NEW YORK (voa) – Police in New York City have closed down streets and erected concrete barricades in preparation for Thursday’s start of the World Economic Forum.
The five-day meeting will bring together heads of governments, corporate leaders and members of non-governmental agencies at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in mid-town New York.
Authorities have tightened security around the hotel, partly in an effort to prevent violent street clashes between police and protesters who have disrupted large international gatherings in recent years.
After more than three decades of holding the meeting in the Swiss resort town of Davos, the gathering was moved to New York to show support for the city after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
A counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, the World Social Forum of anti-globalization activists, also begins Thursday in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
