www.voanews.com VOA News 23 Jan 2003, 08:32 UTC

Business and political leaders from across the globe have gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the opening Thursday of the World Economic Forum.

The six-day forum is expected to focus on corporate ethics, terrorism, and Iraq. The meeting is being held amid tight security to protect high profile guests. Jordan's King Abdullah, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell are all scheduled to attend.

Participants are expected to discuss the global effects of the corporate scandals that plagued the business world last year. They will also examine the effects of the international war on terrorism and the possibility of a U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The forum in Davos coincides with the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. There, as many as 100,000 anti-globalization advocates are expected to discuss the financial problems of the developing world, threats to the environment, and human rights issues.

Brazil's new president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, is expected to attend both events to deliver speeches on hunger and poverty.

www.hipakistan.com

Corporate scandals and the possibility of war with Iraq will be the two issues dominating this year's World Economic Forum.

The political and business elite have already begun gathering in the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Davos for the annual meeting that starts on Thursday.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil, anti-globalisation protestors meanwhile are gathering for a rival summit, the World Social Forum.

Meeting in Porto Alegre they will focus on issues like poverty and participative democracy. Organisers expect more than 100,000 people from 157 countries to attend.

Powell's podium

Top billing goes to the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who will deliver a "major speech" on US foreign policy at the weekend.

He will be speaking on the eve of a critical report on Iraqi disarmament by weapons inspectors to the UN Security Council.

Other political figures likely to make the headlines include Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Vicente Fox of Mexico and Johannes Rau of Germany.

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad will also be there.

Heavily guarded

Among the 1,300 business leaders at the forum will be Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Douglas Daft of Coca Cola, Nobuyuki Idei of Sony and Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard.

The theme of this year's meeting is "building trust".

The organisers says this is about the need to restore confidence in companies and in government.

"The string of corporate scandals revealed in 2002 has contributed to the serious undermining of trust," says the guidebook to this year's meeting.

The forum has been held in Davos for three decades although last year it moved to New York as a show of solidarity after the 11 September attacks.

It has increasingly drawn demonstrations from anti-globalisation protestors.

This year the meeting will be more heavily guarded that usual, with the Swiss air force patrolling the skies, because of the fear of terrorist attacks.

But the authorities have decided to allow a demonstration in Davos itself although it will be kept away from the meeting site.

www.reason.com February 2003 By Tim Cavanaugh

When George W. Bush selected mummified diplomat Henry Kissinger to head his investigation into pre-9/11 intelligence failures, he outraged everyone. The left blames Kissinger for extending the Vietnam War and instituting lethal realpolitik; the right blames him for losing the war and turning Nixon red. But there’s a deeper message in seeing a bureaucrat three decades past his sell-by date get a new job -- even one he resigned from almost immediately. All over the world, the keys of government are held by people for whom the world clock stopped sometime around 1973.

This collective nostalgia is widely dispersed. India thrives under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, a Hindu Mussolini whose militantly anti-Muslim vision seems more suited to the 1971 Indo-Pak war than to the era of high-tech Bangalore. Across the Kashmiri divide, Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, boasts a more venerable legitimacy, having seized power in a military coup identical to the ones that installed Gens. Muhammad Ayub Khan in the ’50s and Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in the ’70s.

A continent away, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plays such Super Sounds of the ’70s as rigged elections, land seizures, and wholesale nationalization. A more restrained New World version of this rusty iron-man model can be seen in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez took a case of economic malaise and socialized it into full-blown economic metastasis. The jury’s still out on Brazil’s new leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but if he holds to the moth-eaten socialist nostrums that built his cult of personality, Brazilians can look forward to the kind of financial security not seen since Pelé signed up with the New York Cosmos. It’s surprising that Kissinger didn’t figure out a way during his brief tenure to assassinate all three leaders -- though the Bush administration’s tacit backing of an anti-Chavez coup attempt was an honest start.

The Middle East is a regular Brady Bunch reunion of ’70s characters and policies. Syria and Jordan are both controlled by the idiot sons of Nixon-era dictators. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s application of Yom Kippur War tactics to the age of suicide bombers has helped send record numbers of both Israelis and Palestinians to heaven. By all appearances, Yasir Arafat hasn’t changed his clothes in 30 years. Egypt, Libya, and Iraq are all run along socialist/nationalist models that last seemed viable when Skylab was flyin’ high.

Across Western Europe, calcified labor unions and welfare systems form obstacles Evel Knievel himself would have had trouble clearing. Gerhard Schroeder leads Germany with a stagflationary combination of socialist economics and old-school America baiting. Jacques Chirac, perhaps the West’s most lucid leader, gets nowhere against France’s all-powerful bureaucracies. Tony Blair’s New Labour Party has bogged down, with the United Kingdom engaging in vintage arguments about whether its health and security bureaucracies are prepared to fight terrorism. The only difference between now and the ’70s is that Al Qaeda is providing the terror while the IRA catches its breath.

In such sterling company, President Bush is far from the most objectionable case, but he is certainly the saddest. With a crabbed combination of compulsive secrecy, protective tariffs, erosion of privacy, an expanded federal role in education, and the creation of a new cabinet-level agency, the Bush administration recalls the grimly alienating and ideology-free Nixon administration more than it does the sunny, confident Reagan legacy to which it lays claim.

None of this would matter if it were as easy to ignore government as it was a few years ago. While the free market was busy developing cellular telephony, the consumer Internet, a high-employment global economy, and 24-hour mattress delivery, it was possible to forget for a while that leaders of nations were still working on the political equivalent of the swine flu vaccine. But the ability to keep the government out of your life and plans is yet another casualty of 9/11. Is it a relief or a pity that Spiro Agnew isn’t around to replace Dick Cheney on Bush’s ’04 ticket?

Tim Cavanaugh is Reason’s Web editor.

abcnews.go.com

— NEW YORK (Reuters) - Schlumberger Ltd. <SLB.N>, the world's No. 1 oilfield services company, on Tuesday posted a $2.86 billion loss for the fourth-quarter due to a huge charge to restructure two business units.

New York-based Schlumberger posted a fourth quarter net loss of $4.92 per share, compared to net income of $185 million, or 32 cents per share, in the same period of 2001.

Excluding one-time items, the company reported earnings of 25 cents per share. On that basis, analysts had projected results between 26 cents and 35 cents per share with a mean estimate of 31 cents, according to research firm Thomson First Call.

Schlumberger said operating revenue fell 7 percent to $3.4 billion in the quarter, as oilfield activity continued to slow down.

"Political uncertainty in the Middle East, the strike in Venezuela, and reduced oil company investment in Europe and Africa all contributed to make the business environment in 2002 progressively more difficult," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Euan Baird.

Reflecting the slow business environment, the number of rigs drilling for oil and gas around the world -- viewed as a reliable indicator of demand for oilfield services -- fell 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002 compared with a year ago.

Stronger crude oil and natural gas prices usually lead to a sharp rise in drilling -- and prices for both commodities were indeed stronger in 2002's fourth quarter.

Crude oil prices in the period averaged $28.25 a barrel, up about 38 percent from the quarter a year. Natural gas prices rose by 52 percent to average $3.64 per thousand cubic feet.

But the climb in energy prices meant little for the budgets of companies that explore for oil and gas. Given uncertainty about the economy -- and about whether energy prices can maintain their highs -- exploration and production companies clamped down on capital spending.

Baird said the outlook remains just as clouded.

"Uncertainty over the direction of the economy makes it likely that this lackluster situation will continue through the first half of 2003," he said.

During the fourth quarter, Schlumberger took a $3.2 billion write-off for restructuring of its information technology foray SchlumbergerSema and for continuing losses at its WesternGeco seismic unit.

As part of the restructuring, the company cut 5 percent of SchlumbergerSema's 32,500 jobs in the U.S. and Europe. The company paid $5.2 billion in 2001 for the information technology enterprise.

Western Geco, a joint venture with Baker Hughes Inc., <BHI.N> cost both companies money due the drop off in the North American land seismic market.

Schlumberger's shares on Tuesday closed at $38.75, down 4.8 percent from Friday's closing price, on the New York Stock Exchange. During the fourth quarter, Schlumberger's shares rose 9.4 percent while an index of oilfield service and drilling companies <.OSX> rose 13.6 percent in the same period..

www.salon.com

The economy is crumbling, the planet is heating up, war with Iraq looms. What if something REALLY goes wrong? Six nightmares for George Bush -- and everyone else.

Jan. 22, 2003  |  Two years into his presidency, on the eve of his second State of the Union address, almost exactly a year before the 2004 presidential primary season begins with the Iowa caucus, President Bush faces trouble everywhere he turns. War with Iraq seems inevitable even as crises in Venezuela and North Korea simmer, and al-Qaida remains menacing and elusive. On the domestic front, unemployment is still rising, the stock market continues to slump, budget deficits are climbing again -- and the president's only answer is a massive tax cut for the rich, while states and cities slash funds for public safety, healthcare and education. A broad spectrum of scientists agree that global warming is getting worse, but the administration insists the issue needs more study.

It's hard not to notice a disconnection between the challenges facing the U.S. and the Bush administration's response. And what if, against this already gloomy backdrop, things get worse on several fronts at once?

Salon asked six writers to look at worst-case scenarios on the domestic and international scenes. What if deficits mount and the war with Iraq is messier than expected? What if joblessness continues to rise but states' unemployment insurance funds collapse? What if al-Qaida rebuilds while the Palestinian situation festers?

Even with good luck on most of those fronts, the next two years will be as tough as the last two for the president. Without it, Bush may end up wondering why he ever wanted the job -- or could even find himself unemployed.

The Middle East The White House's reckless, one-sided policies could lead to a global catastrophe. www.salon.com By Gary Kamiya

The fiscal crisis While Bush cuts taxes for the rich, states are cutting prosthetics for the poor. www.salon.com By Joan Walsh

Iraq Chemical weapons, civil war and Arab rage could turn an invasion into a disaster. www.salon.com By Eric Boehlert

The economy If Bush's radical tax cuts are approved and spending continues to soar, the U.S. could be headed toward Japanese-style stagnation -- or worse. www.salon.com By Farhad Manjoo

The environment Bush's pro-industry policies are hastening the end of the polar bears -- and maybe the planet. www.salon.com By Katharine Mieszkowski

Reproductive rights American women take their right to an abortion for granted. They shouldn't anymore. www.salon.com By Sheerly Avni