General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Defence Minister, attended yesterday the charity gala dinner organised by the Science, Technology and Arts Royal Summit (Stars) at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, founder and chairperson of the non-profit and non-governmental Queen Rania Jordan River Foundation, and former U.S. president, William Jeffersen Clinton, attended the event as guests of honour.

In her speech on the occasion, Queen Rania said Jordan thanked the emirates for organising such charity events and expected better performance of the Jordanian economy the current year.
She expected Jordan to achieve a healthy four per cent growth in GDP during 2002.

"During a very difficult 2001, Jordan's stock market witnessed a 30 per cent appreciation, our exports have increased 21 per cent, our foreign reserves are at an all time high and our national debt is down."

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman of Emirates, receiving Clinton on arrival in Dubai yesterday. - Picture: WAM
Jordan has built a transparent platform for a private-public sector dialogue and formulated an actionable plan for the future, which is endorsed by the international community. "It is important to promote itself as a national and an international partnership.

"The region is going through a turbulent time that requires considerable reflection and soul searching. A time that made it crucial for us to come together and devise new strategies to overcome challenges that have faced our nation."

To develop an innovative perspective on economic reforms, King Abdullah established the Economic Consultative Council with a membership of 20 private and public sector representatives, she added.

King Abdullah, she noted, embarked on a programme to build IT community centres in the most impoverished and remote areas of Jordan. This was done for children and even the elderly, allowing them to be active members of the global village whose voices are heard.

"Reactions were different. Some viewed it as inattentive to the real needs of the underprivileged - better shelter, more food on the table and higher wages.

"In their eyes, creativity, knowledge, technology, logic and the ability to leapfrog is the space of the well-to-do and their space alone. This odd phenomenon is perhaps the new and brave face of 21st century elitism."


Queen Rania addressing the Stars gala dinner.
Queen Rania said the region's people's response towards everyday political challenges made them reach out for the shining stars of the 20th century - Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

"More of us are becoming inspired by their notions of activism, non-violence, dialogue and their heroic battles to occupy the higher moral ground.

"I am hopeful that more of us and of our foes will abandon that catastrophic reach for the lowest common denominators of hate, vengefulness, violence and counter-violence. In an age of smart-cards, systems and technology, the time has come for all of us to adopt smart ideology."

Through her extensive work with children, Queen Rania has become a great believer that God has delegated children to be the guiding light. "They are the symbol of hope, optimism, and our unquenchable desire for a better future."

In his speech, Clinton said pushed for a "shared future" in a world free of ancient hatred.

"Success requires a realisation of our own interdependence and a strong commitment to a shared future," he said. "(But) it's one thing to talk about our shared future and it's quite another to convince people to enable to achieve that sort of future."

Clinton also stressed that the digital, political, economic and religious divides have to be bridged because the only possible alternative is to virtually allow "the marriage of modern weapons to ancient hatreds".

"We must work for the sharing of benefits and burdens of the 21st century. In order to realise the vision that we all here celebrate tonight, we all have to change. The poor people of the world cannot be led by people who find redemption in the destruction of others," Clinton said.


Clinton addressing the Stars gala dinner.
The two-time U.S. president also renewed calls for another debt relief to poor countries, support for micro-lending, more concerted effort in the global fight against AIDS and the opening of the rich countries' markets to products made in the Third World as some of the pillars of his vision for a "shared future".

Clinton also admitted that America is not always right - or is not the sole bearer of truth - when it comes to the burning global issues. "Technology and money can never replace whatever truth is in the heart. Life is a journey that allows us to learn from everyone else."

With an urgent message to help the children in poor countries, Clinton cited a yawning education gap in which 100 million children in poorer parts of the world have no access to basic education.

"We must bridge the divide, for all the nice things that is said here - we can do more with technology to empower the poor, to fight the health crisis. But we must relate to each other on the human level," he said.

Amr Dabbagh, Chairman of the foundation announced the winners including the corporations Microsoft, IBM, WS Atkins, The Human Genome Project and the Frunhaufer Institute whose inventions are as diverse as Windows, the PC, mapping the Human Genome Project and the Burj Al Arab.

Individual winners include Larry Elison, Nelson Mandela, Tim Berners-Lee, Linus Torvalds, the Wachowski Brothers, David Bowie, Philip K. Dick, Jean Paul Gaultier who have impacted on human experience by bringing the Internet, films, music albums, groundbreaking novels, and in Nelson Mandela's case politically liberating a nation and its children.

Dabbagh said Stars Foundation was all about to help the children of the world. "Now more than ever before, it is important that we look to the future and to our children," he added.