30 January 2004

BARCELONA – Organisers began the countdown to the start of the Forum 2004 cultural festival Friday with only 100 days remaining.

On the same scale as the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, organisers of the Forum 2004 say they are offering a cultural encounter for people from across the world.

The Forum 2004 starts officially on May 10 and its central themes will be cultural diversity, sustainable development and finding the conditions for peace.

Headliners lined up for the 141-day event include Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Winner Shirin Edabi and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov and former US president Bill Clinton.

The festival, which lasts until September, will feature a huge range of concerts, shows, plays, dance performances and games for adults and children alike, organisers said Friday.

The cultural festival has seen the conversion of the north shore of one part of the city .

But most of the events will be concentrated in one 150,000 sq m area. 

Forum 2004 has met with criticism from those who feel it is simply an attempt for fashionable, First World Barcelona to cash in on a festival which is supposed to be about the Third World.

Members of the anti-globilisation movement feel it is a cynical attempt for Forum organisers and developers to make money.

The organisers have denied these allegations.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news