The Dilemmas of Global Co-Existence
10th annual Forum 2000 Conference
October 8-10, 2006, Prague
The 10th annual Forum 2000 Conference is going to be held in Prague on October 8-10, 2006. Last year, a series was launched that was dedicated to the nature and meaning of the current conflicts that prevent peaceful coexistence of the international community. This year's conference will continue as part of that series.
The conference will take place over three days. The opening ceremony will take place on the evening of October 8 at Prague Crossroads, the former St Anne’s church in Prague’s Old Town. The working program of the conference will begin on the following day. It will be in the form of a plenary session divided into three panels. This part of the conference will take place at Žofin Palace.
The tentative themes of the conference panels are:
- Handling the Global Variety of Cultures, Ideologies and Religions
- Is Democracy an Answer on the Global Level?
- Human Rights Revisited
Along with the plenary session, a series of parallel events – roundtables, seminars, workshops, and exhibitions will be held. The main parallel roundtable will be titled Global Business, Global Responsibility? It will feature several global business leaders, CEOs of top multinational companies, as well as top business leaders from the region of Central and Eastern Europe.
A special session on Perception of Human Rights in the Developing World will also be held in the framework of the conference.
Among the delegates who have so far confirmed their participation in the conference are Boutros Boutros-Ghali - former UN Secretary General; Kim Campbell - former Prime Minister of Canada; Bronislaw Geremek - former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs; Zygmunt Bauman - sociologist and philosopher; Alyaksandar Milinkevich - opposition leader from Belarus; Ghassan Salamé - former Minister of Culture of Lebanon; Sir Frank Lampl - President of the global construction company, Bovis Lend Lease; Mary Robinson - former President of Ireland; Elie Wiesel - Nobel Peace Prize Laureate;Vartan Gregorian - President of Carnegie Corporation of New York; Vaira Vike-Freiberg - President of Latvia; André Glucksmann - French philosopher; Yohei Sasakawa - Chairman of Nippon Foundation; and Ernesto Zedillo - former President of Mexico
The fundamental part of the conference will be, on October 10, a roundtable in the framework of the Forum 2000 Interfaith Dialogue Project. HH the Dalai Lama, HRH El Hassan bin Talal, and other distinguished thought and spiritual leaders intend to participate in this roundtable -- “ The risks of globalization – Does religion offer a solution, or is it a part of the problem?”
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Forum 2000 Conference and the 70th birthday of Václav Havel, the Forum 2000 Foundation will organize a concert in cooperation with the Nippon Music Foundation. It will take place in the Church of Sts. Simon and Jude , on the evening of October 9. At this concert, entitled Encounter with Stradivari 2006, eleven top young musicians from various countries will perform on a set of original Stradivarius instruments.
A selection of photographs from the 10th Forum 2000 Conference
More photographs can be found in the Photogallery