Thursday the next Bilderberg meeting will be held at Hotel des Iles Borromees - Corso Umberto I, 67 - 28838 Stresa - ITALY

The meetings now take place by informal rotation in countries of the Atlantic community.

Some 100 or more attend, by invitation of a steering committee. The meetings happen once a year, in the spring. They last 2.5 days (Thursday night until Sunday lunch) and are held in varying but always comfortable surroundings. A mixture of able and distinguished folk attend - a sprinkling of serving prime and cabinet ministers, central-bank governors, defence and other experts. They talk, often to galvanising and fascinating effect, about the main issues of the day - East-West relations, arms control, deficits, debt, the Falklands, sanctions, whatever. Their thoughts may not be repeated outside the meetings and never are. This frustrates outsiders but helps 100 great and good people be frank with each other, as does the fact that Bilderberg members are limited to people of NATO and West European countries who know how to be kind or rude to each other without causing such misunderstandings as would occur if Indians, Fijians, Africans, Chinese or Japanese were also present.

For curious who wants the reports...