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Czech world conference
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> Thubten Samdup <cantibet@xxxxxxx>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Issue ID: 97/08/30 23:00 GMT Compiled by Thubten (Sam) Samdup
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Saturday, August 30, 1997
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Contents:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1. INTELLECTUALS (LA Times)
> Prague Hosts a Gathering of the Smart Set
> Next week, 60 big thinkers will descend on Czech capital. Spiritual
> and moral matters top agenda of millennium forum.
> 2. Senator Consiglio Di Nino's Letter to UVic President (CTC)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Los Angeles Times, Saturday, August 30, 1997
>
> By DEAN E. MURPHY, Times Staff Writer
>
> PRAGUE, Czech Republic--The approaching new millennium has gotten
> some people thinking. Where will be the best place to party? Will all
> those zeros make my computer crash? Should I be catching the next
> comet out of here?
>
> It has also gotten some people T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G--the I -think
> -therefore-I -am variety of rumination. What has mankind learned from
> its mistakes? How can we reconcile the victories of science with
> philosophical truth? What can we recommend for future civilizations?
>
> Next week, about 60 of the world's thinkers extraordinaire will
> convene here in the Czech capital at the invitation of Czech President
> Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel. It is
> unlikely they will dwell upon bookings for New Year's Eve, 1999. The
> agenda of Forum 2000 is as heady as its guest list is brainy.
>
> "This will be the task of the participants at Forum 2000: to
> review what we have learned about ourselves and each other and to
> propose alternatives for the future," Havel said in announcing the
> one-of-a-kind gathering.
>
> The chosen thinkers include Nobel laureates, authors,
> politicians, scientists, professors, journalists and members of the
> clergy. After abandoning the original notion of inviting only Nobel
> winners, Havel and Wiesel insisted there be no cookie-cutter criteria
> for participants, just a passion--and proven record--for thinking big.
> Ordinary Joes need not apply.
>
> The Dalai Lama, the religious leader of Tibet, is expected, as is
> Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ocean traveler of Kon-Tiki fame. Former
> Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and former South African President
> Frederik W. de Klerk have accepted invitations, as have author Wole
> Soyinka of Nigeria and Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan.
>
> Cancer and AIDS researcher Claude Jasmin is listed, as is
> American television journalist Ted Koppel. The guest list,
> conspicuously short on women, also includes futurist Hazel Henderson
> and Palestinian journalist Leila Shahid.
>
> "It is very appropriate that Vaclav Havel and Elie Wiesel, two of
> the leading moral figures of our time, are gathering an unusual
> combination of intellectuals, artists and statesmen to rise above the
> specific issues with which governments must grapple," said Jenonne
> Walker, the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and a former guest
> scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars--but
> not among the Forum 2000 participants.
>
> The three-day conference already has its share of no-shows.
> Microsoft boss Bill Gates has sent regrets, as have Mother Teresa,
> South African President Nelson Mandela, Russian author Alexander I.
> Solzhenitsyn, American writer Toni Morrison and former U.S. Secretary
> of State Henry A. Kissinger. Italian scholar Umberto Eco, an early
> yes, dropped out this week.
>
> Although organizers sent out invitations last fall to more than
> 100 "prominent personalities"--as Havel has characterized the guest
> list for the once-in-a-millennium opportunity--they were unable to
> avoid prior commitments by about half the invitees.
>
> "We've learned that some people have their schedules blocked two
> years in advance," said David Benar of the Bohemiae Foundation, one of
> several nonprofit sponsors of the conference.
>
> But if all goes well, there may be other opportunities, even
> during this millennium.
>
> Although nothing has been decided, Havel and Wiesel hope that
> participants will agree to a series of gatherings over the next two
> years. Organizers say they will be satisfied if next week's conference
> adjourns with a general consensus about the main issues--ethical,
> ideological and religious--confronting mankind, with specific
> prescriptions for the next millennium scheduled for later sessions.
>
> "This distinguished gathering is meant to be an opportunity to
> probe both our conscience and our memory," Wiesel wrote to the
> invitees.
> * * *
>
> The Big Think-In
>
> Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel have
> invited more than 60 prominent thinkers from around the world to gather next
> week in Prague to ponder the fate of mankind on the threshold of a new
> millennium.
>
> ON THE GUEST LIST
>
> Dalai Lama, spiritual leader
> Wole Soyinka, Nigerian author
> Shimon Peres, former Israeli leader
>
> * * *
>
> THE HOSTS
> Vaclav Havel, Czech president
> Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate
>
> * * *
>
> ON THE AGENDA
> * The world we have inherited: burdens, divisions, values, assets and
> visions
> * Our world today: spiritual, intellectual, political and socioeconomic
> harmonies, disharmonies and tensions
> * Hopes for the future: options, responsibilities and dilemmas in our
> quest for a better world
>
>