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Topless Protesters Detained at Davos Forum Topless protesters detained at elite Davos forum, trying to call attention to poor By Frank Jordans A topless Ukrainian protester is arrested by Swiss police after climbing up a fence at the entrance to the congress center where the World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. The activists are from the group Femen, which has have become popular in Ukraine for staging small, half-naked protests against a range of issues including oppression of political opposition. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus) DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday...

No, I didn't make that headline up. Issa has flown off to Davos to hobnob with the international elites this weekend. That, at least, is what I'm being told. This is a marvelous turn of events for the New World Order conspiracists. Shortwave millennialists will be going nuts. Much is being made today in various places of Issa's latest letters to Holder here and here. Here is David Codrea's take, which lays out succinctly the public facts as known. Last night, I was floated some rumors that Morrissey and Hurley, Cunningham's fellow myrmidons working under Dennis Burke on the Fast...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The rich and powerful were divided at their annual huddle on Wednesday over Barack Obama's threat to raise their taxes, with some saying it could hurt growth, but others arguing he was right to address capitalism's imbalances. Obama's State of the Union address focused on channeling middle class anger at inequality, including a call for a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires that could make the wealth of Republican rival Mitt Romney a central election issue. It was delivered on the eve of World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, which found many...

THE SEEDS OF DYSTOPIA: Roubini & Co. Scare The Crap Out Of Davos Henry Blodget Jan. 25, 2012, 7:53 AM From Nouriel Roubini's yfrog page An uplifting post-lunch session at Davos entitled GLOBAL RISKS 2012: THE SEEDS OF DYSTOPIA... Professor Nouriel Roubini's on the panel, along with the head of Amnesty International and a few other non-profit organizations. Some key points made by the panelists: * Two of the panelists confessed that they had to look up the word "dystopia" when they heard the title of the session. It means the opposite of utopia. * Roubini thinks the term accurately...

Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as "outdated and crumbling." "We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum. "Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. "We are...

The global crisis and a perceived lack of leadership in the West seem to be creating nostalgia for two previous leaders who radically reformed their countries, albeit with plenty of controversy. But what's even more striking about this sense of déjà vu, is that the names of American President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - two leaders, who fought for freedom and rallied the West against Communist rule - were being invoked by a senior Chinese policymaker at the summer Davos in Dalian, China. “The U.S. economy needs fundamental reforms, bigger reforms, bigger policy changes than President...

"It may sound strange to speak of Revolution, but that is what we need at this time. We need a Revolution; revolutionary thinking, revolutionary action. It is easy to mouth the words "sustainable development", but to make it happen, we have to be prepared to make major changes." Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Davos World Economic Forum 2011

In case you consider yourself an expert of the economy of Sweden and issues of Economics in general, please skip the following introduction to the article. Otherwise; While goody, self-opinioned, PC Swedish officials are doing no one a favour trying to brand the "New" Swedish Model as a pre-packed, instant solution to each and every challenge any corner of the World might encounter, Liberals like Obama also need to listen more carefully to what Scandinavians actually are wishing to say. American Liberals, Continental Europeans, the British and many others often appraise the Swedish societal concept without actually having much knowledge...

The former President from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. FULL INTEVIEW

Anti-capitalists clash with riot police in DavosBy Catherine Bosley Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:52pm EST DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Anti-capitalist protesters threw bottles at riot police on Saturday and officers responded with water cannon as a small demonstration on the final day of the World Economic Forum briefly turned violent. The clash came after a group of about 100 mainly young, local protesters marched through the chic Swiss ski resort of Davos and gathered near the railway station, some distance from the conference center hosting the Forum. It was the second episode of violence in Davos this week. Swiss anarchists...

While the mood here at Davos has been optimistic about recovery from the global credit crisis, the consensus is that the world is far from out of the woods. Austerity and cutbacks are the buzzwords in this exclusive ski resort for this week, at least. Among those worried about funding his project in this tight environment is Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. He is here at the World Economic Forum making the case for his agency. “We are aware of the difficulties of countries (who fund the IAEA). I need to strike a...

Small explosion in Davos hotel, nobody hurtBy Emma Thomasson Friday January 28, 2011 DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Left-wing activists claimed responsibility for a small explosion on Thursday that broke windows at a hotel in Davos, close to where top executives and world leaders were meeting, but nobody was hurt. Devin Wenig, CEO of Thomson Reuters' Markets division, was in a breakfast meeting of senior executives at the hotel when the explosion happened shortly after 9 a.m. (0800 GMT). "A huge boom went off. The whole ceiling lifted. Everyone was convinced it was a bomb," he said, adding participants were told...

The single best column out of Davos this year has to be Anya Schiffrin’s piece titled “Jealous Davos Mistresses.” Schiffrin, who is the wife of Joseph Stiglitz, describes the caste system created by the nametags handed out to attendees at the Davos World Economic Forum. Here is how it works: everyone at Davos has to wear a name tag and these are color coded by status/occupation (speaker, organizer, journalist etc). Usually these name tags include some kind of affiliation, such as the company or organization you work for. But wives’ name tags state only their name. This means there is...

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the most effective way to resolve a severe economic crisis is through the Private Sector - not big government: VIDEOText: "Simple and often populist solutions, in ninety cases out of one hundred, are wrong, or prove to be wrong, or perhaps even prove to be worst out of all the possible options. A vivid case in point is a tendency of trying to resolve economic problems through nationalization, including the nationalization of financial institutions. "In the [recent era and] period of financial crisis,...

The World Economic Forum in Davos attracts a particular kind of financier and corporate honcho. The folks who flock to this out-of-the-way ski town in the Alps in January are plenty worried about the bottom line and their personal portfolios. But the true Davos Man (or woman) is one of parts -- interested in history, culture, poverty, and Big Global Issues. They want to be known and recognized as much for their public-mindedness as for their prowess in the boardroom and on the trading floor. In short, they want to be like George Soros. Hedge fund gazillionaire, scourge of the...

Global insiders are starting to gather in Davos, Switzerland for this week's World Economic Forum. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie "Obama's Favorite Banker" Dimon will be there, as will be Treasury Secretary Geithner. When attendees arrive and check in, they will be given their badges and a copy of a special Davos magazine, prepared especially for the event. In the magazine will be an article by Robert Rubin. He is an insider's insider. Participants will read the article. Rubin is so wired in that when insiders think of the people who are operating behind a president, it is names like Rubin's that...

Where the influential people meet and talk. “YOU can do nothing against a conspiracy theory,” sighs Etienne Davignon. He sits in a lofty office with a stupendous view over Brussels, puffing his pipe. He is an aristocrat, a former vice-president of the European Commission and a man who has sat on several corporate boards, but that is not why some people consider him too powerful. He presides over the Bilderberg group, an evil conspiracy bent on world domination. At least, that is what numerous websites allege; also that it has ties to al-Qaeda, is hiding the cure for cancer and...

The American blogosphere is going increasingly “viral” about a proposal advanced at the recent meeting of the Davos Economic Forum by Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, that an equivalent of a “driver’s licence” should be introduced for access to the web. This totalitarian call has been backed by articles and blogs in Time magazine and the New York Times. As bloggers have not been slow to point out, the system being proposed is very similar to one that the government of Red China reluctantly abandoned as too repressive. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the...

Legendary investor George Soros has called for a radical break-up of banks that are "too big to fail".

By Patrick Jenkins in Davos and Tom Braithwaite in Washington Published: January 30 2010 00:02 | Last updated: January 30 2010 00:02 Some of the world’s most prominent bankers have come out in favour of a global bank wind-down fund, a concession from the industry after weeks of fighting proposals for new taxes in the US and Europe. Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, told the Financial Times on Friday : “To help solve the too-big-to-fail problem I’m advocating a European rescue and resolution fund for banks. Of course, the capital for this fund would have to come from...

In Davos, regulators tell bankers new rules comingSaturday, January 30, 2010 By Angela Charlton and Bradley S. Klapper ASSOCIATED PRESS DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - Government regulators from the United States and Europe laid out their financial reform plans Saturday before a skeptical banking industry, asking financiers for input but adamant that change was coming with or without their support. Emerging from the two-hour meeting as its unofficial spokesman, U.S. Representative Barney Frank made it clear that governments were now calling the shots after spending billions to bail out the industry. Top bankers, by contrast, who came into this week's World...

For 40 years there's been a consensus view at the Davos World Economic Forum that globalization's increasingly free cross-border flow of ideas, information, people, money, goods and services is both irreversible and a powerful force for prosperity. As with meetings of the G7 group of industrialized nations, there was broad agreement on the proper role for the state in the performance of markets. Sure, a French cabinet official and an American investment banker might spar over the relative merits of state paternalism and Anglo-Saxon labor laws, but the bargaining table was still reserved for champions of Western-style free market capitalism....

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Leftists who converged in Brazil to protest what they view as uncontrolled capitalism ended the World Social Forum on Friday with vows to take advantage of the financial crisis to promote a global socialist agenda. Activists at the annual countercultural gathering against the World Economic Forum under way at the Swiss ski resort of Davos said the meltdown proves the business titans attending the economic forum shouldn't be permitted to help reshape the global economy. About 30,000 people attended the 10th annual social forum .. They railed against unfettered capitalism they claimed is responsible for corporate...

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Leftist activists protesting capitalism at the World Social Forum claimed Wednesday that multinational corporations in cahoots with governments are trying to take control of a new multibillion-dollar market for reducing emissions that cause global warming. They made the accusation on the third day of the gathering of leftists that serves as an annual counterweight to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The companies that caused the problems are saying, 'Trust us, we'll get you out of this problem,'" said Pat Mooney, a Canadian expert on biotechnology and biodiversity. "They're saying, 'Don't worry, because we have...

Frank in Davos says bank reform is comingPublished: Jan. 27, 2010 at 2:31 PM DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said a financial reform bill could be signed into U.S. law within months. Frank said he was using his time at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to coordinate reforms in other countries. "I think you're going to see substantial harmonization. That's one of the things I'm pushing here. We're talking to the EU and I'm hopeful we'll end up in the same place," Frank told the Financial...

Obama’s boss, unrepentant Nazi collaborator, George Soros explains why Obama should continue to run up America’s already staggering debt load and crush the life out of business: ‘”There is a general concern with sovereign debt,’ Soros said. ‘It is coming under suspicion and it has a political momentum because there is increasing political resistance to allowing national debt to rise. “‘Some countries like Greece do have deficits of 12.5% of GDP [gross domestic product], which is intolerable and has to be reduced. Other countries like the United States and the main European nations have plenty of room to increase their...

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros said on Wednesday U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to impose a tax on large banks was premature and his wider proposals to rein in banks' activities may not go far enough.

DAVOS, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The police commander heading security at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland was found dead on Tuesday, local authorities said, adding that his death appeared to be suicide. Markus Reinhardt, head of police in the Swiss canton of Graubuenden, was found dead in his hotel in Davos, police said in a statement on their website. "All indications point to a suicide," the statement said. WEF founder and executive founder Klaus Schwab said in a statement that the organisers appreciated Reinhardt's professionalism and kindness over years of co-operation. "The Security Forces continue to have our full...

Nassim Taleb is an unlikely choice to play the Jimmy Stewart role in a 21st-century remake of the Depression-era classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1]. But the tale of a naive do-gooder who tries to remind a corrupt political class of its obligations was re-enacted this week when Taleb attended the Wall Street Journal's Future of Finance conference in Washington, D.C. A French- and Arabic-speaking former options trader with a taste for obscure Greek philosophers and the ambition to be seen as a literary figure, Taleb has grown famous for his book The Black Swan [2], which has sold...

The following text is a transcript of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, --snip-- Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent. The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in...

Surprise and even shock were among the reactions to my recent column about how elite members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, were considering a proposal for a new global television network to usher in a state of "global governance." It sounded authoritarian, even totalitarian, to some. Here are more of the troubling details. The media proposal, which was included in "The Global Agenda 2009" report, is to create "a new global network" with "the capacity to connect the world, bridging cultures and peoples, and telling us who we are and what we mean to each...

Reports from the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, suggest that most of the world's leaders are convinced that the current crisis is the result of inherent flaws in capitalism, and are eager to impose new international rules to save the world. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is calling on President Obama to join him in creating a new economic system. "Simply tweaking the old system won't do," he says. He wants "a system of open markets, unambiguously regulated by an activist state, and one in which the state intervenes to reduce the greater inequalities that competitive markets will...

Davos was a pretty grim affair by all accounts. Lots of finger-pointing at the U.S.A. Even more perplexity at just what the heck is going on. Solutions for "shaping a post-crisis world," as this year's pow-wow was billed, were few and far between. But once the attendees got past the various stages of grief, confusion and anger, says Lenny Mendonca, chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute in San Francisco, three takeaways emerged. One, getting out of the world's perilous situation requires globally coordinated solutions. Two, the U.S. retains the mantle of responsibility for leading the way. "There was huge enthusiasm...

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) – The world is entering an era of big government with only state muscle powerful enough to fight the economic crisis, top leaders signalled at the Davos summit. News of mass job losses and fears of social unrest and protectionism reverberated around the gloomy halls of the World Economic Forum. But the absence of any senior member of President Barack Obama's US administration in the Swiss resort and nationalist rumblings in Washington left doubts about how closely the major powers will take up the battle together. The "go-go years" are over, admitted HSBC chairman Stephen Green talking...

In Davos, protectionism is a dirty word The beggar-thy-neighbour phase has begun in earnest. "Buy American" legislation has advanced from a barely credible threat to imminent reality on Capitol Hill in just weeks. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 11:31PM GMT 31 Jan 2009 The House has voted for a bill that prohibits the use of foreign steel in most infrastructure projects funded by Barack Obama's $820bn (£563bn) rescue package. The Senate is drawing up plans to widen that to all manufactured goods. This is what happens when a country loses half a million jobs a month, and when the state...

WEF 2009: Global crisis 'has destroyed 40pc of world wealth' The past five quarters have seen 40pc of the world's wealth destroyed and business leaders expect the global economic crisis can only get worse. By Edmund Conway in Davos Last Updated: 5:42AM GMT 29 Jan 2009 Steve Schwarzman, chairman of private equity giant Blackstone, said an "almost incomprehensible" amount of cash had evaporated since the financial crisis took hold. "Business will be very different," he added. His comments came on a day of the World Economic Forum characterised by the gloom of its participants and warnings that the crisis will...

Video of her speech Valerie Jarrett: 'America Stands Ready to Lead Again' "In the 21st century our security is shared," says Valerie Jarrett, top adviser to President Barack Obama. She outlines steps the new administration is taking to establish peace in the Middle East, eradicate global poverty, and fight climate change. ~~~ Video - Valerie B. Jarrett: The New US Agenda"

Former President Bill Clinton (L) and Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum attend a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 29, 2009 Russian Prime Minsiter Vladimir Putin, center, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, left, seen during a reception hosted by Putin for participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. Second right is artistic and general director of the Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiyev.

Thousands of jubilant Turks welcomed their prime minister home on Friday, thronging the airport and later chanting "Turkey is proud of you!" after he publicly confronted the Israeli president over the Gaza war. But some commentators expressed concern that the outburst at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, would hurt Turkey's bid to be an international mediator. Some media in Israel, an ally of Turkey, suggested that the Turkish leader was a hypocrite. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won praise in Gaza, where Turkish flags fluttered from a ruined mosque. But a former Israeli diplomat said the Turkish leader...

Now that the WEF’s self-styled global governors are faced with a major crisis, they are clueless By Peter Foster The typically pretentious theme of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos is “Shaping the Post-Crisis World.” But didn’t Davos shape the pre-crisis world, and thus the crisis itself? The annual Alpine gabfest has long been the epicentre of ‘globaloney,’ a mixture of serious discussion, subversive ideas and outright flakery. It has certainly never — as some critics believe — been about promoting capitalism. Rather it has always been a mercantilist stew in which big businessmen, big government and big international...

Turkish PM leaves stage during debate with Peres over Gaza Israeli-Turkish relations took a dramatic turn for the worse in Davos Thursday night when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed red-faced off the stage at the World Economic Forum after sparring with President Shimon Peres over the fighting in Gaza. Erdogan was angry over being cut off by a panel moderator after listening to an impassioned monologue by Peres defending Operation Cast Lead. Peres's defense was prompted by harsh criticism leveled at Israel not only by Erdogan, but also by the two other panelists, Arab League head Amr Moussa...

Former US president Bill Clinton mocked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's lecturing of Western countries on the virtues of private enterprise on Thursday. At the opening of the Davos forum on Wednesday, Putin gave an acid speech in which he stressed the faults of the US economic system and cautioned against state power -- a reference to US bank and insurance nationalisations. "I'm glad to hear Prime Minister Putin come out for free enterprise. I hope it works for him," Clinton said to laughter in the conference hall here, poking fun at Putin's credentials on the subject. The former Russian...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, red-faced after verbally sparring with President Shimon Peres over the recent fighting in Gaza. Erdogan was angry after being cut off by a panel moderator after listening to an impassioned monologue by Peres defending Israel's recent 22-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Fortune) -- The Russians are upset that the U.S. dollar is the world's principal reserve currency, and this week in Davos they have been putting forward suggestions for how to fix the issue. First came Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who called in a speech on Wednesday for efforts to "facilitate the emergence of several reserve currencies." On Thursday it was the turn of German Gref, a former Economics Minister who is now CEO of Russia's largest bank, state-owned Sberbank. His proposal during a panel discussion went even further than Putin's: In the absence of any serious competitors to...

Putin has called for concerted action to break the stranglehold of the US dollar and create a new global structure of regional powers. "The one reserve currency has become a danger to the world economy: that is now obvious to everybody," he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum. It is the first time that a Russian leader has set foot in the sanctum sanctorum of global capitalism at Davos. Mr Putin said the leading powers should ensure an "irreversible" move towards a system of multiple reserve currencies, questioning the "reliability" of the US dollar as a safe...

Leaders at economic forum see meltdown as chance to expand government controlNEW YORK – A call to utilize the current global economic crisis as a panic in which governments worldwide can move to nationalize banks is emerging from the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The forum's founder, Klaus Schwab, told CNN yesterday the current global economic slowdown is a "transformational crisis" that should be utilized to shape a "new world." "Above all else this is a crisis of confidence," Schwab said. "To restore confidence you have to establish signposts that the world after the crisis will be different....

Chinese and Russian leaders Wen Jiabao and Vladimir Putin have blamed the United States for causing the global economic crisis on a gloomy first day of the Davos forum. Both leaders on Wednesday called for a new attitude by US President Barack Obama, while deepening pessimism over the future of the global economy enshrouded the World Economic Forum. Chinese premier Wen said America's voracious appetite for debt and "blind pursuit of profit" had led to the worst recession since the Great Depression which has rocked the 2,500-strong political and business elite gathered in the Swiss mountain resort. Putin said the...

It is hard to believe, but a majority of Americans (including Christians and conservatives) seem oblivious to the fact that there is a very real, very legitimate New World Order (NWO) unfolding. In the face of overwhelming evidence, most Americans not only seem totally unaware of this reality, they seem unwilling to even remotely entertain the notion. On one hand, it is understandable that so many Americans would be ignorant of the emerging New World Order. After all, the mainstream media refuses to report, or even acknowledge, the NWO. Even "conservative" commentators and talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh,...

President Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is being urged to lay the foundation for “global governance” by considering “international taxation” measures to loot more money from U.S. taxpayers. The recommendation is included in the report, “The Global Agenda 2009,” which is being considered by the World Economic Forum (WEF), meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 28th - February 1st. The WEF is not an official government group but does include dozens of government, corporate and labor leaders at its annual meetings. Media companies such as News Corporation (parent of Fox News, the Fox Business Network, and the Wall Street...

Mood of sobriety and self-recrimination at Davos By Gillian Tett in London Published: January 25 2009 19:17 | Last updated: January 25 2009 19:17 In recent years, Goldman Sachs has been renowned for hosting one of the hottest parties during the World Economic Forum’s glittering annual meeting in Davos. No longer. This year, in a nod to the new mood of sobriety and self-recrimination, the US broker has quietly cancelled its party and sharply reduced its delegation to the event, which starts on Wednesday. It is far from alone. John Thain was due to host a high-profile breakfast meeting on...