Many of the world's leading thinkers, writers, Nobel prize winners, politicians and academics are meeting at the Castle in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, from October 11 to 14, 1998 for the second Forum 2000 conference. Czech President Vaclav Havel and the Nippon Foundation are sponsoring the conference. This year's theme is "Globalization: Experiences, Instruments, Procedures."
Leaders attending include Jordan's Crown Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Nobel Literature Prize winner Wole Soyinka, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty offers daily coverage on this page. The three-day conference is devoted to the following themes:
Day One: Discussion of current political systems and patterns of governance in different parts of the world and in the world as a whole.
Day Two: Discussion of economy and problems of globalisation as well as national, state and regional global interests.
Day Three: Concentrating on human rights, spiritual, ethical and cultural dimension of contemporary civilization. |
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| Havel Says Conference Should Serve As Inspiration |
| Zefzaf Voices Islamic Opinions |
| Speakers Ambivalent About Globalization |
| Wei Continues To Work For Democracy In China |
| Rabbi Says Humans All In One Boat |
| Hillary Clinton Urges Changes In Attitudes |
| Participants Call For Global Leadership |
| News Briefs From The Conference On Globalization |
| Prominent Conference Participants Tackle Globalization |
| Kissinger Questions Goals In Kosovo |
| Heard at the Castle... |
| "Outside their countries, (Western nations) applied imperialism and used it as an instrument of exploitation, subjugation and looting of wealth. And they used weapons of destruction against peace-loving nations whom they deprived of their riches and cast into ignorance, poverty and backwardness." |
| Fawzy Fadel El Zefzaf, president of the Al Azhar Permanent Committee of Dialogue Among Scriptural Religions and a source of Islamic perspective at Forum 2000, noting that, historically, actions of Western nations beyond their own borders often fell astonishingly short of their words at home. |
| "The Communist Party has done nothing concrete to improve the human rights situation in China. It has not changed any laws for the better. The pattern of violations is the same as it was 10 years ago." |
| Wei Jingsheng, a Chinese dissident, on human rights as a universal concept. |
| We don't understand what the animals understood in Noah's Ark." |
| Meir Lau, Israel's chief rabbi, stressing that humans have common enemies in bloodshed, disease and starvation. |
| "We already recognize that we have global neighbors, but we haven't yet decided to build a global neighborhood." |
| Hillary Clinton, the wife of U.S. President Bill Clinton, on globalization. |
| "To take responsibility for world globalization, each one of us must start with himself." |
| Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, on how to avert the many threats facing the world. |
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