In nervous times, hope, fear and blogs

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/24/business/dwomen.php

By MARK LANDLER
Klaus Schwab, the Swiss professor and event planner who runs the World Economic Forum, does not complain, but the Bush administration has done him few favors lately.

Despite competition, the list of stars is long
By Mark Landler The New York Times

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006
DAVOS, Switzerland Klaus Schwab, the Swiss professor-cum-event planner who runs the World Economic Forum, is not about to complain, but the Bush administration has done him few favors lately.

First, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chose to skip the forum's annual conference, which started here Wednesday, citing the press of business at home. Then the White House invited the newly elected president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to visit Washington, giving her an excuse to bow out, too.

The participation of two black women at the top of their respective governments would have injected a jolt of electricity into an event that, for all its multicultural veneer, is still largely a white, male affair.

Still, Schwab, who has been gathering the great and good in this Alpine ski resort for three decades, is a realist.

"Unfortunately, we're in competition with the White House," he said by telephone Monday. "I know that Dr. Rice would have liked to have come. Sometimes internal political issues prevail."

Besides, Davos remains a high-altitude schmooze-fest of rare quality, with 2,340 people from 89 countries expected - among them a dozen heads of state, 77 cabinet ministers, 23 religious leaders, 13 union bosses, 735 chairmen or chief executives, and Angelina Jolie.

Jolie, the actress and United Nations good will ambassador, is a repeat guest, as is Bill Clinton, who is in the conference business, having organized the Clinton Global Initiative last September in New York. On Saturday, Clinton will take part in a dialogue with Schwab.

The atmosphere at Davos is a decent barometer of economic and political stability in the world, and this year, Schwab predicted, the mood will hover somewhere between hope and foreboding.

"If you look at national economic forecasts, there was a feeling that this would be a good year," he said. "Now, there are suddenly question marks. People are really concerned about what will happen."

Among the corporate titans who will try to make sense of these shifting winds are Bill Gates of Microsoft; Michael Dell of Dell Computer; Larry Page of Google; Richard Branson of the Virgin Group; Carlos Ghosn of Renault; and E. Neville Isdell, chief executive of Coca-Cola.

Davos will draw its share of world leaders, including Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ehud Olmert, Israel's acting prime minister, and others sent regrets.

On one level, Schwab said he was relieved that fewer leaders planned to attend this year. They usually demand their own speaking slots, he said, leaving less time for panels, which can be more illuminating.

"We had some criticism last year, particularly from the business community, that there were too many political statements," Schwab said. "This year, we wanted to put emphasis on interaction."

There will be plenty for participants to interact about: the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions; the prospects for Israel and Palestine after Ariel Sharon; Iraq's future, following its recent election; and the rise of China and India as economic powers.

The foreign ministers of Britain and Germany are scheduled to appear, a few days before a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, at which their countries are likely to push for Iran to be referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, following Tehran's decision to resume uranium enrichment activities.

The agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, is also expected, and will meet with Merkel. But Schwab said he did not invite Iranian officials because he did not feel there was scope for a genuine dialogue, a decision he conceded might bring criticism.

If Iran is absent from the conference, India will be all but ubiquitous - or, as its own marketing slogan puts it, "India Everywhere." It is bringing 41 chief executives and three top economics ministers, and plastering ads on buses in Davos that play up its democratic status.

China will have a more modest presence, with a handful of chief executives and a vice premier, Zeng Peiyan. That does not mean it will fade in importance as a topic.

"There's going to be a lot of discussion about the impact of China on the global economy," said Stephen Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley. He rejected the idea of an emerging rivalry. "What China is to manufacturing," he said, "India could be to services."

Roach cited the staying power of the American consumer as another major economic theme. With the housing market in the United States probably cresting, he said, the rest of the world can no longer count on the prolific spending of Americans to fuel the global economy.

Technology will dominate Davos as well, not least in the proliferation of Web logs, including one by The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, which will zealously document the goings on.

That poses a ticklish problem for the organizers. The conference is a mix of on-the-record and off-the-record sessions. But the spread of blogs has largely erased those distinctions, and people can quickly find themselves in hot water for remarks they make.

"The only way to deal with the situation is through trust," Schwab said. "We trust everybody to uphold the rules, but we can't police everything. We have to live with it, and hope for the best."