Aspen – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani flew into Colorado late Thursday to attend a private, three-day conference of the powerful, rich and famous in Aspen.
Talabani’s arrival was first reported on KREX-TV 10 in Grand Junction. Talabani flew into Grand Junction’s Walker Field on a 757 jet at 7:30 p.m. and immediately departed in a motorcade consisting of more than 15 vehicles and an ambulance. The motorcade was spotted driving into Aspen a little more than two hours later.
The Iraqi president is speaking at the Forstmann Little conference’s noon luncheon today at the Maroon Creek Club. The conference is an offshoot of the New York-based leverage-buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co. The annual affair is strictly hush-hush and all discussions are off the record.
The conference began with an opening reception and dinner at the Hotel Jerome on Thursday night and attendees are scheduled to depart Sunday.
This morning Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, Yahoo Chairman and CEO Terry Semel, and Bharti Televentures Chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal discussed new media in a session moderated by PBS host Charlie Rose. That session was followed by a climate-change discussion with National Academy of Sciences President Dr. Ralph Cicerone, NASA’s Dr. James Hansen, MIT professor Richard Lindzen and American Meteorological Society senior fellow Robert Correll.
