Davos-like atmosphere in Kazakhstan

ANKARA. April 27. KAZINFORM Bringing together prominent politicians, business leaders, academics and journalists from around the world, the event was an example of how our thoughts can be misleading. Many people would probably suspect that an intellectual conference on media in Kazakhstan would not attract much attention and, if it did, the speeches would be predominantly bureaucratic and boring. But that was not the case at all, Kazinform refers to Today's Zaman.
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The event was not much different in terms of its participants and atmosphere than the World Economic Forum held in Davos each year. Each year several key figures -- American geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, American diplomat Richard Holbrooke and former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, to name a few -- participate in the conference, which is co-chaired by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva. It was surprising to see the Kazakh president sit in the audience and watch the entire program, even after his daughter delivered her opening speech. The event, sponsored by the International Herald Tribune and CNN, was held at Kazakhstan's first five-star hotel, the Regent Ankara Hotel built by Turkish businessman Ahmet Ayan. Many interesting topics such as the global economic crisis, the search for a new capitalism, expectations from the new US administration, the conflict and failure of politics and the media in Georgia and Gaza and the booming blogosphere were discussed by the delegates. Many economists made a reference to President Nazarbayev's offer to switch to a new global currency system, which would be based on a single global monetary unit. Azerbaijan's Center for Strategic Research Director Эlhan Nuriyev drew attention with his statement that Azerbaijan had not been affected by the crisis as much as other countries because of the measures they implemented, Kazinform cites Today's Zaman. See full story at www.todayszaman.com.
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