DAVOS, Switzerland -- President Vicente Fox of Mexico was received very warmly at this year's World Economic Forum summit in Davos. His message was clear: that globalization creates dangers, such as a deepening divide between rich and poor, and that these must be addressed if the globalization "backlash" is to be contained.
The same theme was heard at a dozen other Davos panels and seminar meetings this year, as well as in the remarkable two-way televised panel conducted between key Davos participants and their "rivals" at a sort of counter-Davos summit being held simultaneously in Rio de Janeiro.
In this latter event, financier George Soros led the way in almost accepting outright the antiglobalization critique -- a gesture of appeasement that earned him few plaudits from either side and a warning that the middle way is a dangerous path to take between emotional arguments, even at the best of times. Meanwhile, more antiglobalization protesters, denied access by the Swiss police to the resort of Davos itself, roamed around the Swiss cantons, rioting in Zurich and blocking Switzerland's motorways to demonstrate their feelings.