Heads Of State

Monday was the day of the power lunch. At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, President Jiang Zemin of China addressed 600 dignitaries. In Hyde Park, N.Y., President Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin dined on loin of venison and some heavy conversation. All across Manhattan, wailing sirens signaled the arrival of another world leader at this lunch or that.

The 50th anniversary celebration of the United Nations developed in its second day Monday into a grand diplomatic smorgasbord as the world's leaders skipped from speeches in the General Assembly to private meetings with their cohorts, encounters with the press and special New York City events. The presidents and prime ministers, kings and lesser lights chose from a bewildering array of possible activities.

More than 180 kings, princes, presidents, prime ministers and other national leaders, representing virtually every country on the globe, converged on New York on Saturday for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the United Nations. The leaders, from the president of China (population 1.2 billion) to the co-regents of San Marino (population 20,000), will assemble in one place this morning for a series of speeches at the U.N.

President Clinton, opening a glittering celebration of the United Nations' 50th anniversary, told Americans on Sunday that they should support the often-scorned organization because it can help solve global problems of crime, terrorism and environmental damage that strike close to home. "We still need the United Nations," Clinton said in a speech to more than 180 world leaders, from Russian President Boris N.

The largest gathering of world leaders in history converged Sunday on the United Nations for a 50th birthday bash of King Kong proportions, a show that would have closed down almost any other city in the world. Here in the Big Apple, though, with not an empty bed among the city's 59,000 hotel rooms and security tighter than the glove in the O.J.

Despite attempts by Washington and New York officialdom to turn him into the Invisible Man, the irrepressible Fidel Castro emerged Sunday as one of the celebrities of the United Nations' 50th birthday celebration. President Clinton and New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pointedly left the Cuban president off the invitation lists for their receptions and dinners. But an untroubled Castro grabbed attention anyway by meeting with U.S.

The largest assemblage of international leaders in history closed the United Nations' 50th birthday celebration Tuesday with a declaration that the leaders "will work with renewed vigor and effectiveness in promoting peace, development, equality and justice and understanding among the peoples of the world." With the United Nations under much criticism from many quarters, the declaration was a far more prosaic document than the resounding preamble that U.S.

If this story turned up on daytime TV, audiences would never believe it: The reformist president of France, on the rebound from his October divorce, is about take a new wife -- an Italian tire heiress and former supermodel who looks a lot like the ex, and who dated Eric Clapton, whom she dumped for Mick Jagger when he was still married to Jerry Hall, and who later married a long-haired French intellectual nearly 10 years her junior after living with his father, nearly 20 years her senior.

The president of France did not say he was going to get married to his new love. But he did not rule it out. What President Nicolas Sarkozy did confirm Tuesday was that his relationship with Carla Bruni, a former supermodel turned folk singer, was "serious," and that if they were to marry the news media would not be involved. "There are strong chances you will learn of it once it's done," Sarkozy told nearly 600 journalists during the annual New Year's news conference at the Elysee Palace.

He married her; he married her not. He married her; he married her not. He married her? France's rumor de jour is that First Bachelor Nicolas Sarkozy has done just what he said he'd do if he decided to marry his fetching former-supermodel girlfriend, Carla Bruni: He'd keep it a secret. "There are strong chances you will learn of it once it's done," Sarkozy told 600 reporters at a news conference a week ago after acknowledging that he'd gotten "serious" with his girlfriend of two months.