'WHY YOU SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM"

Joan M. Veon

Businesswoman and International Journalist

Executive Director, The Women's International Media Group, Inc.

IF POWER LUNCHES CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS, GUESS WHAT A SIX DAY FORUM THAT INVITES THE POWER-BROKERS OF THE WORLD CAN DO---CHANGE THE WORLD!!!!

Speaker Newt Gingrich said of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos, Switzerland on January 28 through February 3, " [It] is a remarkable social invention which brings together more people from more places in a more efficient manner than any place I have seen. This is a truly remarkable and vital week that opens up many opportunities for the entire planet." Hillary Clinton called the WEF, "the World Economic, Political and Social Forum."

For 28 years, Professor Klaus Schwab, the originator of the WEF, has been bring power leaders together. This year's theme was "Priorities for the 21st Century - Managing Volatility." The Forum's mandate is to bring the captains, kings and (now) queens of industry together to hobnob with the leaders of both the UN nation-states and the United Nations international structure in order to form (business) partnerships. Their motto is "Committed to Improving the State of the World." It was the WEF that said in 1987 to give "Gorbachev a chance," which they say, contributed to the end of the Cold War. Mr. Gorbachev, who started holding his own annual meetings in 1995, calls them the "Gorbachev State of the World Forum." He, too, courts multinational corporations, a number of which paid up to $250,000 ($50,000 minimum) for the honor of supporting his first Forum.

The theme, "Managing Volatility" is a prophetic theme for those of us who understand volatility. While these princes of the international level determine how they are going to cope, the Christian, by their own prayer life and personal holiness, are always prepared for how the Lord speaks in world events.

Participants

Among the beautiful, rich, and brainy were eight members of the Trilateral Commission, forty-four members of the Council for Foreign Relations, three who were members of both, sixty-nine with a current or past affiliation with the United Nations system, nine Fulbright/Rhodes Scholars and eight from the Royal Institute for International Affairs which endeavors to carry out the legacy of Cecil Rhodes in reuniting America with Britain.* These represent 8.92% of the 1,580 participants in the Participants Handbook. Another 333 or 21% have PhDs. The largest number of PhDs are in economics (102) with law coming in second (61). Is this the "brain trust" which Gorbachev called for at his 1995 State of the World Forum? Lastly, two members of the group are members of the Socialist International: Gro Harlem Brundtland, recently designated to head of the World Health Organization, and Shimon Peres, a member of the Israeli Parliament.

The WEF - the seat of the world's power

Because I have covered eighteen UN and UN related conferences in the last forty months on four continents, including our own for USA Radio, I can compare this to the others I have attended. "When I went to the UN mega-conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Istanbul and Rome, I thought I was at the seat of power, when I went to the IMF/World Bank and the Group of Seven/Group of Eight meetings, I thought I was at the seat of power, when I went to the International Organization of Security Commissions (IOSCO - considered "the United Nations of Security Commissions," i.e. stock exchanges), I felt I was getting close. When I went to the World Economic Forum, I realized I was at the apex of the world's power."

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Workshops

The World Economic Forum held over 200 workshops in six days in order to apprise the participants of the state of the world as they see it. The topics included medicine, death/dying, spirituality, cloning, geopolitics, the US in the 21st Century, the Euro and the Common Market, "Governing globalization," Asia and the Asian crisis-- what needs to be done, corporate governance and the role of the CEO in the 21st century, the centerless corporation, regional meetings on NAFTA, Europe, China, Asia/Middle East, global warming and educating tomorrow's global citizen, to name a few.

US Participants to the WEF

Those attending from United States government included First Lady Hilary Clinton, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Orin Hatch (R-UT), Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) as well as Speaker Newt Gingrich. CEO's from corporations which originate in the U.S. included, CocaCola, Sara Lee, DuPont, TRW, 3M, ARCO, the Perot Group, Texaco, U.S. West (all of these are part of the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum), along with Phillips Petroleum, Pepsi, Xerox, P&G, Kemper International, Ford Motor, Case Corporation, and Dow Chemical to name a few. In an interview with the CEO of Case Corporation, he said he came to the WEF because there was no other place where you could get the feel of what was happening in the world in one week.

Major Theme - Managing Volatility - The Final Step to Total World Integration

Since July 1997, Asia has been experiencing a loss of confidence in the value of their currencies. The Finance Minister of Malaysia has blamed George Soros for selling their currencies in such huge amounts that they have crashed. Another likely scenario could be that the Koreans, Japanese and Malaysians would not play global ball with the world's international financial institutions. Since the world's monetary system is in the hands of private corporations, called central banks (in America it is called the Federal Reserve Bank), a currency crash (in which all the central banks sold the currency of these countries at the same time) could have been pre-planned in order to "encourage" them decide to sign the World Trade Organization's Financial Services Agreement on December 12. This Agreement basically allows all of the world's banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms to buy and invest anywhere in the world. Given this open door to the world's financial system, it may be in the not-too-distant future that the top ten banks in the United States many not be American but a combination of Japanese, British, Dutch, French, Canadian and American.

The answer to managing volatility from all of the experts, whether they were from the UN system---the World Bank/IMF/ UN/World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) or industry such as George Soros, economic and financial experts, and the Bank for International Settlements is that the UN system has to be given greater power in their ability to react to international crisis not only on an international level but also on a national level. In addition to strengthening the global oversight capacities of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), it was recommended over and over again that the banking rules which they have issued for large international banks now be applied to the banks located inside of a country. What this really means is that the final integration between the international infrastructure which has been evolving since 1945 and the local/national level of every country be combined into one---a further empowerment of world government or to use their words, an integration of systems.

Gingrich and Clinton call for a new paradigm

This empowerment theme of further integration between the global and the local was also born out by Speaker Newt Gingrich and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Newt called for a "very deep and profound reform of our educational system, the establishment of a lifetime learning system, a new vision and paradigm,"

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in addition to an international police force. All of these meet the global agenda of global education and retirement, any restructuring of our educational and retirement systems is to conform to what has already been put in place globally. Hillary Clinton reinforced the merger of the economic, environmental and social [spheres] which is being facilitated by the UN system. She said, "[A]s we go into the 21st Century, if we can keep in mind the balance of power among these three spheres that effect all our lives and if we can look for ways to work cooperatively together, then I think the doomsayers and the pessimists will be proven wrong." She called, as her husband did in his State of the Union speech, for public private partnerships. She said, "It is impossible to think of any corporation, no matter how large or any government, no matter how powerful, addressing [the needs of civil society] alone. Whether we like it or not, we are more interdependent today than we have ever been. I believe that interdependence is a good development. And it should be respected by governments and businesses alike."

Public-Private Partnerships is the Purpose of the WEF

The purpose of the World Economic Forum is to bring together both government and business to create public-private partnerships. Public private partnerships are a way of creating investment by business in government through a business partnership in which profit is the name of the game. This arrangement was made public by the United Nations at the Habitat II conference in Istanbul in June, 1996. When big business is combined with big government, the result is fascism. The New World Order will be control of the assets and people of the world through global corporate fascism. This is much worse than communism for in communism the state owns everything. In fascism, they share and whoever has the deepest pockets, wins. Eventually, as corporations continue to adopt the radical U.N. environmental agenda which bows to mother earth, it will require every employee to agree with the principles of the corporation in order keep a job.

Interestingly enough, when you consider the public side of public-private partnerships which is government- -any level, such as county, city, village, state, federal and global along with private which is business--mid- size to transnational, foundations, and non-governmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, Planned Parenthood Federation, etc., it is this combination of civil society which will be included in the partnership, not the Christian or conservative NGO's. Yes, Hillary, when you combine the economic (money and power) with the environmental (reduction of population and Gaia worship) with the UN approved non-governmental organizations, those who will feel the heat will be those who do not agree with the agenda. Little by little, the United Nations is extending itself from the global down to where we live. If we do not get involved and take a stand, we will be swallowed up by an anti-Christ agenda which is contrary to all that we have known--the Constitution, Biblical principles and the freedoms we have to worship God.

The theme which has been enforced by the World Economic Forum is that we are one, there are no borders any longer--not with knowledge as a result of the Internet or economically through trade or business, we are one and must act for the good of the whole which means the empowerment of the UN system as it seeks more power in expanding its domain from the global to the local, where you and I live.

Interestingly enough, it was brought to my attention that this conference, in keeping with the lunar cycle, began on the Jewish Feast of the New Moon, January 28 and ended the day of the crescent moon, 2/3/98. At 5,000 feet up in the mountains, there was more than talk, negotiations and sash-shaying going on.

*My book Prince Charles the Sustainable Prince is available through The Women's International Media Group, Inc. for a gift of $14.00. Please send your check to P. O. Box 630, Olney, MD 20830-0630. I maintain that when the U.S. Senate ratified the UN Charter in 1945, we entered world government and reverted back under the control of the British. Read the book!