welcome welcome very much to conversations i want to have a little introduction to a special program that we're going to be airing today and that is a program that we taped july th two thousand and nine as it happens it's bastille day with a very special person being a president of senegal he's the president of the republic of senegal and we did a program with him here in new york where he was on a very very busy schedule much demands on his or his on his you know his  happy to be able to get something like fifty minutes of a program with him i would like to introduce him i was introduced to him by friends mutual friends we have in new york i was very happy to be introduced to the man and i would like to introduce him to  increase numbers of viewers within the united states of america he is the president of senegal a major country in west africa and he is also a bonafide serious  intellectual from all of his life's experience studied serious mathematics and physics and also other things he also took the law as is the case often with people that are in the political realm and but he's a true intellectual and you'll be able to be introduced to him and i think he's a major figure he's been involved with the movement citing  in senegal and he is a person that is been involved in a movement they had a major movement of insert in the country of libya over half of the presidents of that great continent gathered and they're in the stages of moving from the african union which has done a great deal toward unifying that continent toward the establishment of what is called the united states of africa it's serious getting in place now it's a major movement many naysayers of course but it's a major movement and he's been involved in that all of his life he's been a democratically inclined political leader and senegal was in opposition for a while and now is in that position and he is now he was at the g eight meeting recently where he did have a chance to meet our president obama he's met with others and he also is a  person who is helping to anchor that movement toward a united states of africa which is meeting was held in libya and moammar gadhafi and his assistant ali trache are actively pursuing that very important development involving that very important part of the world we were able to do this program with him and he also is an economist i could just show you quickly a serious economist a mathematician there's a major tome here that he's written among many others he's had nineteen degrees in varying disciplines across the template and he's a very  charismatic person will try to get a picture of this is a picture of him and he is a serious anchor to this idea this being a merge it is emerging in the continent of africa now so we wanted to introduce you to him he as i say did right from his knowledge along the lines those of you in economics along the lines of econometrics lawrence klein and that sort of thinking but mathematically understanding economics from a very comprehensive projection perception and also with a great deal of firsthand understanding of the developing world and he had written among other things they call it a bouquet obama which is his suggestions and we're going to be making that available for addressing from particular reference to the developing world the current economic crisis that confronts the world economy a major not only political leader perhaps for my perceptive perception more significant a genuine major intellectual on the world scale i'm very happy to a measurement a very happy to help introduce him to the american audience without further the country of senegal he's in new york city i were very fortunate to be able to find he find time in his schedule for us to talk to him about that very important country his own experience and also about wider developments within the continent of africa which seem to be moving very very rapidly and very major new directions and he's a familiar with that and the president was welcomed very very much conversations i wonder if you m share your own personal background where you were born and raised a little of your education and then we could talk about the country of senegal helps familiarize the american people viewing with would you have someone with an economics deal that you were you that inspired you in terms of understanding economics i don't know lars klein or or a kind spreading good word and i understand congratulations truly on understanding that so you had a very wide circle why why did increase at your scholar and that's very interesting could you share a little bit of your political wondering if again i apologize for not having been to that very important part of the world south of the sahara africa and i'm not very familiar there were the colonial experiences and it was that very different in s interested in the pan african view it's a very large view it's had difficulty and realization perhaps it's emerging now one would hope but it's had a difficult time trying to develop our pan african president  because you have fifty four different countries i understand if you take in the countries to the north that's the whole of the african continent city and they've been dyed divided and they probably should be united but it's been it's a difficult thing to try think there was something also in ninety four wasn't there a unity meeting in ninety four was it in nairobi or something i'm not sure but it was a major development there was a road that was developing and i congratulate you on having a pioneer in that yes indeed a good deal of africa is unfortunately and they shouldn't be they should be able to well feed themselves a good deal of the world we used to import six hundred thousand tons of rice from some of the eastern yeah yeah yeah yeah he's been very he was i think one of four graduate university graduates with and made the revolution in one thousand nine hundred and fifty nine and he's a very good friend of mine i'm happy to say and have known him yes thank you please give me best regards if you do we've done maybe assembly for the upcoming season and he tells me we did a program a couple weeks ago he was in new york for that and he told me that for the st time ever more market daffy is going to come to new york to address the general assembly this  and they've been very instrumental in helping to bring about and advance the idea of the united states of africa as a reality it's a huge idea what are your your assessment  presidents who attended the last meeting and there was good serious talk about laying the groundwork seriously for such an entity to emerge in the time ahead no no no  old concrete in the country that's what you did yeah that's a major that's a major that's a major development on a historic development i congratulate you on your contributing and and holding with that idea very very long period of time out of you know in in the past and so forth and i think people become more aware of that and i can i'm very pleased user i wonder if i could ask you are you very mean thank you i appreciate that very much