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Davos forum opens for business

The black-tie soiree, canceled last year because it might have seemed flippant during a buildup toward war in Iraq, has been reinstated. The executives and politicians have reserved suites in fancy hotels. As for security in these days of terror threats and alarms, the airspace over this snow-struck Alpine village will be closed and hundreds of police officers and up to 6,000 troops will be on patrol.

The World Economic Forum is once again luring the elite of business and governments and a handful of advocacy groups to the Alps, opening its annual session here yesterday.

But this year, 2,100 participants from 94 lands are mulling developments in a world with no single political focus and no overwhelming economic certainties.

Since a midyear session in Jordan last June, the road map to peace in the Middle East has become an indistinct trail to no obvious destination, while the US occupation of Iraq confronts a seemingly sustained insurgency. Signs of a global economic recovery conflict with worries about the weak dollar, corporate malfeasance, and other uncertainties stretching from China's boom to Europe's borrowing.

"This year you don't have an overriding issue," said Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the Forum, whose participants this year are set to include, among others, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general; US Vice President Dick Cheney; former US President Bill Clinton; President Mohammad Khatami of Iran; King Abdullah of Jordan; General Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan; and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

A contingent of American business leaders will include Bill Gates of Microsoft; Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, Carleton Fiorina; and Coca-Cola's chairman and chief executive, Douglas Daft. Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, is also set to attend.

Participants will be looking for potential breakthroughs on some points, Schwab said. Annan and Erdogan may discuss UN plans for territorial resolution in Cyprus, whose northern part has been under Turkish occupation since 1974. And around 20 trade and economic officials -- though not the most senior trade negotiators from the US or the EU -- are set to talk about restarting the global trade talks that collapsed last September in Cancun, Mexico. Cheney and Bremer are likely to urge broader international backing for the US vision of transferring power in Iraq, meeting officials said.

But there are notes of caution, too. One aim of the conference, Schwab said, will be to "make sure that people don't become euphoric" about the signs of global economic recovery.

The five-day gathering is not meant to reach any binding conclusions. Under pressure from busy executives, the program has been slightly shortened and downtime for skiing scrapped.

In recent years, the gathering, first held more than 30 years ago, has also acted as a lightning rod for opponents of globalization. Some groups have simply held their own meetings in Davos, but others have taken part in raucous protests.

But this year, anti-globalization groups have not applied for permission to march in Davos itself. Instead, they plan to demonstrate in a nearby town, Chur. The Swiss police say some protesters may try to break through a police cordon to reach Davos.
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