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World leaders seek 'ethical globalisation'

Global business leaders heard a blunt warning on Sunday that corporations and international organisations must become more accountable or face mounting resentment from ordinary people and poor nations, and some appeared to heed the message.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson told business and political leaders at the fourth day of the World Economic Forum that they face a key challenge -- empowering the common citizen in the globalisation process.

"We need to move toward a more ethical globalisation and find a way to have civic democracy on an international level," she said.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey referred to the recent collapse of Enron, saying the fall of the energy trading giant raised fundamental questions about honesty and accountability within capitalism.

"There's a big question mark over capitalism today. It's one word and it's Enron," he said. "And what is that challenge? Capitalism has to act within boundaries."

The ever-widening gulf between rich and poor nations has emerged as a central theme of the five-day gathering, which has brought together 2,700 delegates from many different countries and disciplines to discuss key issues.

Thousands of anti-globalisation demonstrators demanding an end to corporate greed and worker exploitation rallied in the streets this weekend near the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where leaders are barricaded behind rows of police officers guarding the high-powered talkfest.

Protests have been spirited but non-violent at this meeting, held just three miles (5 km) north of the debris of the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the Septemebr 11 attacks.

MORE ARRESTS

About 70 people were arrested in Greenwich Village Sunday afternoon for lying down in the street and blocking traffic in demonstrations against the forum, police said.

They said the demonstrations on East 12th Street, East 13th Street and East 14th Street, about two miles from the WEF site, were peaceful.

"Given the number of people that we've had come to New York to visit us this weekend, we've had a very small number of arrests," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The chants from outside stirred some debate in the carpeted halls of the Waldorf as many delegates expressed deep concern about a globalising world which has divided its rewards unevenly, fueling a reservoir of rage among the dispossessed and creating fertile conditions in which terrorism can be nurtured.

Merrill Lynch chief executive David Komansky said he could understand and sympathise with some of what the protesters were arguing. He said he had witnessed first hand the pain that could accompany the transition of an inefficient state-run company into an efficient market-based enterprise.

"Some of the activities we engage in put you in a position where you can truly understand some of their points of view," he said.

Rolf-Ernst Breuer, the head of Germany's Deutsche Bank, said companies had to pay more attention than ever before to their role as good corporate citizens.

"Today, much more than in former times, the chief executive is in charge of corporate citizenship," he said.

Many delegates have said that globalisation is at risk if rich nations -- particularly the United States and Europe -- fail to dismantle the subsidies that deny poor nations full access to their steel, textile and agricultural markets.

Noreena Hertz, a business analyst at Britain's Cambridge University, said that even the industrialised world had seen a worrying shift of power from elected politicians to multinational corporations and organizations that were both undemocratic and unaccountable.

MIDDLE EAST

Much energy at the forum has been devoted to the Middle East conflict, seen by many as the most intractable and dangerous currently facing the world.

Jordan's King Abdullah said: "The international community must resolve itself to solve without delay the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Abdullah and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed both rejected the extremists who destroyed the World Trade Center in the name of Islam.

"We must firmly reject that humanity can be distorted in the name of one God, the merciful, the compassionate," Abdullah said.

But he said the world urgently needed to narrow the gap between rich and poor nations to disarm the sense of grievance in the developing world.

Mahathir said violent groups were making it more difficult for Islamic nations such as his own to develop.

"If today Islam is perceived to be a religion of backward, violent and irrational people, it is not because of Islam itself, as a faith and a way of life," he said.

With scores of different panel discussions to attend, delegates have explored issues ranging from AIDS to accountancy and nutrition to artificial intelligence.

The gathering has always tended to focus on the fashionable issues of the day. In previous sessions in Davos, Switzerland, where the WEF is headquartered, much attention was paid to the development of information technology and the Internet.

This year, security issues in Afghanistan and the Middle East have loomed large while experts have agonised over the collapse of the "Internet bubble."

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