Jordan Times
Friday, March 18, 2005
Jordan to host Nobel laureates' meeting
His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday announced
that many of the world's greatest thinkers will gather in the ancient city of
Petra in May for a conference of Nobel laureates.
Between 35 and 40 Nobel winners for chemistry, economics, literature, medicine,
peace, physics and physiology will be invited to address the world's most
pressing issues May 18-19, just ahead of the World Economic Forum summit in
Jordan.
In a joint statement with Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, King Abdullah
said the meeting will provide the “era's most prestigious thinkers” with a
“private, collegial setting to work on urgent issues and forge a new consensus
on solutions.”
The King stressed, however, that the problem was not “a lack of compassion.”
“Millions of people throughout the world want to help,” he said, citing the
overwhelming outpouring of support for victims of the recent Asian tsunami
disaster.
“What our global system needs are new tools to address the world's enduring
challenges,” he said. “And the most important tool is the one that begins it
all: Good ideas.”
Hailing the Petra conference as “the first step to a new partnership for
progress,” the King said the meeting “can help the world's best minds to help
the world's most vulnerable people.”
“Our century has seen tremendous advances. Yet vast numbers of people suffer
from humanity's oldest enemies: War, poverty, hunger, epidemic disease, despair.
The developing world is home to five of every six people on earth. A quarter of
them live in extreme poverty. Eleven million children younger than five die
every year — more than half from hunger-related causes,” the King said.
“Today, more than ever, we need creative minds to address the issues of the
age,” King Abdullah told reporters. “And one of the most urgent is this: How can
humanity know so much, achieve so much, and still fail so many people so badly?”
The conference will be held by the King Abdullah Development Fund in cooperation
with the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
“We are bringing together the best that humanity has,” said Wiesel, who
co-sponsored a similar conference of Nobel laureates in Paris in 1988, along
with then-French President Francois Mitterrand.
Wiesel, a writer who established his organisation after he won the prize in
1989, noted that more than 30 laureates had already signed on for the Petra
conference, but he declined to reveal names.
“This gathering is needed,” he said in promotional materials for the conference
released Thursday.
The foundation focuses on defending human rights and peace in the world. It also
calls for enhancing humanitarian interests and exchanging ideas and opinions
among researchers, artists, politicians and human rights activists.