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F6

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F6

Re: F6 post# 41114

Friday, 07/28/2006 2:24:06 AM

Friday, July 28, 2006 2:24:06 AM

Post# of 480918
Condie hits a chord


Global request: Fresh from Middle East crisis talks, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played Brahms' Prayer for Peace at ASEAN's annual summit song-and-dance fest.
Picture: Reuters


July 28, 2006 12:00am

PERHAPS it was stage fright or maybe Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is toning down his fun-loving image.

Whatever the reason, Mr Downer was one of the few foreign ministers not to put on a show for his counterparts at ASEAN's annual summit song-and-dance fest.

Mr Downer wowed them at last year's event in the Lao capital Vientiane with a rendition of It's Now or Never as his staffers twirled around him in shimmery dresses and feather boas.

This year in Kuala Lumpur, he stayed firmly in his seat.

"He's done a lot of these things over the years," a spokesman said. "The minister just decided that this year we would not take part."

With the Australians out of the picture, top US diplomat Condoleezza Rice took the stage by storm with a piano recital of a Brahms sonata, titled a Prayer for Peace.

Rice, wearing a red dress and pearls, was in a sombre mood after her crisis trip to the Middle East and decided to stick to the concert-grade piano skills she mastered at college.

New Zealand's Winston Peters, who earlier told the meeting that Maori people were really descended from Chinese, sang a Johnny Cash-meets-reggae version of Oh Islands in the Sun.

China's Li Zhaoxing led a choir and South Korea's Ban Ki-moon donned green sequins for a version of Abba's Mamma Mia.

Canada's Peter MacKay, dressed in black referee's uniform, presided over a mock ASEAN versus Canada football match that ended with a Zinedine Zidane head-butt and a red card.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso took top honours in the bizarre stakes with a Humphrey Bogart impersonation set amid a global pandemic of giant furry frogs.

Aso, wore a trench coat and hat and puffed on a cigarette while his minions hopped on stage in frog outfits or dressed as fish, a Power Ranger, or mutant lobster.

A creature called Aso's Assistant Robot also put in an unexplained appearance.

The skits are a regular feature of a gala dinner for the ASEAN foreign ministers and the major powers with which they hold talks every year.

The dinners are normally closed to the media, but Lao television last year infuriated participants with a live broadcast on national television.

© Herald and Weekly Times. All times AEST (GMT + 10).

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,19939199-663,00.html (emphasis added) (. . .)

[F6 note -- re performances by Colin Powell at past years' ASEAN foreign ministers dinners, see
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3535048 , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3861901.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2168033.stm -- . . .]



Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07

"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790


F6

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