WORLD NEWS | 120 leaders invited to Biden’s second democracy summit

WASHINGTON, March 23 (AP) — The Biden administration has extended invitations to 120 global leaders to attend a summit on democracy next week, including representatives from eight countries that were not invited to the inaugural White House summit in 2021.

That was according to a senior administration official who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the invitation, which has not been released publicly.

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Countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gambia, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Liechtenstein, Mauritania, Mozambique and Tanzania have been invited to this year’s summit after being excluded from the invitation list for the 2021 summit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to join Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday for a pre-summit event focused on Ukraine.

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This year’s summit will be held next Wednesday and Thursday. It will be co-hosted by the governments of Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia. The first day of the summit will be virtual, followed by hybrid gatherings in each host country, with representatives from government, civil society and the private sector.

The world has changed dramatically since the December 2021 summit, as countries emerged from a global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s largest war since World War II, devastated Eastern European nations and disrupted the global economy.

The president will seek to demonstrate that the events of the past year have made clear that democratic government — based on the rule of law and the will of the governed — remains the best system for promoting prosperity and peace — though it is often chaotic. , according to White House officials.

Biden originally floated the idea of ​​a democracy summit during his 2020 campaign, and has repeatedly said the U.S. and like-minded allies need to show the world that democracy is a better vehicle for society than dictatorship. (Associated Press)

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