As correspondents rush between speakers, interviews and deadlines at the UN General Assembly, there was one event on the agenda that provoked a collective eye-roll.
François Hollande’s $1 billion pledge to the climate struggle on Tuesday is part of an ambitious drive by the French government to save the world from self destruction, with Environment Minister Ségolène Royal suggesting that nobody else is up to it.
As world leaders pour into New York for the United Nations General Assembly, mid- Manhattan has returned to its annual state of high-security labyrinth, entire blocks removed of tourists and overrun instead with badges, sunglasses and suits.
Unlike his predecessor Yasser Arafat, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas symbolises the interlocutor Benjamin Netanyahu most dreads: pragmatic, accountable and committed to nonviolence.
France is already the first tourist destination in the world, but the ministry of tourism is launching a new aggressive campaign to rebrand the country as a more welcoming holiday destination.
