President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych & Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan to open 9th Annual Yalta Meeting

The 9th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled “Ukraine and the World: Addressing Tomorrow’s Challenges Together”, organized by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, will take place in Yalta at the Livadia Palace, Ukraine, from 13^th to 16^th September 2012. More than 200 leaders from politics, business and society representing more than 20 countries will discuss major global challenges and their impact on Europe, Ukraine and the world.

The President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan will open the plenary part of the 9^th YES Annual Meeting by addressing participants of the gathering. The two leaders will discuss critical issues affecting the development of Ukraine and Turkey, as well as the future of a “Wider Europe” in the 21^st century. Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005) and Chairman of the Board of YES, will moderate the discourse.

The overarching topic of the 9^th Yalta Annual Meeting will be the key transformations that are already shaping the future of the world. Forum sessions will focus on the future of the world economy, on a new world order and its security, and on possible models for the development of capitalism. Special attention will be paid to the role of innovation and leadership in transforming the economy and society. Other topics for discussion include the future of the European Union, energy issues and the internal and external challenges facing Ukraine.

This year’s Yalta Annual Meeting will welcome, among others, the former president of the World Bank (2007-2012) Robert Zoellick; former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2007-2011) Dominique Strauss-Kahn; former Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation (2000-2011) Alexei Kudrin; the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule; Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations (2001-2007) and member of the Indian Parliament Shashi Tharoor; founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab Eugene Kaspersky, Senior Advisor on Innovation to the Secretary of State of the US Alec Ross; president and founder of the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University Eric Lander; Vice Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Kairat Kelimbetov; Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Carl Bildt; EU High Representative for CFSR (1999-2009) Javier Solana.

At the plenary discussions of the 9^th YES Annual Meeting, Ukraine will be represented by the Prime Minister Mykola Azarov; the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Valeriy Khoroshkovsky; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy Serhiy Tihipko; Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko; Minister of Energy of Ukraine Yuriy Boyko; Secretary of the National Defence and Security Council of Ukraine Andriy Klyuev.

For the very first time in the history of the YES Annual Meetings, an interactive lunch format will be introduced, during which event participants will be able to prepare questions to be addressed to the key speakers. The lunch discussion of the forthcoming presidential elections in the United States will take place on September 14, and an interactive lunch “The Future of Russia” will be held the following day, September 15.

Continuing to engage Ukrainian youth in the global debate within the Yalta Annual Meetings, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has again organized the participation of 50 Zavtra.UA and WorldWideStudies scholarship holders, selected through an open competition from over 1000 candidates all over Ukraine. Ukrainian students and young professionals will be able to follow the work of the forum and interact with its key speakers.

Chrystia Freeland, Digital Editor at Thomson Reuters will moderate discussions.

The 9th Yalta Annual Meeting will be streamed live on korrespondent.net in Ukrainian and on euronews.com and yes-ukraine.org in English.

The official Twitter of the 9th Yalta Annual Meeting: @yes_ukraine
Hash tag: #yalta2012

Special Partner:

DTEK

Partners:

ALFA-BANK (UKRAINE)
Shell
ONUR
Visa Inc.
International Renaissance Foundation 

Media-partners:

Euronews
ICTV
Korrespondent
Korrespondent.net
ERA FM

Yalta European Strategy (YES) is the largest social institution of public diplomacy in Eastern Europe, providing an open and equal dialogue on global issues affecting the European Union, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. This non-partisan organisation was established in 2004 by the Ukrainian businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk.

The YES Annual Meetings held in Yalta’s Livadia Palace have become an open platform to discuss and look for new ideas and views on paths to European, Ukrainian and global development. These meetings bring together over 200 politicians, diplomats, statesmen, journalists, analysts and business leaders from more than 20 countries.  The dialogue on global challenges broadens the vision on the situation inside Ukraine and the prospects for the country’s development in the modern world. It is also an incentive to find common ground between countries, common interests and values.

At the YES Annual Meetings the world's top opinion leaders present their visions of current and future trends which impact all spheres of life of society. In 2010 and 2011, the events were opened by Presidents Viktor Yanukovych, Bronislaw Komorowski and Shimon Peres. YES Annual Meetings key speakers have included Kofi Annan, Egemen Bagis, Carl Bildt, Tony Blair, Victor Vekselberg, James Wolfensohn, Sergei Glazyev, Bill Clinton, Andrei Kostin, Paul Krugman, Alexei Kudrin, Leonid Kuchma, Yuri Milner, Lawrence Summers, Radoslaw Sikorski, Javier Solana, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Strobe Talbott, Niall Ferguson, Vladimir Filat, Joschka Fischer, Stefan Fule, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Gerhard Schroeder and many others.

Official website: www.yes-ukraine.org

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation (www.pinchukfund.org) is an international, private, non-partisan and philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine. The Foundation was established in 2006 by businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk. Its goal is to empower future generations to become the change makers of tomorrow. To achieve this goal, it develops a variety of projects, builds partnerships in Ukraine and worldwide and invests in three main areas:

• in people, to boost human capital,
• in society, to promote social responsibility,
• in the world, to foster a more integrated world.

The projects of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation include the network of neonatal centres, Cradles of Hope, the largest private scholarship Program in Ukraine, Zavtra.UA, and the centre for contemporary art PinchukArtCentre. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Center and the Ukrainian Grant Makers Forum. It cooperates with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Brookings Institution, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and other non-governmental organisations.

Official website: www.pinchukfund.org

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