Venerable monks, Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First I would like to do as all other speakers have done this morning and that is to extend my great thanks to the Center for Social Development and the Asian Development Bank for showing the initiative to hold this extremely important conference and discussion on the issues of transparency and corruption. In the spirit of transparency, I am going to speak extremely frankly this morning. I am going to use words and say things that frankly are usually not said by diplomats. I am going to speak more directly and with less circumlocution than diplomats are normally used to do…