
The usual September parade of world leaders descending on New York City for the  opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly will be characterized this  year by the presence of some of the world's most controversial  leaders.
 
Likely to provoke the most ire this year will be Libyan leader  Muammar Gaddafi, who plans his first visit ever to the United States at a time  when his emergence from international isolation has been set back by the release  of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. Of the 270 people killed when  the New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up after taking off from London  in 1988, 189 were Americans.
 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also  plans to attend the UNGA session, as he has for the past four consecutive years,  but this time the visit comes on the heels of his disputed re-election and  subsequent state crackdown, and as an Obama administration deadline for  cooperation on the nuclear issue runs out the clock.
 
Adding to the  storm, Ahmadinejad has nominated as defense minister a man wanted by Argentina  and Interpol for his alleged role in the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish  community center in Buenos Aires.
The 2008 visit also saw five religious "peace" groups organize an interfaith  meeting with Ahmadinejad in a bid to "build bridges of peace and understanding."  Critics derided the event as naïve.
 
Other leaders hostile to the U.S.  who may attend this year's session opening on September 23 include Venezuelan  President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
 
Chavez  grabbed the headlines in 2006 when, addressing the General Assembly one day  after President Bush had spoken there, called the American president "the devil"  and said "it still smells of sulphur around here."
Also yet to confirm his attendance is Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 29  years, but over the past year under international pressure agreed to allow  opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to become prime minister.