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After some reflection I have decided that while I am the president of Ecuador, I will not attend any Summit of the Americas until it begins to make the decisions required.

A conference is a gathering of people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.

You can't run this nation like a town meeting.

I really do hope that the Millennium Summit gives new impetus to the work of the United Nations.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

There is one criticism which cannot be leveled at interparliamentary conferences but which is applicable to a great extent to peace congresses: the meetings waste time.

We cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together.

International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.