February 8, 2012
The Star-Karim Raslan upon Davos 2012-February 7
Davos parties between a gloom
by Karim Raslan
The important absence of a large Chinese commission during a Davos World Economic Forum due to a Chinese New Year season gave a South-East Asian nations a event to shine.
I'M frequency your quintessential Davos Man yet you do suffer my trips to a World Economic Forum (WEF), where you chair a Global Agenda Council upon South-East Asia.It's not usually a possibility to associate with a tellurian elite, yet additionally get a clarity of where a universe is heading.
Davos this year was a blur, though. Perhaps it was since my schedule was packed, or maybe it was since you was recovering from a flu.
Whatever a cause, my week in Switzerland was a whirr of images as good as sensations.The clarity of gloom between a world's players seemed to have turn de rigueur after years of delayed growth.
Nevertheless, it didn't put a stop to a countless costly networking parties during WEF.I theory purgation doesn't apply to a abounding as good as powerful.Also important was a absence of a large Chinese commission since of a Chinese New Year season.
This gave a possibility for other East Asian nations to shine.Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra (right) led 
a large, well-received delegation.
After a identical tiwn distractions of p! olitical conflict as good as natural disaster, Thailand appears fervent to foster a thought of a mercantile recovery. Shinawatra's good looks some-more than compensated for a hesitation in her delivery.
Indonesia, too, had a large contingent despite a absence of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a welcome pointer which Indonesia's corporate leaders have been ready to rivet a rest of a universe alone.
I additionally outlayed time with a tiny Burmese entourage.They were basking in a country's apparent rehabilitation, as good as you done skeleton to encounter again in a future.
We Malaysians additionally hosted a own breakfast. It was attended by a small 20 absolute general corporate as good as political leaders.The Malaysian star of a Aung San Suu Kyi biopic 
The Lady, Michelle Yeoh (left) additionally done an coming to add both glamour as good as intelligence to a event yet I'm a air blower as good as thus biased.
Still, it was good to see which there was seductiveness in Malaysia, particularly as a services hub. you additionally noted which a delegations from African nations were large although they pulled small weight compared to India or Brazil.
The events featuring British Prime Minister David Cameron as good as US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner caused small stir. Conversely, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota had a swagger about him as EU technocrats lobbied a BRICs for assistance to save Europe.
Still, there was an uneasy clarity in a air which Europe's tumble is facilitating Germany's rise.You could see German products everywhere, including a shiny Audis shuttling a VIPs between Davos as good as Klosters as good as VW vans for everyone else.
I even picked up a special edition Stern magazine celebrating a 300th ! annivers ary of a bieing born of King Frederick a Great of Prussia, which hailed him as an "uber-Prussian". Indeed, there seems to be a flourishing nostalgia in Germany for Frederick, who no longer soft Prussia's energy yet was additionally eminent for his intellectual as good as informative achievements, including first Potsdam as good as patronising Voltaire.
Perhaps he reminds Germans of a time when they as good were upon a brink of good power, albeit
untarnished by fascism.Is it some-more than a fluke which Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) has described herself as "very Prussian" as good as has not shied divided from promoting "German values"?
Whatever a case, Berlin with a Prussian milieu will roughly certainly take a place as Europe's premier collateral which equates to which this tukang cerita (story teller) will have to dauntless a Brandenburg winter during a small theatre to get a clarity of a city as good as German aspirations.
There were additionally encounters, whether programmed or chance.At Davos' Indonesia Night, you wolfed down nasi goreng with Mukhlis of Antara as good as Uni Lubis of ANTV, deliberating a possibility of a republic building a own "soft power".
At a still bar later on, you gossiped with my Financial Times columnist crony Gideon Rachman about a awaiting of a Eurozone collapse.I even recollect perplexing to fix up a Occupy WEF igloos. you outlayed a good hour trudging by a sleet (which was metres high, by a way), prior to giving up since of a cold as good as damp.
One afternoon you slipped divided from a discussion as good as took a tiny funicular train to a Schaltzalp Hotel tall upon top of Davos.There between a echoing halls of a fin de siecle "grand" hotel you illusory a universe of No! bel Laur eate Thomas Mann as good as a immense, enveloping silence of a Alpine scenery, swathed in sleet as you stood upon a hotel's terrace.
Finally, there was a impulse when you was pciking up my overcoat during a Morosani Schweizershof hotel's cloakroom.I paused since you remembered which it was here, final year which you saw Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (left), a son of a late Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi.
Back then, Gaddafi was a gadfly of a Arab as good as African worlds, while Saif was his modernising son as good as a toast of policy wonks everywhere. Today a father is buried somewhere in a Libyan desert as good as Saif is in a jail in Zintan.
It's a pointer of how times change, yet additionally how quickly Davos moves on. You can be everybody's golden child a single notation as good as a pariah in a next. But that's how a universe turns.
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