It is very, even extremely, cold. That is hardly surprising when the temperature is minus seven degrees Celsius. Most of the cars parked outside are drenched in thick snow. The funny thing is that the sun is out in full force, but it doesn’t in any way impact upon the freezing conditions on ground. Why? I have no idea. On the plane to Davos, I read an article in this month’s Swiss Air inflight magazine about people living in the tundras (northern Russia). It seems the temperature there during winter sometimes drops to minus 56 degrees Celsius. Yes, minus 56. Just a mention of that article makes me suddenly feel very warm.
Nights are the coldest in Davos. All the best preparations by this diarist to battle the weather have now come to naught. The overcoat and the jacket and the muffler and the sweater have simply not been enough to keep him steady. Walking in the streets piled with snow is a great challenge too. Laptop in one hand and camera in another makes a very funny picture. Doesn’t it? I guess so because one regular Davos photographer kept clicking to his heart’s content. And if you trip on thin ice while maintaining this fine balance, then forget all the stuff that you are reading now. Having said all that, being in Davos is great fun and reporting is pretty challenging.
Rubbing shoulders with the bigwigs is a big kick at Davos. This diarist hates name-dropping, so excuse him for indulging in some here. Because there is no other way of saying who is here: My favorite TV anchors are here: Nic Gowing and Riz Khan. As I write this, Richard Quest, yes of CNN, is indulging in his regular histrionics. At the other end is Mohammed Khatami, the former Iranian president. There is Shashi Tharoor, the guy who almost became the UN secretary-general. Here goes President Pervez Musharraf. And there you see Paul Wolfowitz. On my left is India’s Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. He is waving at Shaukat Aziz. Gamal Mubarak, son of Hosni Mubarak, is surrounded by a couple of businessmen. Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, is waxing eloquently on the Middle Eastern problem. In comes Thomas Friedman with Bono the musician. Behind him is Hamid Karzai in his trademark green and white chapan and the traditional karakul. He stands out clearly in a sea of dark suits.
This is making my journalist friends uncomfortable. Wherever you go, the first thing that people do is look at your chest to read who you are. That is why the cards are hanging. The most interesting people often twist or partially cover their badge in some way so the name is not visible. When one discovers somebody big (especially somebody you didn’t recognize and should have), which is too often the case, few people will admit that they are impressed or delighted. Instead the standard line is, “So you’re still holding that position.” Or “Weren’t you moving to....?” or “I thought at this time of year you’d be at...” Real top-of-the-line people act as if they don’t notice the gawkers at all. It is very embarrassing, but what do you do: You have to look at their badges to know who they are.
It has often been said that the WEF is an ideal place for dialogue and debate in regards to major social and economic problems of the planet. This is easy to see once you’re in a room where some of the most influential people in the world are casually chatting with each about some major issues. Representatives of both the most powerful economic organizations and the most powerful political organizations are present. Many intellectuals (soi-disant and genuine) also turn up and there is a generally informal atmosphere throughout Davos that encourages wide-ranging debate.
The best quote on the current state of the economy has come from Fred Bergsten, director of the US-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. “When the US catches a cold, maybe the rest of the world catches a sniffle, but certainly not pneumonia,” he said while contending that with emerging countries now accounting for half the world’s economy and many of these countries experiencing growth rates of 6-7 percent, a severe slowdown in the economies of the most developed countries would still leave the world with an annual growth rate of around 4 percent. “That means that the world economy is certainly not going into recession,” he says. In fact, he argues that the world may experience its first episode of “reverse coupling”, in which reasonably rapid growth in India and China and other economies will soften and shorten the US downturn. That is certainly a silver lining in the dark cloud hovering over world stock markets.
Now I am feeling warm, thanks to all the heaters at the Congress Center. Let me go out and be chilled and take some more pictures.
