Belarus’ international media forum opens in Minsk

MINSK, 28 May (BelTA) – The 7th Belarusian international media forum Partnership for the Future: New Era Models, opens in Minsk today, BelTA has learnt.

The forum will gather over 100 participants from 16 countries. Among the invitees are experts, political scientists, economists, leading media figures of the Commonwealth, the Baltics, Cuba, China, India, Venezuela.

On 28 May the participants of the media forum will meet with Sports and Tourism Minister of Belarus Oleg Kachan, Minsk Mayor Nikolai Ladutko and Chairman of the Architecture and Town-Planning Committee Alexander Petrov to discuss Minsk preparations to host the 2014 IIHF World Championship. The participants of the forum will be given a tour of the National Academy of Sciences and the High-Tech Park. The 15th session of the Council of Heads of the CIS State News Agencies on 28 May will give a start to the International Festival of TV Programs.

On 29 May the National Library of Belarus will host a plenary session with the following themes: Eurasia New Geopolitics, Integration as a Factor of Economic Development, Media Sphere: Challenges and Trends.

The Summer School of Journalists will be hosted by the Journalism Institute of the Belarusian State University on 30 May. The media forum will be over on 31 May with a project, 2012 – the Year of Book, to mark the 130th anniversary of Belarusian poets Yakub Kolas and Yanka Kupala. The forum participants will visit the Yakub Kolas Museum in Minsk and the Yanka Kupala Museum in the village of Vyazynka.

The Belarusian international media forum is a traditional platform for discussions, exchange of opinions and new ideas between experts and media community of the CIS and non-CIS countries. This year the forum will highlight the most important issues connected with new geopolitical realities: the development of the Union State, the Single Economic Space of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, the impact of integration processes on the development of sovereign states, the role of mass media.

The organizers of the event are the Information Ministry of Belarus, the Union State Permanent Committee, the CIS Interstate Fund of Humanitarian Cooperation, the Belarusian Union of Journalists.