Leaders and former leaders of five states, 11 current and former prime-ministers, 25 current and former ministers and 40 top managers of international organizations, transnational corporations and businesses, 12 Nobel laureates and renowned scientists will gather at the V Astana Economic Forum to share their proposals for the development and improvement of the global economy. More than 6,000 delegates from 85 countries and more than 8000 active users of the G-Global communication platform from 143 countries around the world will participate in the discussion.

The need of constructive collaboration has been repeatedly said by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. Speaking from the rostrum of the solemn meeting in Astana to the world community on December 15, 2011, Nazarbayev said that “at the very beginning of 2009, in the midst of crisis, I took the initiative to the global financial reform.I have said that that light anti-crisis measures will not save the world from the waves of the growing crisis. The course of events has confirmed these words, no one has been able to offer the world anti-crisis plan, which would be adopted by consensus, unfortunately, the formats of the G-20, G-8 show the inefficiency – discussing of the world anti-crisis plan is not even started.”

The Kazakhstani leader has declared that there is a necessity to dramatically expand the number of participants in the anti-crisis solution, and has initiated the idea of ​​the G-Global communication platform, where the Astana Econimic Forum is a working platform for. The President was sure that Kazakhstan has a mandate to address G20 countries and integrity of the world community: Kazakhstan leads the worldwide “For a Nuclear-Free World” movement and is a member of the United Nations. “We have successfully chaired in the OSCE, held the first in the 21^st century the OSCE summit in Astana. This year we led the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. We have held congresses of the world religions. I listed those achievements, while initiating G-Global, because I am sure our offer will be heard,” concluded Mr. Nazarbayev. Obviously, the aim of the Kazakhstani Leader’s idea about formation of the G-Global is not simply increasing the number of participants in the development of anti-crisis measures, but the expansion of fundamentally different approaches to the reform of global finances. A qualitatively new approach of development will be discussed at the AEF, based on which the idea of ​​the Eurasian (world) “development” currency would be introduced.

Other important issues of the Forum are creation of a new model of strategic planning for transition to sustainable economy, global energy-ecological strategy, food security, “green economy”, alternative energy sources, and a single agricultural hub of the Customs Union countries. The opinions of respected experts and the best recommendations of regular citizens will be united by the Dialogue of Leaders – a council of top-ranked  officials of economics, business, politics and media – which is an exclusive event of the V AEF. At the end of the Forum the “Open Letter to G-20 countries” will be sent to the Organizing Committees of the G-8 and G-20, the UN, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Apparently, the two heads-of-state moved to a private area after having been on the stage at the G20 conference. One or both of their wireless microphones were allegedly left on for almost three minutes.

The conversation is reported to have immediately started on the topic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahou.

La conversation a ensuite dérivé sur Benyamin Nétanyahou, le Premier ministre israélien. Sûrs de ne pas être entendus, les deux présidents se sont lâchés. “Je ne peux plus le voir, c’est un menteur”, a lancé Sarkozy. “Tu en as marre de lui, mais moi, je dois traiter avec lui tous les jours !”, a rétorqué Obama..

Translated (my French being what it is):

The conversation next turned to Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister.  Thinking they would not be heard, the two presidents talked freely.  ”I can’t stand him, he is a liar”, began Sarkozy.  ”You think that’s tough, I have to deal with him every day!”, answered Obama..

Obama’s pushing-away of Israel is nothing new. His 1967 lines speech was the first obvious hint that he would not be taking sides with one of America’s most-trusted allies.

Sarkozy’s handling of Israel is not much better. In October, yNet published a story that revealed the French PM’s thoughts on Israel as a state:

“It is silly to talk about a Jewish state,” Sarkozy said while referring to the Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state. “It would be like saying that this table is Catholic. There are two million Arabs in Israel.”

To be consistent, there are a large number of Arabs in France, perhaps we will soon hear that France is also no longer a French state.

There are reports that say that the press agreed to keep the comments private due to their secret nature making corroboration difficult. The last paragraph of the Arret Sur Images post does say that they received independent confirmation of the quotes and that the journalists did indeed agree to not report on them.

CDNews has also not yet been able to ascertain what comment or fact that Sarkozy feels Netanyahu falsified.

update: Reuters is confirming the report about the open-mic, comments and the agreement by representatives of the press to keep it quiet.

The conversation was not initially reported by the small group of journalists who overheard it because it was considered private and off-the-record. But the comments have since emerged on French websites and can be confirmed by Reuters.