Opening Day: Ego-Driven Decision-Makers and Peace Summit

opening day: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to address the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit Sept. 24, 2018, a day before the start of the General Debate of the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York, according to Toronto Star. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP/GETTY IMAGES Some, like his widow, Graca Machel, urged heads of state and UN officials to take on ego-driven decision-makers, political dogma and greed. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, the legacy of Mandela was front and centre throughout the assembly's opening day, whether at the unveiling of a statue in his grinning likeness or during a peace summit in his name, where a parade of leaders and dignitaries defended the values he came to represent. Others, like Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, made decidedly unsubtle references to U.S. President Donald Trump. Trudeau's brief remarks the speech clocked in at only three minutes were unflinchingly diplomatic, even as they hinted at the global perils chipping away at the post-war global world order, of which the UN's monolithic building at the edge of the East River remains a towering symbol. Great statesmen, Rouhani said, tend to build bridges instead of walls. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.