MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th September, 2019) The Russian resort city of Sochi will host a meeting of a prominent political forum, the Valdai Discussion Club, which will bring together high-profile politicians, lawmakers and top experts from across the globe, to discuss the topic "The Dawn of the East and the World Political Order."
The four-day forum, which will last from Monday through Thursday, features nine panel sessions and a plenary session, which will be attended by the Russian president Vladimir Putin, joined by the Philippines leader, Rodrigo Duterte, as well as King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Azerbaijani and Kazakh presidents.
Panel sessions will touch on the meeting's overarching theme - the questions about the influence of the East on the world order, and about a changing world where the role of Asia is growing and non-Western perspectives and political systems are coming to the fore.
The notable speakers of the forum include Egypt's assistant foreign minister for Arab affairs, Mohamed Elbadri, special adviser to the EU high representative for foreign affairs, Nathalie Tocci, former deputy UN special envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy and many others.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in a session dedicated to the middle East in the general context of Russia's policy on October 2.
A special session on the world energy markets, chaired by the OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo, along with the Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, will look into ways to avoid instability and ensure a balance of interests.
Other sessions will touch upon religious extremism and the way it impact politics, migration, and "Asia as a driver of growth or space for confrontation."
A session on Africa will expand on how strong population growth and national ambitions combined with increasingly bitter competition of external powers for economic opportunities make the continent a very dynamic and promising, but also highly explosive territory.
Within the framework of the annual meeting, participants are invited to the Valdai Discussion Club Award Ceremony on Monday, during which individual authors or a collective of experts will be awarded for a significant contribution to the understanding and explanation of changes and tendencies in global politics.
In 2017, Dominic Lieven, research professor at Cambridge University, was given the award for his scientific contribution to the study of Russian history.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. Over the years of its operation, more than 1,000 representatives of the international expert community, coming from 63 nations, attended the Club's meetings. The Club aims to promote political dialogue in order to strengthen peaceful conflict resolution, and provide analysis of economic and social developments globally.
