organization committed to fostering sophisticated, broadly inclusive political discourse and analysis on the nature of Mexico’s participation in the international arena and the relative influence of Mexico’s increasingly global orientation on domestic priorities. The Council is an independent, non-profit, pluralistic forum, with no government or institutional ties that is financed exclusively by membership dues and corporate support. The main objectives of COMEXI are to provide information and analysis of interest to our associates, as well as to create a solid institutional framework for the exchange of ideas concerning pressing world issues that affect our country.
Founded in 1976, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is Canada’s premier business association, with an outstanding record of achievement in matching entrepreneurial initiative with sound public policy choices. A not-for-profit, non-partisan organization composed of the chief executives of 150 leading Canadian enterprises, the CCCE was the Canadian private sector leader in the development and promotion of the Canada- United States Free Trade Agreement during the 1980s and of the subsequent trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement.
Minister Pedro Aspe
(Mexican co-chair)
Protego
Mr. Thomas S. Axworthy
Queen’s University
Ms. Heidi S. Cruz
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
Mr. Nelson W. Cunningham
Kissinger McLarty Associates
Mr. Thomas P. d’Aquino
(Canadian co-vice chair)
Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Mr. Alfonso de Angoitia
Grupo Televisa, S.A.
Dr. Luis de La Calle Pardo
De la Calle, Madrazo, Mancera, S.C.
Professor Wendy K. Dobson
University of Toronto
Dr. Robert A. Pastor (U.S. co-vice chair)
American University
Mr. Andres Rozental
(Mexican co-vice chair)
Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales
Dr. Richard A. Falkenrath
The Brookings Institution
Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro
Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico
Mr. Ramon Alberto
Montemedia
The Honorable Gordon D. Giffin
McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
Mr. Allan Gotlieb
Donner Canadian Foundation
Mr. Michael Hart
Norman Paterson School of International Affairs
Mr. Carlos Heredia
Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales
The Honorable Carla A. Hills
Hills & Company
Dr. Gary C. Hufbauer
Institute for International Economics
Dr. Luis Rubio
CIDAC
Dr. Jeffrey J. Schott
Institute for International Economics
Mr. Pierre Marc Johnson
Heenan Blaikie
The Honorable James R. Jones
Manatt Jones Global Strategies
Dr. Chappell H. Lawson (Task Force Director)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Honourable John P. Manley (Canadian co-chair)
McCarthy Tetrault
Mr. David McD. Mann
Cox Hanson O’Reilly Matheson
Ms. Doris M. Meissner
Migration Policy Institute
The Honorable Thomas M.T. Niles
Institute for International Economics
The Honorable William F. Weld (U.S. co-chair)
Leeds Weld & Co.
Mr. Raul H. Yzaguirre
Arizona State University
NOSTRADAMUS
Michael de Nostradame was born in Saint-Remy, France, in 1503, to a prosperous grain trader. The family had originally been Jewish but had converted to Christianity, which may explain Nostradame’s lifelong interest in Kabbala, the mystical branch of Judaism and inspiration for the Bible Code. After an early grounding in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, maths, science and astrology, Nostradame left home in 1522 to study medicine at Montpellier. For nearly two decades he practised as an apothecary, reputedly formulating a pill that warded off the plague, but in the late 1540s moved to Salon-de-Provenance where he began writing prophecies, usually late at night through meditation, with help from astrology, hallucinogens, and an “angelic spirit”. The prophecies, later collected in a work known as “The Centuries”, were deliberately couched in a cryptic style to prevent the religious authorities from understanding them. He maintained that people in a more enlightened, rational future age would interpret their true meaning.
Could the seer Nostradamus see into the future? His followers insist that Nostradamus foretold Napoleon and Hitler, both of which he labelled the anti-Christ. An anagram “Pau, Nay, Loron” almost spells Napoleon, who was indeed “an Emperor… born near Italy. Who shall cost the Empire dear.” Century 2 Quatrain 24, meanwhile, predicted that:
