Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) – Even when Donald Trump wasn’t in the room or even the main theme, the US president kept coming up again Wednesday at the gabfest of global elites in the Swiss resort of Davos. Mel B, once a member of the Spice Girls, one of the biggest girl bands ever, also spoke frankly about her experience with domestic violence on the third day of the World Economic Forum.
Here’s a summary of what happened on Wednesday:
**Trumpeting Trump** – There were more reactions to Trump’s remarks and threats. Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said during a panel that the nation’s canal was “not a concession or a gift” from the United States after Trump said he would take it “back”. Although some businesspeople and politicians are worried about the new White House tenant, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres praised Trump for the Gaza truce. “There was a large contribution of the robust diplomacy of the at-the-time president-elect of the United States,” Guterres said. Argentina’s president and self-avowed Trump fan went further than others. “The world should celebrate the arrival of President Trump…. The golden era he proposes for the United States will shine a light for the whole world,” Javier Milei said at a Bloomberg event. He also said he was “working hard” to get a free trade deal with the United States.
**Mel B on domestic violence** – Ex-Spice Girl Mel B was at Davos to shine a spotlight on domestic violence and call for more action and funding as she shared her own experience with abuse. “It’s not just about talking about it, it’s getting the funding because the government, they just allocate a little bit of money each year, but they end up spending millions” on police or safe houses, she said. She recommended supporting charities or foundations where the money “goes direct to the survivor and they actually get the benefits from it”. The pop star — real name Melanie Brown — described how she was “riddled with shame and guilt” and hid from others her then husband’s physical and emotional abuse. “I was like, ‘Who’s going to believe me?’ Because it was drilled into me that nobody’s going to believe me,” she said during a frank conversation. She welcomed how people described their own experiences since she told her story. “I’m glad that I’ve opened up the doors for the conversation.”
**Green shoots** – Climate has taken a backseat at the WEF but that didn’t stop former US vice president Al Gore from repeating his rallying cry to act, although he acknowledged a lack of political will from some. Speaking only a couple of days after Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, Gore said efforts would not be in vain. “The antidote to climate despair is climate action,” he said, adding: “Don’t get discouraged. We are going to prevail.” He also noted the clean tech industry was expanding. “One of the many benefits, we create three times as many jobs in clean energy, and we now have three million more clean energy jobs than fossil energy jobs.”
**Scepticism over Trump AI venture** – Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, whose company develops the Claude chatbot in partnership with Amazon, appeared unconvinced about the financing for a $500 billion AI project announced by Trump this week. The major investment to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence is led by Japanese giant Softbank, cloud giant Oracle, and Anthropic rival OpenAI. “It seemed a bit chaotic. It’s not clear how much money is actually involved and how much of that was committed,” Amodei said at the same Bloomberg event as Milei. Amodei joins tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has also cast doubt on the venture in a rare instance of a split between the world’s richest man and Trump.
© 2024 AFP
