From someone who knows someone who writes for Newsday.
Joanna
>Hi Guys.
>
>OK, hard to believe, but true. Yours truely has been hobnobbing with the
>ruling class.
>
>I spent a week in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. I was
>awarded a special pass which allowed me full access to not only the
>entire official meeting, but also private dinners with the likes the
>head of the Saudi Secret Police, presidents of various insundry
>countries, your Fortune 500 CEOS and the leaders of the most important
>NGOs in the world. This was not typical press access. It was full-on,
>unfettered, class A hobnobbing.
>
>Davos, I discovered, is a breathtakingly beautiful spot, unlike anything
>I'd ever experienced. Nestled high in the Swiss Alps, it's a three hours
>train ride from Zurich that finds you climbing steadily through
>snow-laden mountains that bring to mind Heidi and Audrey Hepburn (as in
>the opening scenes of "Charade"). The EXTREMELY powerful arrive by
>helicopter. The moderately powerful take the first class train. The NGOs
>and we mere mortals reach heaven via coach train or a conference bus.
>Once in Europe's bit of heaven conferees are scattered in hotels that
>range from B&B to ultra luxury 5-stars, all of which are located along
>one of only three streets that bisect the idyllic village of some 13,000
>permanent residents.
>
>Local Davos folks are fanatic about skiing, and the slopes are literally
>a 5-15 minute bus ride away, depending on which astounding downhill you
>care to try. I don't know how, so rather than come home in a full body
>cast I merely watched.
>
>This sweet little chalet village was during the WEF packed with about
>3000 delegates and press, some 1000 Swiss police, another 400 Swiss
>soldiers, numerous tanks and armored personnel carriers, gigantic rolls
>of coiled barbed wire that gracefully cascaded down snow-covered
>hillsides, missile launchers and assorted other tools of the national
>security trade. The security precautions did not, of course, stop there.
>Every single person who planned to enter the conference site had special
>electronic badges which, upon being swiped across a reading pad,
>produced a computer screen filled color portrait of the attendee, along
>with his/her vital statistics. These were swiped and scrutinized by
>soldiers and police every few minutes -- any time one passed through a
>door, basically. The whole system was connected to handheld wireless
>communication devices made by HP, which were issued to all VIPs. I got
>one. Very cool, except when they crashed. Which, of course, they did
>frequently. These devices supplied every imagineable piece of
>information one could want about the conference, your fellow delegates,
>Davos, the world news, etc. And they were emailing devices --- all
>emails being monitored, of course, by Swiss cops.
>
>Antiglobalization folks didn't stand a chance. Nor did Al Qaeda. After
>all, if someone managed to take out Davos during WEF week the world
>would basically lose a fair chunk of its ruling and governing class
>POOF, just like that. So security was the name of the game. Metal
>detectors, X-ray machines, shivering soldiers standing in blizzards,
>etc.
>
>Overall, here is what I learned about the state of our world:
>
>- I was in a dinner with heads of Saudi and German FBI, plus the
>foreign minister of Afghanistan. They all said that at its peak Al Qaeda
>had 70,000 members. Only 10% of them were trained in terrorism -- the
>rest were military recruits. Of that 7000, they say all but about 200
>are dead or in jail.
>
>- But Al Qaeda, they say, is like a brand which has been heavily
>franchised. And nobody knows how many unofficial franchises have been
>spawned since 9/11.
>
>- The global economy is in very very very very bad shape. Last year
>when WEF met here in New York all I heard was, "Yeah, it's bad, but
>recovery is right around the corner". This year "recovery" was a word
>never uttered. Fear was palpable -- fear of enormous fiscal hysteria.
>The watchwords were "deflation", "long term stagnation" and "collapse of
>the dollar". All of this is without war.
>
>- If the U.S. unilaterally goes to war, and it is anything short of a
>quick surgical strike (lasting less than 30 days), the economists were
>all predicting extreme economic gloom: falling dollar value, rising spot
>market oil prices, the Fed pushing interest rates down towards zero with
>resulting increase in national debt, severe trouble in all countries
>whose currency is guaranteed agains the dollar (which is just about
>everybody except the EU), a near cessation of all development and
>humanitarian programs for poor countries. Very few economists or
>ministers of finance predicted the world getting out of that economic
>funk for minimally five-10 years, once the downward spiral ensues.
>
>- Not surprisingly, the business community was in no mood to hear about
>a war in Iraq. Except for diehard American Republicans, a few Brit
>Tories and some Middle East folks the WEF was in a foul, angry
>anti-American mood. Last year the WEF was a lovefest for America. This
>year the mood was so ugly that it reminded me of what it felt like to be
>an American overseas in the Reagan years. The rich -- whether they are
>French or Chinese or just about anybody -- are livid about the Iraq
>crisis primarily because they believe it will sink their financial
>fortunes.
>
>- Plenty are also infuriated because they disagree on policy grounds. I
>learned a great deal. It goes FAR beyond the sorts of questions one
>hears raised by demonstrators and in UN debates. For example:
>
>- If Al Qaeda is down to merely 200 terrorists cadres and a
>handful of wannabe franchises, what's all the fuss?
>
>- The Middle East situation has never been worse. All hope for a
>settlement between Israel and Palestine seems to have evaporated. The
>energy should be focused on placing painful financial pressure on all
>sides in that fight, forcing them to the negotiating table. Otherwise,
>the ME may well explode. The war in Iraq is at best a distraction from
>that core issue, at worst may aggravate it. Jordan's Queen Rania spoke
>of the "desperate search for hope".
>
>- Serious Islamic leaders (e.g. the King of Jordan, the Prime
>Minster of Malaysia, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia) believe that the Islamic
>world must recapture the glory days of 12-13th C Islam. That means
>finding tolerance and building great education institutions and places
>of learning. The King was passionate on the subject. It also means
>freedom of movement and speech within and among the Islamic nations.
>And, most importantly to the WEF, it means flourishing free trade and
>support for entrepeneurs with minimal state regulation. (However, there
>were also several Middle East respresentatives who argued precisely the
>opposite. They believe bringing down Saddam Hussein and then pushing the
>Israel/Palestine issue could actually result in a Golden Age for Arab
>Islam.)
>
>- US unilateralism is seen as arrogant, bullyish. If the U.S.
>cannot behave in partnership with its allies -- especially the Europeans
>-- it risks not only political alliance but BUSINESS, as well. Company
>leaders argued that they would rather not have to deal with US
>government attitudes about all sorts of multilateral treaties (climate
>change, intellectual property, rights of children, etc.) -- it's easier
>to just do business in countries whose governments agree with yours. And
>it's cheaper, in the long run, because the regulatory envornments match.
>War against Iraq is seen as just another example of the unilateralism.
>
>- For a minority of the participants there was another layer of
>AntiAmericanism that focused on moralisms and religion. I often heard
>delegates complain that the US "opposes the rights of children", because
>we block all treaties and UN efforts that would support sex education
>and condom access for children and teens. They spoke of sex education as
>a "right". Similarly, there was a decidedly mixed feeling about
>Ashcroft, who addressed the conference. I attended a small lunch with
>Ashcroft, and observed Ralph Reed and other prominent Christian
>fundamentalists working the room and bowing their heads before eating.
>The rest of the world's elite finds this American Christian behavior at
>least as uncomfortable as it does Moslem or Hindu fundamentalist
>behavior. They find it awkward every time a US representative refers to
>"faith-based" programs. It's different from how it makes non-Christian
>Americans feel -- these folks experience it as downright embarrassing.
>
>- When Colin Powell gave the speech of his life, trying to win
>over the nonAmerican delegates, the sharpest attack on his comments came
>not from Amnesty International or some Islamic representative -- it came
>from the head of the largest bank in the Netherlands!
>
>I learned that the only economy about which there is much enthusiasm is
>China, which was responsible for 77% of the global GDP growth in 2002.
>But the honcho of the Bank of China, Zhu Min, said that fantastic growth
>could slow to a crawl if China cannot solve its rural/urban problem.
>Currently 400 million Chinese are urbanites, and their average income is
>16 times that of the 900 million rural residents. Zhu argued China must
>urbanize nearly a billion people in ten years!
>
>I learned that the US economy is the primary drag on the global economy,
>and only a handful of nations have sufficient internal growth to thrive
>when the US is stagnating.
>
>The WEF was overwhelmed by talk of security, with fears of terrorism,
>computer and copyright theft, assassination and global instability
>dominating almost every discussion.
>
>I learned from American security and military speakers that, "We need
>to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but
>preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a
>campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."
>
>The mood was very grim. Almost no parties, little fun. If it hadn't been
>for the South Africans -- party animals every one of them -- I'd never
>have danced. Thankfully, the South Africans staged a helluva party, with
>Jimmy Dludlu's band rocking until 3am and Stellenbosch wines pouring
>freely, glass after glass after glass....
>
>These WEF folks are freaked out. They see very bad economics ahead, war,
>and more terrorism. About 10% of the sessions were about terrorism, and
>it's heavy stuff. One session costed out what another 9/11-type attack
>would do to global markets, predicting a far, far worse impact due to
>the "second hit" effect -- a second hit that would prove all the world's
>post-9/11 security efforts had failed. Another costed out in detail what
>this, or that, war scenario would do to spot oil prices. Russian speakers
>argued that "failed
>nations" were spawning terrorists --- code for saying, "we hate
>Chechnya". Entire sessions were devoted to arguing which poses the
>greater asymmetric threat: nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
>
>Finally, who are these guys? I actually enjoyed a lot of my
>conversations, and found many of the leaders and rich quite charming and
>remarkably candid. Some dressed elegantly, no matter how bitter cold and
>snowy it was, but most seemed quite happy in ski clothes or casual
>attire. Women wearing pants was perfectly acceptable, and the elite is
>sufficiently
>Multicultural that even the suit and tie lacks a sense of dominance.
>Watching Bill Clinton address the conference while sitting in the hotel
>room of the President of Mozambique -- we were viewing it on closed
>circuit TV -- I got juicy blow-by=blow analysis of US foreign policy
>from a remarkably candid head of state. A day spent with Bill Gates
>turned out to be fascinating and fun. I found the CEO of Heinekin
>hilarious, and George Soros proved quite earnest about confronting AIDS.
>Vicente Fox -- who I had breakfast with -- proved sexy and smart like a
>--- well, a fox. David Stern (Chair of the NBA) ran up and gave me a
>hug.
>
>The world isn't run by a clever cabal. It's run by about 5,000
>bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who
>are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal
>power. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive --
>especially about science and technology. All of them are financially
>wise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stock
>investing. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happy
>if the global political system behaved far more rationally -- better for
>the bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn to
>nearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysis
>to be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. They
>have a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDS
>pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They are
>comfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though white
>caucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-tech
>gadgets and are glued to their cell phones.
>
>Welcome to Earth: meet the leaders.
>
>Ciao,
>Laurie