French President Hosting African Summit
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: On to Paris now, where leaders from 52 African countries and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are being welcomed by French President Jacques Chirac. President Chirac's quest for support against U.S. war plans in Iraq will likely play into talks during the two-day summit. CNN's Gaven Morris joins us live from Paris. What can we expect from all of this -- Gaven?</s>GAVEN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, I can tell you that just a few moments ago, the formalities of the conference really opened. And we saw a speech from President Jacques Chirac very much focusing on those African issues, saying we need more trade, we need more economic ties, we need to solve conflict and poverty right across the continent. Kofi Annan then made a speech, and I must tell you, it was one of the more passionate speeches I've ever seen from Kofi Annan. He, of course, is from Ghana. He's an African himself and very concerned about the issues. He focused on AIDS in the continent, and said it really is a catastrophic crisis that is looming in Africa on AIDS. And I'll just give you one statistic before we move on to the other issues, but he said by 2010, there will be 20 million children in African who will have lost either one or both parents to that terrible disease. So, that's big on the agenda here, Carol. As you say, security also very big. They will talk later in the day about the international terror threat. They will also talk about, perhaps less informally, not so much on the agenda, but there's no doubt that with Kofi Annan here, with President Mubarak of Egypt, with President Chirac, Iraq will be a theme -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: But Chirac and Kofi Annan are pretty much on the same page about Iraq, right?</s>MORRIS: Well, President Chirac obviously has been one of the voices speaking out about more time for inspectors in Iraq, even to the extent of last week suggesting that he would not back at this point a second United Nations resolution. So, there is -- Kofi Annan won't mind that. I mean, he wants to see more activity going in the U.N. before any military action is launched. He's been doing a tour of Europe. He was with Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy yesterday. He obviously is much more hawkish, much more behind the U.S. position. So, there will be talks. As you say, they do agree on quite a lot in relation to where the diplomatic channels should go, and that may well provide more discussion from the U.S. about this Old Europe/New Europe shift -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Gaven Morris reporting live from Paris this morning. Many thanks to you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.