Three new, Davos-related episodes of Felix TV.  Enjoy!

Wouldn’t sunny Patmos, Greece be nicer for a deep think than freezing Davos, Switzerland? Huffington Post president Arianna Huffington and Felix Salmon launch a campaign to relocate the World Economic Forum to a warmer climate, and pick up the endorsement of Business Insider’s Henry Blodget.

Arianna Huffington wants Davos moved to Greece

Felix Salmon meets his nemesis, hedge fund manager and philanthropist Anthony Scaramucci, in a face-to-face showdown at the Hotel Europe’s Piano Bar in Davos.

Spar at the bar in Davos: Salmon v. Scaramucci

Warfare, financial troubles and journalism: Adrian Monck, chief WEF spokesman, tells a personal story behind why he believes in Davos.

Davos Man: What drives me

Here are two videos in anticipation of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In the first video Reuters’ Ryan McCarthy and Gary Regenstreif break out their crystal ball to tell us what we can expect from this year’s WEF in the Alps.

In the second video we take a look at the protesters setting up camp a short distance from the main conference hall in Davos. These international demonstrators are sleeping in self-made igloos and yurts as a method to broadcast their message of economic equality.

This network diagram, based on a recent WEF report, is created from the answers by survey respondents who were asked what where the most systemically important economic risks as well as the most important connecting risks between them. Do you agree with their answers?

 

Last week we introduced Reuters Magazine, which was released in anticipation of this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Here are a few things that were written about the magazine. Feel free to check out the PDF version or the web version.

Follow the Reuters coverage of the World Economic Forum here.

 

Optimism Pervades in the Face of Global Challenge

Another World Economic Forum wrapped up today at the World Congress Centre. As delegates prepared to leave the famous ski resort in Davos, Switzerland and return to the various realities of their home countries, a sense of optimism pervaded even as unfolding events in northern Africa and the Middle East tended to cloud otherwise sunny outlooks. Mark Spelman, Global Head of Strategy at Accenture, stopped by the Davos town library, where Thomson Reuters’ WEF headquarters is located for the week, to talk about what he believes have been the key developing themes at this year’s meeting.

In this video (one of three), Spelman talks about key growth trends and the reasons behind the sense of ‘cautious optimism’ at Davos 2011.

Meanwhile, following on the Jasmine Revolution (as locals have termed it) in Tunisia, the volatile situation in Egypt weighed on world markets. The West’s main energy watchdog, the IEA, called on Saturday on oil group OPEC to be flexible in the face of instability in the Arab world, saying prices could spike even because of a small disruption.

“At this moment the Suez Canal is open and there is no problem with the supply side,” the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Nobuo Tanaka, told Reuters referring to riots in Egypt.

Still, our Ben Hirschler reports the global elite, dining on Norwegian lobster and reindeer at the end of the World Economic Forum on Saturday, felt pretty chipper despite growing concerns about the inequality of the economic recovery.

While they believe the global financial and euro zone debt crises are abating, the real world intruded with a different and much more acute crisis in Egypt that made their debates about inequality and food security less theoretical than anticipated.

Egypt Unrest on Delegates’ Minds

As protests continued to escalate in Egypt and the authorities there moved to shut down internet and cell phone access, the escalating tensions increasingly dominated discussions at the World Economic Forum.

Our Amena Bakr and Natsuko Waki report Egypt is the absent ghost at this year’s Davos feast.

“When CEOs stay for too long they become stale. So when you have a leader like in Egypt this was a very natural thing to happen,” said a Saudi executive, who declined to be identified because he was related to the royal family.

Arab executives attending the Forum followed events in Cairo closely, some watching pictures of clashes between protesters and police on their iPad tablet computers in between sessions.

The Egyptian official delegation pulled out of the Forum just before it started. Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, a Davos regular, gave no reason for his cancellation, but it coincided with the violent protests against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed at the WEF on Friday for Egypt’s leaders not to let violence escalate further, calling for respect for freedom of association and speech.

“I have been calling on the authorities to see this situation as an opportunity to address the legitimate concerns of their people,” Ban told a news conference.

Euro Zone Crisis Approaching Resolution?

Our Hugo Dixon opines that the Euro Zone Crisis may end soon:

The euro zone crisis may be close to resolution. There is certainly optimism among policymakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos that a comprehensive deal — involving more discipline by peripheral nations and more help from rich nations — could be put together in coming weeks. If so, the hot phase of the crisis could be over and even Greece would have a fighting chance of getting out of the woods.

Currency Discussions Take Center Stage

Reporting live from the conference, our Paul Taylor says French President Nicolas Sarkozy passionately defended the euro against skeptics at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, saying he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would never let the currency fail.

A year after the Greek fiscal crisis dominated Davos, leading to bailouts for Greece in May and Ireland in December, business leaders say expectations are growing that the EU may be preparing effective action to help weaker members of the single currency area and restore confidence in the financial sector.

“To those who would bet against the euro, watch out for your money because we are fully determined to defend the euro,” Sarkozy said in a keynote speech. “Mrs Merkel and I will never — do you hear me, never — let the euro fall.”

Meanwhile, Reuters’ Lee Chyen Yee reports China will carefully open up its yuan to more trading based on market needs and plans to double its level of imports in five years, according to its commerce minister on Thursday, as the country liberalizes its economy, now the world’s second largest.

“Over the next year or for an even longer period, China will continue to stick to our mechanism of liberalizing the yuan according to market needs,” Commerce Minister Chen Deming told reporters at the World Economic Forum.

Inflation and Wealth Concentration Issues Also Dominate Discussions

Our Michael Stott covers a session today in which poverty and unemployment reared their heads, with speakers urging the elite audience to bridge a growing gap between booming multinationals and the jobless poor.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who also chairs the Socialist International group of center-left parties, said the global crisis had led to an “unsustainable” race to the bottom in labor standards and social protection in developed nations.

“Politically, I believe we are at a turning point where… there are signs in Europe of more nationalism, more racism, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitism, fundamentalisms of all types,” he said. “We need to look to a different model.”

Following on that theme, Reuters’ Emma Thomasson and Natsuko Waki report world leaders warned today that soaring food prices risked stoking more unrest and even war, but top executives rejected calls for curbs on commodity speculation.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the world’s population could top 9 billion by 2045 compared to 7 billion now.  “Imagine the pressure on food, energy, water and resources,” he said in a speech. “The next economic war or conflict can be over the race for scarce resources, if we don’t manage it together.”

In the Middle East and northern Africa, protests against authoritarian governments have been growing ever since the demonstrations in Tunisia toppled the government there.  In many of these and other countries, rising commodity prices is a key grievance of the citizenry.  Imad Fakhoury, Jordan’s minister of state for mega projects, said the Middle East, which imports most of its food, was struggling with the twin challenges of rising prices and rapid population growth.

“We are trying to improve the supply of water and energy and make it more home-grown to minimize the vulnerability to international global prices and imports,” he said, adding that governments were also helping the poor afford essentials.

Bank Bashing

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon lashed out at persistent bank bashing nearly three years after the global credit crisis began, in particular the tendency to put all financial institutions in the same basket, reports our Lisa Jucca.

“Not all banks are the same and I just think that this constant refrain ‘bankers, bankers, bankers’ is just unproductive and unfair. People should just stop doing that,” Dimon told a panel on “The Next Shock: Are We Better Prepared?”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy disagreed with Dimon, telling him bankers had done things which defied common sense.

…the French president launched into a broadside accusing financiers of behavior that he said had caused the crisis.

“The world has paid with tens of millions of unemployed, who were in no way to blame and who paid for everything,” Sarkozy said to Dimon. “It caused a lot of anger.”

Things got off to a great start at the World Congress Centre in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is being held.  Before diving in to the major issues under discussion in Davos, let’s look at its participants.

Woefully Few Women Despite Incentives

Past World Economic Forums included so few women, the organizers created incentives for the Forum’s strategic partners — of which Thomson Reuters is one — if the were to bring more women in their delegations.  But according to a post by our Emma Thomasson, the incentives haven’t worked so well:

For the first time, the World Economic Forum (WEF) requires that its around 100 “strategic partners” — comprising many of the world’s top firms — include one woman among their five delegates to the meeting which started on Wednesday.

The WEF said the scheme more than doubled participation of female executives from the strategic partners, although women still only made up around 16 percent of the 2,500 participants.

Some 20 of the 100 partner firms have still chosen to bring all-male delegations to Davos, even though that means forfeiting a coveted extra badge for the event where top businessmen get a unique opportunity to rub shoulders with world leaders.

On the Minds of CEOs

Our Paul Carrel reports on where global CEOs are hoping to find opportunity and growth.  Global chief executives, it seems, have pinned their hopes on roaring growth in emerging markets at the start of the annual Davos forum on Wednesday but warned that rising inflation and political risks cast a shadow.  They also expressed concern about how each region of the world will recover from the Great Recession.

“This year, we think we’ll see … western Europe continuing to be tepid, America more U-shaped and the fast-growing emerging markets will continue to be V-shaped,” Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the world’s biggest advertising group WPP (WPP.L), told the opening session.

Meanwhile, Reuters’ Kenneth Li reports that leaders are looking forward to a red-hot clean tech market.  VantagePoint, apparently, believes clean tech firms will be helping to lead IPO activity in 2011:

Up to 10 companies in the hot “clean tech” sector will go public in multibillion dollar U.S. offerings this year and as many will be acquired in equally significant deals.

One of Silicon Valley’s preeminent investors in the clean tech industry — VantagePoint has backed electric car start-up Tesla Motors Inc and solar thermal company BrightSource Energy Inc, as well as others — said in an interview at the World Economic Forum that the actions this year will be a validation of the sector’s attractiveness to investors.

“You’re going to see much more of an active pipeline,” VantagePoint Venture Partners Chief Executive Alan Salzman predicted on Wednesday. “You will see five to 10 significant, multibillion dollar IPOs in the U.S. this year, and as many meaningful acquisitions.”

Consumer Tech Invades Davos, the Corporate World

Our Ken Li also reports on the rise in the use of consumer electronics for business purposes.  He points out those discussing the “Shared Norms for the New Reality” in Davos this week need only look around them to see one such ‘reality’: low-cost smart devices are sweeping away clunky old computers throughout the political and business world.

The 2,500 conference-goers hanging on every word from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and others will be tapping away at tablet computers and smartphones such as Apple Inc’s iPads and iPhones and devices made by Samsung and Motorola running Google’s Android software.

Inexpensive, easy to carry around and powerful despite the lack of a hard drive, these devices keep execs productive and “always on” without the need to schlepp heavy and unattractive computer bags with laptops.  Look for more and more enterprises to adopt cloud-based tablets for basic business productivity needs while they move away from issuing laptops to workers.

As things got underway at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, we felt like starting with a little levity before diving into the many weighty and important issues that will get tackled later on. In other words, let’s start with a little gossip.

In reviewing the many tweets, Facebook updates and text messages from the Swiss ski resort, it was easy to see what was most impressive to the those gathering at one of the world’s most important assemblies of great minds: the weather.

You see, snow has been falling throughout the night, turning Davos into a picturesque winter wonderland. Everyone seemed taken by the beauty of it.

Then there was the cheese. You’d think with the presence of leaders like Dmitri Medvedev of Russia in attendance, folks might be focused on one of the many bold-faced names in the conference’s brand new building. But no. Many of the twit-pics circulating were of the amazing spread of cheese laid out for the wine reception to kick off the week’s events.

But enough levity! Let’s talk about CEOs. And their wives.

First and foremost, Rupert Murdoch has cancelled his attendance because he’s very focused on the BSkyB buyout he’s orchestrating in Great Britain.

Then there was this tweet from @reutersBenHir:

What a difference a year makes. CEO confidence back to pre-crisis levels, annual PwC survey shows, with 48% “very confident”.

And about those CEO wives? You’ve got to read this post by Anya Schiffrin, wife of a Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of Bad News, which opens in part:

My husband is a Davos Man, which makes me a Davos Wife.

I’ve lost count of how many times I have stood by my man on the buffet line and in the luggage scrum at the Zurich airport. Along with countless other wives I’ve put in my time and always felt that we are under represented. The World Economic Forum ignores us completely and only has a few activities lined up for us: cross country skiing, ice driving an Audi and the ubiquitous open sleigh ride.

It gets better. Go read it!

More updates to come–stay tuned. On deck will be a discussion of the unfolding events in Tunisia, Egypt and the Middle East, and views on President Obama’s State of the Union address.

Thomson Reuters has a team of its business leaders, reporters, photographers, videographers and bloggers at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

We’ll be rounding up everything our team is sharing from their front-line interactions here each day. For complete coverage of all the goings-on at Davos, check-out (and bookmark) our new Davos Knowledge Effect page. In advance of the conference’s official kick-off, today we feature some of the discussion and thoughts leading up to the event.

The Squeezed Middle
Reuters London produced insightful profiles of five once relatively affluent middle-class families struggling to make it in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

When the world’s business and political elite gathers this week for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, you’ll hear a lot of talk about how best to solve the world’s economic problems. What you’ll almost certainly hear less of is how these solutions might affect — are affecting — regular people.

Celebrating the Knowledge Effect
Thomson Reuters is using its considerable presence at this year’s World Economic Forum to highlight the Knowledge Effect, which is an investigation — and a celebration, really — of the amazing things that happen when the right information gets into the right hands at precisely the right moment in time.

Check out our growing series of Knowledge Effect Stories, and please share your story. How have your most crucial business decisions benefited from having access to the right information at the right time? What amazing things have you and your organization accomplished as a result?

$103 Trillion in Credit Needed to Support Global Growth
From Zurich, Reuters’ Emma Thomasson previews a report by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey that says an extra $103 trillion of credit is needed over the next decade if global economic growth is to meet consensus forecasts.

The study, to be presented at the WEF’s annual meeting of policymakers, bankers and business leaders in the Swiss ski resort, said meeting credit demand would be challenging.

A New Reality at Davos
Writing from Geneva, bureau head Jonathan Lynn provides his thoughts on the new global reality that will confront this year’s World Economic Forum participants.

The theme of this year’s annual get-together of business and political leaders in Davos is “Shared norms for the new reality”.

One of the main examples of that new reality is the shift in political and economic power from West to East and North to South, according to Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum that organises the meeting. The change, cemented by the economic crisis, will cause upheaval, he told reporters.