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by J. Vitarana

This year's World Economic Forum was held from January 25 - 29 in Davos, Switzerland. It is an annual event held since 1971 where world's top business leaders, politicians and civil society players interact. Since the Forum consists of 1000 business companies it is mainly an opportunity for corporate leaders to promote their interests with political leaders.

Among the politicians Germany's new Chancellor Angela Merkel attracted much attention at the Forum. Among other political leaders present at the Forum were Chinese Deputy Premier Zeng Pelyan and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharaff. Paul Wolfowitz attended the Forum for the first time as World Bank President.

According to Klaus Schwab, founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Forum the theme for this year's summit was "The creative imperative". (Creativity is an imperative)

This year the focus is on China and India. According to Klaus Schwab one of the issues discussed was the shift of the centre of gravity from the West to the East. Unlike in the past Latin America, and Africa have very little representation this year, which once again shows the lack of enthusiasm in the region for the neo-liberal economic model.

Since the World Economic Forum was met with street protests by thousands of activists in the past, the Swiss authorities had not taken any chances. They had deployed 5,500 soldiers of the Swiss army to handle security in addition to the police.

The World Social Forum

The Latin Americans were interested more in the polar opposite of the World economic Forum -the World Social Forum. Tens of thousands of activists marched through the streets of Venezuelan capital Caracas demanding and end to the war in Iraq and chanting anti-US slogans.

In a way the two forums represent, though in an oblique way the contradiction between labour and capital under globalised capitalism.

The World Social Forum had its summits annually from 2001. The first summit was held in Brazil in 2001. Unlike in the previous five summits this years World Social Forum was scheduled to be held at different sites - in Caracas, Venezuela from January 25 - 29, in Bamako, Mali from January 19 - 23 and Karachchi, Pakistan in March. President Hugo Chavez was scheduled to address the Forum in Caracas.

The forum comprised some 2000 events including seminars, speeches and concerts across Caracas.

Hamas victory in Palestine

The victory of Hamas over Fatah in the Palestine parliamentary elections has stunned the world. It received 76 percent of the vote and 76 seats compared to 17 percent and 43 seats for Fatah. Independent Liberals won 13 seats.

The United States expressed its unhappiness and said that it would not talk with a militant group that wants to destroy the state of Israel. Muslim leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, on the other hand expressed cautious optimism that the victory of Hamas could be a silver line in a dark cloud.

Just as Ariel Sharon who won the elections on a tough note had to withdraw Israel settlements from the Gaza strip some observers believe that a Hamas victory would make them more responsible. Already Mahmoud Zahair has said that they are willing to talk with Israel through a third party.

The Palestine Liberation Organization could be this third party as Palestine President Mohamad Abbas is from the PLO. The United States cannot openly oppose Hamas victory since it is currently campaigning for elections in many Middle East countries. The hypocrisy would then be too obvious.

Besides dissatisfaction over the progress of the peace process, corruption in the Palestine Authority are seen as key factors that led to the defeat of Fatah.

The United States could only blame itself for the election result as it was seen openly taking the side of Israel against the Palestinian people.

Confronting the arguments of the West that the Israel-Palestine peace process could be in danger, the militants reply that there was no peace to be lost.

Global unemployment

Economic growth throughout the world was not matched by a corresponding rise in wages or a corresponding increase in employment. Thus the poor remains poor while the rich gets richer, a phenomenon not so complimentary of the Washington Consensus whose policies dominate the contemporary world.

According to the annual Global Employment Trends Report of the International Labour Organization (ILO) the number of unemployed persons in the year 2005 was 191.8 million, an increase of 2.2 million from that of 2004. It was an increase of 34.4 million compared to 1995. Of the total unemployed almost 50 percent were youth between 15 - 24 years of age. Women comprised only 40 percent of the world's labour force in 2005.

Most economies were unable to turn GDP growth into job creation or wage increase. As a result not only has unemployment increased but only 14.5 million of the 500 million working poor could lift themselves above the US $ 1 per day poverty level.

Of the 2.8 billion workers in the world 1.4 billion had an earning of less than $ 2 a day.

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