New York police in training exercises in case of protests against WEF
Additional Reporting Sohaib Gasem
GENEVA, Jan 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The president and the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Klaus Schwab said that the annual meeting of the Forum will be held in New York from January 31 to February 4.
He added that the Forum will be held in a place near to the site where the World Trade Center once stood.
The annual meeting will be attended by thousands of business and political leaders.
Schwab said that the organizers changed the agenda of the Forum after the Sep. 11 deadly attacks, adding that the meeting's 2002 banner will be "Leadership in Fragile Times: A Vision for a Shared Future."
The event was moved to New York to show solidarity with the world financial capital after the deadly attacks of September 11 on the U.S. and the reluctance of local Swiss authorities following violent anti-globalization demonstrations in and near the ski resort in recent years.
"Everybody told us it will be mission impossible, people will not come because we were at the height of the anthrax affair," Schwab said referring to the November 1 decision to shift the annual meeting.
"Everybody spoke about terrorist actions so everybody told us you will have a nice meeting but probably without participants," he told a news briefing in Geneva on Thursday.
The WEF's decision to hold the event in New York broke a 31-year tradition of staging it at the chic ski resort Davos in eastern Switzerland.
The Swiss government is expected to announce its decision on whether it will financially support the WEF's return to Davos next Wednesday although a WEF spokesman said about five other cities had offered to finance it already.
"I, Personally, and we as an institution are very committed to Davos," Schwab said adding the final decision would be taken by the WEF foundation board and made public on the last day of the annual meeting.
Three-thousand participants are expected to gather at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, including leading political figures from around the globe.
The Forum will also include an Inter-religious Dialogue, where 43 religious figures representing the world's major religions, will participates in the activities of the Forum for the first time.
The religious figures will hold a discussion workshop with 200 academic figures or an "Expert Group" which will focus on the world challenges after Sep. 11.
"Religious figures plays major role in different societies, we believe that the participation of religious figures will be valuable in our multi-party dialogue which we are holding to discuss the challenges on the international agenda," Schwab said.
The WEF, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent organization committed to improving the state of the world. Funded by the contributions of 1,000 of the world's foremost corporations, the Forum acts in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest to further economic growth and social progress.
The Forum serves its members and society by creating partnerships between and among business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society to define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda.
