Hollywood actor Richard Gere joined some 30 Nobel Laureates yesterday for a gathering of the world's top thinkers in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra.
The conference, bringing together luminaries such as former peace prize winner the Dalai Lama, has set itself the none too modest task of finding solutions to the world's problems.
"A process begins here -- a process that all of you will shape -- and by your effort, help shape our world," host King Abdullah II of Jordan said in his opening speech.
Highlighting the conflict in the Middle East, he said the world needed to make a "new beginning" to create more freedom and opportunity, build peace and expand global cooperation, with a particular focus on the world's youth.
Gere, star of Pretty Woman and a close friend of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said the two-day meeting has "a lot of possibilities because the people who are meeting are not political, they have no agenda."
Former US president Bill Clinton is to join the gathering today.
Jordan's Finance Minister Bassem Awadallah said the conference -- hosted by King Abdullah and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel -- was aimed at bringing the best minds together to think about where the world is going.
"They are coming in from various disciplines in order to discuss issues because they believe the world is in real danger," he said.
Over the course of two days, the 29 laureates and other leaders will examine and try to find solutions for problems in four main areas, including terror and peace, economic development and poverty, health and environment, and education and media.
The conference is taking place amid centuries-old rose-colored ruins of Petra, a World Heritage Site some 200km south of the capital Amman.
It is being held just days ahead of a World Economic Forum summit on the banks of the Dead Sea in Jordan.
Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and writer, co-sponsored a similar conference in 1988, when French President Francois Mitterrand hosted some 75 Nobel laureates.
"Can we effect a change?" Wiesel said of this year's conference. "Can we bring about a `merger' between power and morality? We are on a runaway train hurtling toward the abyss. Do we have the determination to stop it? It will not be easy but we must, lest our past become our children's future."
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