);
Ed Kronenburg, Director of the Private Office, NATO Headquarters
(International);
William J. Luti, Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy and
Strategy, National Security Council (USA);
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(USA);
Frank McKenna, Ambassador to the US, member Carlyle Group (Canada);
Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International
Relations (France);
Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy);
Craig J. Mundie, Chief Technical Officer Advanced Strategies and Policy,
Microsoft Corporation (USA);
Egil Myklebust, Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
(Norway);
Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit (Germany);
Adnrzej Olechowski, Leader Civic Platform (Poland);
Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc/Nokia (Finland);
George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (UK);
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Minister of Finance (Italy);
Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research (USA);
Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. (Canada);
David Rockefeller (USA);
Matías Rodriguez Inciarte, Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander Bank,
(Spain);
Dennis B. Ross, Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (USA);
Otto Schily, Former Minister of Interior Affairs; Member of Parliament;
Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Germany);
Jürgen E. Schrempp, Former Chairman of the Board of Management,
DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany);
Tøger Seidenfaden, Executive Editor-in-Chief, Politiken (Denmark);
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs
International (Ireland);
Giulio Tremonti, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy);
Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor, European Central Bank (France/International);
John Vinocur, Senior Correspondent, International Herald Tribune (USA);
Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB (Sweden);
Martin H. Wolf, Associate Editor and Economics Commentator, The Financial
Times (UK);
James D. Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement (USA);
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State (USA);
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of the Board of Management, Deutsche Post AG (USA);
Adrian D. Wooldridge, Foreign Correspondent, The Economist.
The Economist magazine on the Bilderberg Conferences
http://www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm#econ
BILDERBERG takes its name from a Dutch hotel where, in the early 1950s, the first meeting took place under the aegis of Prince Bernhard. The occasion has outgrown the hotel, but the Dutch link remains. Among several European royals who attend as occasional guests, Queen Beatrix and her husband come regularly. A Dutch professor who has brokered coalition governments into existence on her behalf is one of the secretary-generals (the other, American, one lives in San Francisco), and Bilderberg's tiny secretariat sits in The Hague. The meetings now take place by informal rotation in countries of the Atlantic community. Some 100 or more attend, by invitation of a steering committee. The meetings happen once a year, in the spring. They last 2.5 days (Thursday night until Sunday lunch) and are held in varying but always comfortable surroundings - in 1987 Lake Como, before that Gleneagles. Apart from a half-day on the golf links or sleeping off the previous night's dinner, morning and afternoon sessions fill up the time.
A mixture of able and distinguished folk attend - a sprinkling of serving
prime and cabinet ministers, central-bank governors, defence and other
experts. They talk, often to galvanising and fascinating effect, about the main issues of the day - East-West relations, arms control, deficits, debt, the Falklands, sanctions, whatever. Their thoughts may not be repeated outside the meetings and never are. This frustrates outsiders but helps 100 great and good people be frank with each other, as does the fact that Bilderberg members are limited to people of NATO and West European countries who know how to be kind or rude to each other without causing such misunderstandings as would occur if Indians, Fijians, Africans, Chinese or Japanese were also present.
Elite and discreet, Bilderberg has inevitably been talked of in hushed
tones by conspiracy theorists over the years. It needn't be. The lists of
attenders are published, as are the agendas, and before each meeting the chairman (currently Lord Roll) holds a press conference at which few journalists bother to turn up.
Where does the money come from? Not complicated. The steering-group members raise from business the small sums necessary to keep the organising secretariat going hand-to-mouth in The Hague. Members from the host country raise enough money to pay for the hotel and conference when it takes place on their home soil (they are allowed to ask extra guests to make this money-raising easier). Participants pay their own long-haul travel, but are usually shepherded as VIPs from the nearest airport. They also pay expenses over and above the basic bill for their hotel room - the Bilderberg custom being that a whole hotel is booked for each meeting so that Bilderbergers may be alone with each other, their words, their thoughts and, these days, their security men.
When you have scaled the Bilderberg, you have arrived.
HIGH PRIESTS OF GLOBALISATION IN ISTANBUL
Taylan Bilgic
Turkish Daily News
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may...zation.htm
Some call it "the multinational government", some call it the "elite club which shapes world policies" while others say it essentially "fixes" the world's fate. It literally breeds conspiracy theories all around the world with its secrecy, while participants say it is only a private gathering that should be respected.
Whatever it is, the mighty Bilderberg is at our door: The "high priests of globalization," as Will Hutton from The Observer once famously put it, begin their ultra-secretive annual meeting today in Istanbul. While the international media's silence gives rise to yet more conspiracy theories, the Turkish media is going nuts about it: from mass-circulation dailies to well-known weeklies, the media is Bilderberg-busy nowadays. Daily Vatan calls it "the most secretive meeting in the world," announcing: "Bilderberg in Istanbul." Weekly Aktüel says the "multinational government" is here to determine the fate of the world. It seems the hype will continue until the "high priests" end their Istanbul meeting on Sunday.
For those who have not heard about it yet, the Bilderberg Group is an "unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests" (Wikipedia), influential, powerful figures from the realms of economy, media and politics. The name comes from their first meeting in 1954, which was held in the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. As the date signals, Bilderberg is a creation of the Cold War. The idea came from Joseph Retinger, who was concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe at the time. So, Bilderberg, just like other organizations like NATO, aimed at strengthening the "unity of the West" against the "communist threat."
With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the group focused on enhancing the American-led globalization. But then, the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington practically resulted in another focus, which one might call the relation between "civilizations."
Thus, after the first gathering in Istanbul (1959) and the second one in Izmir (1975), a third gathering in Turkey, widely regarded as a “bridge” between the East and the West, seems appropriate.
People that run the world:
If one aspect of Bilderberg that irks many is its secrecy, another one is the identity of its participants. Looking at the list of regular "Bilderbergers," one cannot but think that these are really "the people that run the world". Veterans like Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski are joined every year by newcomers such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, soon-to-be-former-PM Tony Blair, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle and countless others. Every year, the list also includes important "media people" from influential outlets such as The Financial Times, Washington Post, The Economist, The Times, Le Figaro and Die Zeit. The picture becomes complete with CEOs from the world's biggest companies such as Coca-Cola, Fiat, Suez-Tractebel, Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum.
With such a mixture, conspiracy theories abound; the most famous one being the "invisible hand" theory. According to some, those who are lucky enough to attend the meetings and get a blessing from the "inner circle" witness breath-taking career leaps. An "obscure governor" from Arkansas, one year after attending the Bilderberg meeting in 1991, became the President of the United States, while Tony Blair of Britain was elected prime minister three years after his attendance in 1993. But why did Margaret Thatcher, a regular Bilderberger, lose her job as Prime Minister in 1990? The theory says that she lost the support of Bilderberg because she did not accept the transfer of British sovereignty to a "European Super State." Of course, John Major, who took the job as Prime Minister after Thatcher, was also a Bilderberger.
One may choose to believe or not, but the secrecy of the meetings – no cell phones, no getting out of the hotel during three days, no notes, no interviews – creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories. When senior representatives of media giants such as the FT, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post attend the meetings every year and next to nothing is printed in the same papers about Bilderberg, one starts to wonder.
Dedicated journalists:
There are a few journalists who are dedicated to unveil the secret of the Bilderberg, though. People such as James P. Tucker, Daniel Estulin and Tony Gosling. The first two are in Istanbul, tracking down the participants, while Gosling, a Briton who runs the Web site www.bilderberg.org, could not come to the show. His Web site gets about three million hits a month, Gosling says, and attributes this great interest to the fact that "investigative journalism is pretty much dead" elsewhere. The Bilderberg is very powerful, especially financially, he told the Turkish Daily News over the phone: "So, if they come to a decision, it is effective."
Gosling has covered the last 10 meetings, and he thinks the gathering in Istanbul is of high importance. "There is a lot of tension on the Iran-Turkey border at the moment. Iraq is also right next door. This is an area of interest for Bilderberg," he said. "[The Bilderbergers] are worried that Islamic sentiment in Turkey is not in favor of an invasion of Iran. They are here to attempt to persuade the Turkish elite and bring them on board with the neocon plan for the Middle East."
But why the secrecy? Gosling posed the same question to David Rockefeller back in 2003. "He shrugged and said it was just a private meeting," he continues. "But the world does not buy this argument. There are politicians there and they are not private people. They are people who should be held accountable."
Gosling's claim, that the main topic of Bilderberg 2007 is Iran, is a widely held opinion. Other topics are energy policies and Turkey's bid for European Union membership, according to the daily Vatan. The paper is optimistic about the last item; it says the Istanbul meeting is a signal that the EU has "inched open the door" to Turkey, basing this claim on unnamed "Bilderberg sources."
A veteran of Bilderberg:
With four separate attendances in Atlanta, Ottawa, Stockholm and Lisbon, Turkey's former Central Bank governor, Gazi Erçel, is the most informed source one can find. “There are many international meetings such as Bilderberg, which have strict rules,” he said to the TDN. As to the reason of the secrecy, he says it is a precaution to ensure that everyone talks sincerely on the topics, without the concern of being quoted.
The conspiracy theories stem from ignorance about the meetings, Erçel said, quoting Confucius: “Those who produce ideas without the knowledge are harmful. As they do not know what Bilderberg is, they believe in superstitions.”
Erçel also got his share of mention in the conspiracy theories, as some accused him of “planning the 2001 financial crisis” at one of the meetings. “These are defective claims,” he said. “Bilderberg is a high-level meeting. Everyone talks freely and very striking debates take place.”
Over the years Bilderberg meetings had important Turkish participants. Among them are Süleyman Demirel, the former president; Gazi Erçel, former Central Bank chief; Mesut Yilmaz, former Prime Minister; Selahattin Beyazit, a businessman and a "constant participant"; Mustafa Koç, the CEO of Koç Holding; former ministers Ismail Cem, Hikmet Çetin and Kemal Dervis and also some well-known journalists. Among them, Fehmi Koru from the conservative daily Yeni Safak stands out, because until last year, he had written numerous critical columns on Bilderberg. Last year, things changed and he was also invited to the meetings. Afterwards, he wrote a six-day series on Bilderberg, telling much about the environment and the participants, but certainly not much on what was discussed. Koru is invited for a second time this year, but the "jump" in his career is yet to be seen!
As the Bilderbergers gather, probably giggling among themselves about the conspiracy theories abounding, it would be appropriate to quote Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories, who had spoken to the BBC back in June 2004: "Should not we expect that the rich and the powerful organize things in their own interests? It is called capitalism!"
BILDERBERG 2007 INVITED GUESTS
(According to www.bilderberg.org)
Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey)
Kemal Dervis, Administrator, UNDP (Turkey)
Mustafa V. Koç, Chairman, Koç Holding A.S. (Turkey)
Fehmi Koru, Senior Writer, Yeni Safak (Turkey)
George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece)
Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK)
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister (Portugal)
José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission (Portugal/International)
Franco Bernabé, Vice Chairman, Rothschild Europe (Italy)
Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France)
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden)
Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium)
Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France)
Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France)
Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain)
Kenneth Clark, Member of Parliament (UK)
Timothy C. Collins, Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC (USA)
Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge (France)
George A. David, Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A. (USA)
Anders Eldrup, President, DONG A/S (Denmark)
John Elkann, Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A (Italy)
Martin S. Feldstein, President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic Research (USA)
Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (USA)
Paul A. Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal (USA)
Dermot Gleeson, Chairman, AIB Group (Ireland)
Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company (USA)
Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University, (the Netherlands)
Jean-Pierre Hansen, CEO, Suez-Tractebel S.A. (Belgium)
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (USA)
Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Jaap G. Hoop de Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO (the Netherlands/International)
Allan B. Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Director National Economic Council (USA)
Josef Joffe, Publisher-Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC (USA)
Anatole Kaletsky, Editor at Large, The Times (UK)
John Kerr of Kinlochard, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc (the Netherlands)
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates (USA)
Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)
Henry R. Kravis, Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (USA)
Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc. (USA)
Neelie Kroes, Commissioner, European Commission (the Netherlands/International)
Ed Kronenburg, Director of the Private Office, NATO Headquarters (International)
William J. Luti, Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy and Strategy, National Security Council (USA)
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA)
Frank McKenna, Ambassador to the US, member Carlyle Group (Canada)
Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International Relations (France)
Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy)
Craig J. Mundie, Chief Technical Officer Advanced Strategies and Policy, Microsoft Corporation (USA)
Egil Myklebust, Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA (Norway)
Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
Adnrzej Olechowski, Leader Civic Platform (Poland)
Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc/Nokia (Finland)
George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (UK)
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Minister of Finance (Italy)
Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (USA)
Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. (Canada)
David Rockefeller (USA)
Matías Rodriguez Inciarte, Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander Bank, (Spain)
Dennis B. Ross, Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (USA)
Otto Schily, Former Minister of Interior Affairs (Germany)
Jürgen E. Schrempp, Former Chairman of the Board of management, DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany)
Tøger Seidenfaden, Executive Editor-in-Chief, Politiken (Denmark)
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International (Ireland)
Giulio Tremonti, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy)
Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor, European Central Bank (France/International)
John Vinocur, Senior Correspondent, International Herald Tribune (USA)
Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB (Sweden)
Martin H. Wolf, Associate Editor, The Financial Times (UK)
James D. Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement (USA)
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State (USA)
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of the Board of management, Deutsche Post AG (USA)
Adrian D. Wooldridge, Foreign Correspondent, The Economist
Author Danny Estulin has managed to get hold of this year's participant
list BEFORE the event. Please circulate it to all your National Press and
broadcast media to give them as littyle excuse as possible for ignoring
argulblty the most important global political event of the year.
This years' Bilderberg conference is the big one. If Kissinger and the
steering committee can convince the Turks, through threats and bribery, to go for the NeoCon 'regime change' agenda for Iran we can expect a further Middle Eastern bloodbath and Islamic genocide.
Let's hope and pray that the Turkish decision makers and political classes are not that stupid. For anyone planning to travel to witness the conference this year please do keep me informed over the weekend and/or use the new(ish) Bilderberg forum.
Breaking news direct from the 2007 Bilderberg conference
http://www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3710
So here this year's Bilderbergers! Here's hoping the Turkish police will
surround the hotel and arrest all the steering group members for
questioning while the Turkish Secret Service deal with the CIA. Fingers
crossed! And well done over-safe Danny Estulin. Nuff respect for getting
the leaked participant list BEFORE the conference - this is unheard of.
http://www.bilderberg.org/2007.htm
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/b...participan
t-list/
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=9197
George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece);
Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey);
Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK);
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime
Minister (Portugal);
José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission
(Portugal/International);
Franco Bernabé, Vice Chariman, Rothschild Europe (Italy);
Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France);
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden);
Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium);
Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France);
Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France);
Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain);
Kenneth Clark, Member of Parliament (UK);
Timothy C. Collins, Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings,
LLC (USA);
Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge (France);
George A. David, Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A. (USA);
Kemal Dervis, Administrator, UNDP (Turkey);
Anders Eldrup, President, DONG A/S (Denmark);
John Elkann, Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A (Italy);
Martin S. Feldstein, President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic
Research (USA);
Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
(USA);
Paul A. Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal (USA);
Dermot Gleeson, Chairman, AIB Group (Ireland);
Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company (USA);
Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former
Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings (the Netherlands);
Jean-Pierre Hansen, CEO, Suez-Tractebel S.A. (Belgium);
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (USA);
Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA);
Jaap G. Hoop de Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO (the
Netherlands/International);
Allan B. Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Director
National Economic Council (USA);
Josef Joffe, Publisher-Editor, Die Zeit (Germany);
James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA);
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
(USA);
Anatole Kaletsky, Editor at Large, The Times (UK);
John Kerr of Kinlochard, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc (the
Netherlands);
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates (USA);
Mustafa V. Koç, Chariman, Koç Holding A.S. (Turkey);
Fehmi Koru, Senior Writer, Yeni Safek (Turkey);
Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs (France);
Henry R. Kravis, Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (USA);
Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc. (USA);
Neelie Kroes, Commissioner, European Commission (the
Netherlands/International);
Ed Kronenburg, Director of the Private Office, NATO Headquarters
(International);
William J. Luti, Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy and
Strategy, National Security Council (USA);
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(USA);
Frank McKenna, Ambassador to the US, member Carlyle Group (Canada);
Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International
Relations (France);
Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy);
Craig J. Mundie, Chief Technical Officer Advanced Strategies and Policy,
Microsoft Corporation (USA);
Egil Myklebust, Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
(Norway);
Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit (Germany);
Adnrzej Olechowski, Leader Civic Platform (Poland);
Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc/Nokia (Finland);
George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (UK);
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Minister of Finance (Italy);
Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research (USA);
Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. (Canada);
David Rockefeller (USA);
Matías Rodriguez Inciarte, Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander Bank,
(Spain);
Dennis B. Ross, Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (USA);
Otto Schily, Former Minister of Interior Affairs; Member of Parliament;
Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Germany);
Jürgen E. Schrempp, Former Chairman of the Board of Management,
DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany);
Tøger Seidenfaden, Executive Editor-in-Chief, Politiken (Denmark);
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs
International (Ireland);
Giulio Tremonti, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy);
Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor, European Central Bank (France/International);
John Vinocur, Senior Correspondent, International Herald Tribune (USA);
Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB (Sweden);
Martin H. Wolf, Associate Editor and Economics Commentator, The Financial
Times (UK);
James D. Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement (USA);
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State (USA);
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of the Board of Management, Deutsche Post AG (USA);
Adrian D. Wooldridge, Foreign Correspondent, The Economist.
The Economist magazine on the Bilderberg Conferences
http://www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm#econ
BILDERBERG takes its name from a Dutch hotel where, in the early 1950s, the first meeting took place under the aegis of Prince Bernhard. The occasion has outgrown the hotel, but the Dutch link remains. Among several European royals who attend as occasional guests, Queen Beatrix and her husband come regularly. A Dutch professor who has brokered coalition governments into existence on her behalf is one of the secretary-generals (the other, American, one lives in San Francisco), and Bilderberg's tiny secretariat sits in The Hague. The meetings now take place by informal rotation in countries of the Atlantic community. Some 100 or more attend, by invitation of a steering committee. The meetings happen once a year, in the spring. They last 2.5 days (Thursday night until Sunday lunch) and are held in varying but always comfortable surroundings - in 1987 Lake Como, before that Gleneagles. Apart from a half-day on the golf links or sleeping off the previous night's dinner, morning and afternoon sessions fill up the time.
A mixture of able and distinguished folk attend - a sprinkling of serving
prime and cabinet ministers, central-bank governors, defence and other
experts. They talk, often to galvanising and fascinating effect, about the main issues of the day - East-West relations, arms control, deficits, debt, the Falklands, sanctions, whatever. Their thoughts may not be repeated outside the meetings and never are. This frustrates outsiders but helps 100 great and good people be frank with each other, as does the fact that Bilderberg members are limited to people of NATO and West European countries who know how to be kind or rude to each other without causing such misunderstandings as would occur if Indians, Fijians, Africans, Chinese or Japanese were also present.
Elite and discreet, Bilderberg has inevitably been talked of in hushed
tones by conspiracy theorists over the years. It needn't be. The lists of
attenders are published, as are the agendas, and before each meeting the chairman (currently Lord Roll) holds a press conference at which few journalists bother to turn up.
Where does the money come from? Not complicated. The steering-group members raise from business the small sums necessary to keep the organising secretariat going hand-to-mouth in The Hague. Members from the host country raise enough money to pay for the hotel and conference when it takes place on their home soil (they are allowed to ask extra guests to make this money-raising easier). Participants pay their own long-haul travel, but are usually shepherded as VIPs from the nearest airport. They also pay expenses over and above the basic bill for their hotel room - the Bilderberg custom being that a whole hotel is booked for each meeting so that Bilderbergers may be alone with each other, their words, their thoughts and, these days, their security men.
When you have scaled the Bilderberg, you have arrived.
HIGH PRIESTS OF GLOBALISATION IN ISTANBUL
Taylan Bilgic
Turkish Daily News
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may...zation.htm
Some call it "the multinational government", some call it the "elite club which shapes world policies" while others say it essentially "fixes" the world's fate. It literally breeds conspiracy theories all around the world with its secrecy, while participants say it is only a private gathering that should be respected.
Whatever it is, the mighty Bilderberg is at our door: The "high priests of globalization," as Will Hutton from The Observer once famously put it, begin their ultra-secretive annual meeting today in Istanbul. While the international media's silence gives rise to yet more conspiracy theories, the Turkish media is going nuts about it: from mass-circulation dailies to well-known weeklies, the media is Bilderberg-busy nowadays. Daily Vatan calls it "the most secretive meeting in the world," announcing: "Bilderberg in Istanbul." Weekly Aktüel says the "multinational government" is here to determine the fate of the world. It seems the hype will continue until the "high priests" end their Istanbul meeting on Sunday.
For those who have not heard about it yet, the Bilderberg Group is an "unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests" (Wikipedia), influential, powerful figures from the realms of economy, media and politics. The name comes from their first meeting in 1954, which was held in the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. As the date signals, Bilderberg is a creation of the Cold War. The idea came from Joseph Retinger, who was concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe at the time. So, Bilderberg, just like other organizations like NATO, aimed at strengthening the "unity of the West" against the "communist threat."
With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the group focused on enhancing the American-led globalization. But then, the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington practically resulted in another focus, which one might call the relation between "civilizations."
Thus, after the first gathering in Istanbul (1959) and the second one in Izmir (1975), a third gathering in Turkey, widely regarded as a “bridge” between the East and the West, seems appropriate.
People that run the world:
If one aspect of Bilderberg that irks many is its secrecy, another one is the identity of its participants. Looking at the list of regular "Bilderbergers," one cannot but think that these are really "the people that run the world". Veterans like Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski are joined every year by newcomers such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, soon-to-be-former-PM Tony Blair, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle and countless others. Every year, the list also includes important "media people" from influential outlets such as The Financial Times, Washington Post, The Economist, The Times, Le Figaro and Die Zeit. The picture becomes complete with CEOs from the world's biggest companies such as Coca-Cola, Fiat, Suez-Tractebel, Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum.
With such a mixture, conspiracy theories abound; the most famous one being the "invisible hand" theory. According to some, those who are lucky enough to attend the meetings and get a blessing from the "inner circle" witness breath-taking career leaps. An "obscure governor" from Arkansas, one year after attending the Bilderberg meeting in 1991, became the President of the United States, while Tony Blair of Britain was elected prime minister three years after his attendance in 1993. But why did Margaret Thatcher, a regular Bilderberger, lose her job as Prime Minister in 1990? The theory says that she lost the support of Bilderberg because she did not accept the transfer of British sovereignty to a "European Super State." Of course, John Major, who took the job as Prime Minister after Thatcher, was also a Bilderberger.
One may choose to believe or not, but the secrecy of the meetings – no cell phones, no getting out of the hotel during three days, no notes, no interviews – creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories. When senior representatives of media giants such as the FT, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post attend the meetings every year and next to nothing is printed in the same papers about Bilderberg, one starts to wonder.
Dedicated journalists:
There are a few journalists who are dedicated to unveil the secret of the Bilderberg, though. People such as James P. Tucker, Daniel Estulin and Tony Gosling. The first two are in Istanbul, tracking down the participants, while Gosling, a Briton who runs the Web site www.bilderberg.org, could not come to the show. His Web site gets about three million hits a month, Gosling says, and attributes this great interest to the fact that "investigative journalism is pretty much dead" elsewhere. The Bilderberg is very powerful, especially financially, he told the Turkish Daily News over the phone: "So, if they come to a decision, it is effective."
Gosling has covered the last 10 meetings, and he thinks the gathering in Istanbul is of high importance. "There is a lot of tension on the Iran-Turkey border at the moment. Iraq is also right next door. This is an area of interest for Bilderberg," he said. "[The Bilderbergers] are worried that Islamic sentiment in Turkey is not in favor of an invasion of Iran. They are here to attempt to persuade the Turkish elite and bring them on board with the neocon plan for the Middle East."
But why the secrecy? Gosling posed the same question to David Rockefeller back in 2003. "He shrugged and said it was just a private meeting," he continues. "But the world does not buy this argument. There are politicians there and they are not private people. They are people who should be held accountable."
Gosling's claim, that the main topic of Bilderberg 2007 is Iran, is a widely held opinion. Other topics are energy policies and Turkey's bid for European Union membership, according to the daily Vatan. The paper is optimistic about the last item; it says the Istanbul meeting is a signal that the EU has "inched open the door" to Turkey, basing this claim on unnamed "Bilderberg sources."
A veteran of Bilderberg:
With four separate attendances in Atlanta, Ottawa, Stockholm and Lisbon, Turkey's former Central Bank governor, Gazi Erçel, is the most informed source one can find. “There are many international meetings such as Bilderberg, which have strict rules,” he said to the TDN. As to the reason of the secrecy, he says it is a precaution to ensure that everyone talks sincerely on the topics, without the concern of being quoted.
The conspiracy theories stem from ignorance about the meetings, Erçel said, quoting Confucius: “Those who produce ideas without the knowledge are harmful. As they do not know what Bilderberg is, they believe in superstitions.”
Erçel also got his share of mention in the conspiracy theories, as some accused him of “planning the 2001 financial crisis” at one of the meetings. “These are defective claims,” he said. “Bilderberg is a high-level meeting. Everyone talks freely and very striking debates take place.”
Over the years Bilderberg meetings had important Turkish participants. Among them are Süleyman Demirel, the former president; Gazi Erçel, former Central Bank chief; Mesut Yilmaz, former Prime Minister; Selahattin Beyazit, a businessman and a "constant participant"; Mustafa Koç, the CEO of Koç Holding; former ministers Ismail Cem, Hikmet Çetin and Kemal Dervis and also some well-known journalists. Among them, Fehmi Koru from the conservative daily Yeni Safak stands out, because until last year, he had written numerous critical columns on Bilderberg. Last year, things changed and he was also invited to the meetings. Afterwards, he wrote a six-day series on Bilderberg, telling much about the environment and the participants, but certainly not much on what was discussed. Koru is invited for a second time this year, but the "jump" in his career is yet to be seen!
As the Bilderbergers gather, probably giggling among themselves about the conspiracy theories abounding, it would be appropriate to quote Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories, who had spoken to the BBC back in June 2004: "Should not we expect that the rich and the powerful organize things in their own interests? It is called capitalism!"
BILDERBERG 2007 INVITED GUESTS
(According to www.bilderberg.org)
Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey)
Kemal Dervis, Administrator, UNDP (Turkey)
Mustafa V. Koç, Chairman, Koç Holding A.S. (Turkey)
Fehmi Koru, Senior Writer, Yeni Safak (Turkey)
George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece)
Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK)
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister (Portugal)
José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission (Portugal/International)
Franco Bernabé, Vice Chairman, Rothschild Europe (Italy)
Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France)
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden)
Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium)
Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France)
Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France)
Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain)
Kenneth Clark, Member of Parliament (UK)
Timothy C. Collins, Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC (USA)
Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge (France)
George A. David, Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A. (USA)
Anders Eldrup, President, DONG A/S (Denmark)
John Elkann, Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A (Italy)
Martin S. Feldstein, President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic Research (USA)
Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (USA)
Paul A. Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal (USA)
Dermot Gleeson, Chairman, AIB Group (Ireland)
Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company (USA)
Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University, (the Netherlands)
Jean-Pierre Hansen, CEO, Suez-Tractebel S.A. (Belgium)
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (USA)
Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Jaap G. Hoop de Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO (the Netherlands/International)
Allan B. Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Director National Economic Council (USA)
Josef Joffe, Publisher-Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC (USA)
Anatole Kaletsky, Editor at Large, The Times (UK)
John Kerr of Kinlochard, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc (the Netherlands)
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates (USA)
Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)
Henry R. Kravis, Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (USA)
Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc. (USA)
Neelie Kroes, Commissioner, European Commission (the Netherlands/International)
Ed Kronenburg, Director of the Private Office, NATO Headquarters (International)
William J. Luti, Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy and Strategy, National Security Council (USA)
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA)
Frank McKenna, Ambassador to the US, member Carlyle Group (Canada)
Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International Relations (France)
Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy)
Craig J. Mundie, Chief Technical Officer Advanced Strategies and Policy, Microsoft Corporation (USA)
Egil Myklebust, Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA (Norway)
Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
Adnrzej Olechowski, Leader Civic Platform (Poland)
Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc/Nokia (Finland)
George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (UK)
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Minister of Finance (Italy)
Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (USA)
Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. (Canada)
David Rockefeller (USA)
Matías Rodriguez Inciarte, Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander Bank, (Spain)
Dennis B. Ross, Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (USA)
Otto Schily, Former Minister of Interior Affairs (Germany)
Jürgen E. Schrempp, Former Chairman of the Board of management, DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany)
Tøger Seidenfaden, Executive Editor-in-Chief, Politiken (Denmark)
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International (Ireland)
Giulio Tremonti, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy)
Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor, European Central Bank (France/International)
John Vinocur, Senior Correspondent, International Herald Tribune (USA)
Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB (Sweden)
Martin H. Wolf, Associate Editor, The Financial Times (UK)
James D. Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement (USA)
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State (USA)
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of the Board of management, Deutsche Post AG (USA)
Adrian D. Wooldridge, Foreign Correspondent, The Economist