davos08

Lots of bloggers have already commented on this New York Times story about how U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad is catching flak for—the horror!—sitting next to an Iranian in Davos. But the Iranians have their own demons to exorcise:

When Timothy Garton-Ash, an Oxford professor, arrived at a lunch on the theme of "Political Islam and Democracy," he was seated where Samare Hashemi Shajareh [the close personal advisor of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] was originally supposed to sit. But Samare Hashemi Shajareh had refused to be seated opposite an Israeli journalist.

It's stupid when Iran plays these kinds of games, and it's stupid when the United States does, too.

UPDATE: I see that the FT's Gideon Rachman has a similar Iran anecdote from Davos:

Eventually I struggled downstairs and sat through the press conference. But a nap might have been a better use of my time. [Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr] Mottaki said almost nothing. The only amusing moment came when he said, gallantly, that he would like to take a question from one of the ladies. Unfortunately, the woman he motioned to turned out to be an Israeli journalist - so he refused to answer the question. Refusing to talk to people usually makes you look silly, I think - which is perhaps a lesson the White House should bear in mind, when thinking about Khalilzad's appearance in Davos.

Well said. 

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

Further proof that blogging is injurious to your plans to enjoy Davos: Having sent off my previous post after 3 a.m., I awoke too late to show up at a UNICEF panel with the former child soldier Ismail Beah, whose bestselling memoir has just come under attack from a section of the Australian media. Last night, with my blogging duties in mind, I managed to forget the Google After-Hours Party, a much sought-after event where the likes of Bono, Bill Gates, and Tony Blair hobnob with the regular pass-holders. So this will definitely be my last post: In future years, if I return, it will be to enjoy myself fully rather than enlighten the cognoscenti.

The last full day of the Forum, Saturday, began to show a slight slackening of the pace, as many attendees started bidding farewell to Davos. (The official closing is on Sunday, with a final session expected to attract so few that it has been shifted from the plenary Congress Hall to a smaller room, and a lunch in the mountains, both of which are likely to be feel-good events and neither of which I intend to blog about.) There was a strong session on the global economic outlook, which nonetheless only confirmed that the outlook is mixed and that economic forecasting is usually slightly less reliable than meteorology.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty

I attended one of the prestige private events, a lunch with the Japanese prime minister (who had flown down to Davos in the midst of a regular session of his country's parliament, the Diet, something that in the previous 37 years had only been done once by any of his predecessors). But the number of empty seats at the half-dozen tables around the PM testified to the declining salience of Japan, a country that two decades ago was seen as the world's economic powerhouse and, bluntly, no longer is.

Otherwise, it was a day of conversations—some accidental, some planned—with a host of friends from the multilateral world: Juan Somavia, the head of the International Labor Organization, EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo of the Yale Center on Globalization, and my old U.N. colleagues Zohreh Tabatabai and Nick Van Praag. Talking to these dedicated servants of the international system was itself a reminder of how little Davos had focused this year on multilateral institutions, once seen at the Forum as the foundation of global cooperation and now largely treated as somewhere between an irrelevance and an afterthought.

So, how would I wrap up this week's experience of Davos? A few observations, not meant to be comprehensive:

• The Forum remains, above all, a networking event. People come to meet and be met, and officials as well as executives expressed satisfaction with the large number of private and "bilateral" meetings they were able to hold in Davos. By this yardstick, the Forum was a success—as it always is.
• The panels were, as usual, of varying quality, with world-class speakers and a few slightly off their game. The scheduling—a huge challenge—meant that no one could really attend everything they'd have liked to, because each interesting panel clashed with another interesting panel.
• Some of the topics chosen were of limited interest, and some of the omissions surprising ones. There was surprisingly little discussion of U.S. politics in a presidential election year—and few American political figures were present. The first few days, thanks to the gyrations in the financial markets, prompted an excessive degree of short-termism in the conversation, which was unfortunate for an event that likes to think of itself as taking the grand and long view of the really important trends in the world.
• In my opening post, I mentioned I'd pay attention to India. There was an extraordinary number of Indians present. The movers and shakers from the worlds of business and politics ranged from the finance minister to the CEOs of all the top information technology companies. But what struck me was the extent to which India is now taken for granted at Davos, in a good way. There's scarcely a panel without an Indian on it, and most discussions of world affairs—economic or geopolitical—witnessed several mentions of India. This Forum afforded confirmation, if any were needed, that my homeland has truly arrived at Davos. It no longer needs any special effort to promote itself to this audience.
• I also promised to look at the attention paid to poverty and development. Some years ago, a World Social Forum was created as a challenge the World Economic Forum. This was the first year in nearly a decade that there wasn't a rival gathering proclaiming that "another world is possible." This is at least partly because Davos has quietly taken on board the same slogan, as this year's Forum demonstrated. The discussions of development and corporate social responsibility have reached a level of seriousness that can only be applauded by an old U.N. hand like me. Of course, action must follow and results have to be visible, but both are beginning to be seen, and the companies and political leaders at the Forum are in many cases responsible for that positive trend.

Finally—as the debris of the extensive Bahrain-sponsored lunch is cleared away and preparations begin for tonight's concert and the black-tie Gala Soirée—it is time to reflect on those peculiar habits of Davos Man (and Woman) that they will have to struggle to shed when they fly away from this snow-capped wonderland. These include, but are not limited to:

• The Davos bend-and-bob: the peculiar movement required to stretch your smart-card badge to one of the ubiquitous scanners that determine whether you can be granted entry, whether you can read your e-mail, and whether you can attend a session for which you may have forgotten to register.

• The furtive chest glance: The quick darting movement of the eye toward the dangling badge that sports a participant's name, which usually precedes a familiar exclamation of pleasure at meeting its wearer, whose identity you had completely forgotten until you saw his or her badge. (Davos is the only place where it is completely socially acceptable, when you meet a woman, to look quickly at her chest first. The operative adverb is "quickly.")

Enough amateur anthropology. Now for the real thing—time to don my glad rags and get ready for the Gala Soirée, which begins at 9 p.m. and goes into the wee hours—a veritable smorgasbord of food, drink, music and last-minute networking. Your faithful blogger relinquishes his keyboard at last. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure.

Shashi Tharoor, a former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, was India's candidate in the 2006 race to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General and came second out of seven contenders. He is the award-winning author of 10 books, most recently The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century. Visit him at www.shashitharoor.com.

You can find Tharoor's previous Diary entries here or at the following links:

• Davos Diary, Day 5: Never tempt Providence
• Day 4: Fatigue can't stop this blogger
• Day 3: Panels galore
• Day 2: Snowy arrival
• Day 1: Setting the scene

Our humble Davos narrator, Shashi Tharoor, gave a remarkably concise, eloquent defense of the United Nations during a panel on the topic "Rebuilding Brand America" (moderated by FP Editor in Chief Moisés Naím). Here's what Tharoor said, referring to News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's comment that "everyone knows" that the United Nations is "a corrupt, ridiculous, dysfunctional place":

I was a bit taken aback by some of the references to the U.N., largely because many of the individual countries in the organization have a great deal of regard for the U.S. of course, and the U.S. has its way more often than not in the U.N. And the fact is that, you know, a lot of the demonstrators against the U.S. in many parts of the world are probably really saying, "Yankee go home, but take me with you."

So, the admiration is real, but at the same time, what on Earth is the alternative for the U.S.? This is the one organization that brings every country together. Many countries, especially smaller ones, send their best and most skilled diplomats to New York. It's a place where the U.S. can engage with the rest of the world, where the U.S. can advance its goals in partnership with others rather than on its own. I mean, what's not to like about an institution that helps the U.S. to share the burden? Sure, it's got its limitations. Dag Hammerskjold said 50 years ago that the U.N. wasn't created to take mankind to paradise, but rather to save humanity from hell. And sometimes that's the best the U.N. can do. It can prevent things from getting a whole lot worse, and it seems to me that the U.S. has a great deal of interest in working with the rest of the world at the U.N.

You can also watch the YouTube clip of Tharoor below. Skip to 29:10 to see his remarks:

An improvident editor at FP placed a hubristic headline on my last post: "Fatigue can't stop this blogger."

Never tempt Providence. Fatigue did stop this blogger Friday morning. Or maybe just plain laziness.

After four nights of minimal sleep, my body decided it didn't want to catch a 7 a.m. bus from Klosters to listen to President Musharraf assure a hot-ticket breakfast crowd that the fate of Pakistani democracy was safe in his hands. It went a step further and decided it could do without a serious discussion on Corporate Global Citizenship in the 21st Century, featuring British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Cisco Systems CEO John T. Chambers, and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi.

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

When I finally stirred myself and trudged out on a surprisingly sunny morning, the Klosters to Davos shuttle bus, supposedly scheduled at 20-minute intervals, took 35 minutes to arrive. Two fellow passengers were raving about the panel I'd just missed. Ever the diligent blogger, I pulled out my notepad: "What did they say?" An abashed silence followed. "I don't really recall," one attendee confessed. "Queen Rania of Jordan was seated right in the middle and I just looked at her the whole time."

I eventually surmised that the panelists had agreed that it made business sense for corporations to make social responsibility a priority. They've been saying that for years at Davos, of course, but this time there was an added flourish: Indra Nooyi declared that philanthropy had "unleashed the emotions" of PepsiCo's employees. Brown and Chambers agreed that customers are not just supportive, they are demanding that corporations become more socially and environmentally aware.

When I finally got to the Forum, I decided to pass up the Ukrainian lunch to which I'd been invited by Viktor Pinchuk, a son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma whose invitations had remained highly popular with the Davos glitterati (he was also the host of the relocated philanthropic round table I'd missed yesterday, on that occasion for no fault of mine). My choice was clear: the risk of long speeches on Ukraine versus a chance to catch up on the Davos buzz. The latter was useful, because it helped me realize that in attending only the panels that interested me I'd steered clear of what all the business journalists were focusing on: the loss by the French bank Société Générale of the small sum of $7.1 billion, which the bank was blaming on a reckless (and dishonest) trader—Barings all over again, except with more zeroes.

I'd also missed the interminable arguments about whether the world economy was in crisis or not (they don't know any more than you do) and whether it was the fault of the regulators or the speculators (or possibly both). As someone once famously said, if you put all the economists in the world end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion. I have never been a practitioner of the dismal science, so I skipped a BBC debate on global economics (though I commend it unseen to those who care, if only because its moderator, my friend Nik Gowing, knows how to keep an argument moving). And I returned to the topics that interested me.

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Just as well, because I caught two terrific panels back to back, which doesn't always happen in Davos. The first, on Indian innovation, was stimulating and educative, and it was attended (judging by the badges of the questioners) by a surprisingly large number of Davos spouses who had actually traveled or worked in India. The second was even better: a first-rate discussion on what could have been too well-worn a subject—development. Despite the absence of the advertised Kofi Annan (on a mediation trip in Kenya rather than on the stage in Davos), the panel featured Gordon Brown, Bill Gates, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, and the chairman of both Unilever and Ericsson, Michael Treschow, all ably moderated by PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi. The conversation managed to be both thoughtful and wide-ranging: In the span of an hour, the heavyweights spoke of skill-building and education, corruption and good governance, the empowerment of women, African agriculture, mobile telephony and entrepreneurship (and a lot else besides). Though the focus was principally on Africa—as if other regions don't still have major development challenges to overcome—it was a first-rate conversation, Brown especially coming off as an insightful and committed leader on the issue. If the British voters ever tire of him, he should be put in charge of a global development agency.

I managed to make an appearance at three of the six receptions to which I'd been invited (the fact that two were at the same hotel helped) before arriving at my dinner panel. I'd groaned at the topic—"The Rise of the Multicultural Couple"—and at first sight I was convinced this was going to be a disaster. There were five speakers, six paying dinner guests, and four Forum staff around the table. But it turned out to be a delightful discussion, covering inter-religious marriage, the case for cosmopolitanism, and even an exchange about the neurological consequences of falling in love. That Davos still retains the capacity to put on a panel like that humanizes the place.

Since yesterday's format appears to have won some approbation, I'll end with a few notes from the events I attended:

Most intriguing facts I learned about India today:

• One hundred fifty of the Fortune 500 companies have established R&D operations in India.
• In 2002, more people traveled by train in one day in India than by plane in an entire year.
• Of the 300 million children in India between the ages of 6 and 16 today, 270 million will reach adulthood without the benefit of a formal education.

Swiss Image/World Economic Forum

Most irrelevant observations about Davos: The "no-tie" rule proclaimed by founder Klaus Schwab, in an effort to preserve the informality of the Forum, is honored by the corporate types but not by the officials. At the development panel, Brown sported a splendid purple tie, Manuel a vivid red one, and Zoellick a drab navy tie. Far worse sartorially is the number of women wearing high heeled shoes and stiletto boots amidst the snow and the ice. How do they do it, one is tempted to marvel. But more to the point: Why do they do it?

Most memorable corridor confabs: I greeted my old friend Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, most warmly, and only after a few minutes realized whom I'd interrupted him chatting with. It was the Duke of York. Davos rules prevent further indiscretion about the subsequent conversation, but even a staunch republican like me doesn't treat running into royalty lightly.

Most quotable one-liners:

• "Economics has made us interdependent and politics divides us. We need to bring our politics in line with our economics." –Trevor Manuel, finance minister of South Africa
• "The most significant breakthrough innovations are made out of fear." –Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom company
• "Cosmopolitans are rich; evangelicals are poor." –David McWilliams, Irish entrepreneur

Shashi Tharoor, a former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, was India's candidate in the 2006 race to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General and came second out of seven contenders. He is the award-winning author of 10 books, most recently The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century. Visit him at www.shashitharoor.com.

You can find Tharoor's previous Diary entries here or at the following links:

• Day 4: Fatigue can't stop this blogger
• Day 3: Panels galore
• Day 2: Snowy arrival
• Day 1: Setting the scene

PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/Getty Images

Author Ian Buruma, who is in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, has picked up on a tactic increasingly used by undemocratic countries such as China and Iran in defending themselves from international criticism: demanding that Westerners stop "imposing" their values on cultures that supposedly have a different understanding of what democracy means.

As Buruma put it me this morning, this is clearly self-serving hogwash. "It's much less a division between East and West along civilizational lines than some people like to see it," he said. "It's really a political division," he added, pointing out that the Indians and the Japanese, or even the Indonesians don't see things that way. Few people may buy the argument, Buruma said, but nonetheless it's an effective way of neutralizing the democracy issue because people don't want to be seen as dissing other cultures. "When people discuss this in terms of culture and civilization, then you get a lot of that pious stuff," he noted, referring to the kind of Kumbaya moments that former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has made into a veritable Davos fetish. "People have the habit of expressing fine sentiments as soon as civilization and culture come up." 

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pulled the culture card at a breakfast Buruma attended and found the Pakistani leader to be "completely out of touch," fixated on the notion that "any bad news about Pakistan is a distortion by the foreign press." After all, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, and George W. Bush had assured him that "everything is fine." Musharraf also tangled with Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, who had the temerity to suggest that Pakistan's human rights record could use a little improvement. Musharraf's response, essentially "We have our own human rights," was underwhelming, to say the least.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

It's well past midnight in the Bidwell-Azarm apartment in Klosters as I sit down to review another long day at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Last night, I got to bed at 2:45 a.m. after giving you all a blow-by-blow(hard) account of all the panels I went to. Since I woke up three hours later and have staggered through the day, I'm going to be a lot more telegraphic about Thursday. In fact, I'm going to summarize the day in a different style altogether, just for a change. (If there are enough protests, I'll return to prose reporting on Friday). Herewith, my day in 10 easy points:

1. Misfires:

• Didn't register in time for the Tom Friedman-Al Gore double bill on climate change, which was sold out within minutes of being available for sign-up.

• Arrived at a scheduled lunch panel featuring George Soros and Walter Isaacson on philanthropy after a 15-minute journey and discovered they'd moved the venue to another hotel and neglected to inform the attendees. Unexpected bonus: Joined a lunch discussion on the water crisis around the world instead. Cloud attached to silver lining: Had to pay 90 Swiss francs, almost $75 now, for my salad.

2. Morning panel highlights: Fascinating discussion on peace and stability featuring four beleaguered Muslim leaders: President Karzai of Afghanistan, President Musharraf of Pakistan, "Chief Adviser" (de facto Prime Minister) of Bangladesh Fakhruddin Ahmed, and Deputy Prime Minister Bahram Salih of Iraq. All inveighed against terrorism and extremism, defended the ways in which their countries were run and sought the world's help in promoting economic growth and political stability in their lands. Musharraf proved the ablest at swatting back tough questions; Karzai at ducking them. Asked (by me) what exactly he meant when he said that in his region extremism had been a "tool of policy," and whether this related to his previously expressed view that terrorism was being exported his way from across his border with Pakistan, Karzai replied, "Mr. Tharoor, I have just had a good visit with President Musharraf. I'm not going to say any more."

3. Panel disappointments: A bland performance by Musharraf in a hugely attended double-bill with Henry Kissinger, who was supposed to ask him three questions but tossed him two softballs instead. Musharraf repeated the points he'd just made at the previous panel.

4. Afternoon panel highlights: A first-rate discussion on the perils of Internet terrorism, featuring such heavy hitters as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Britain's Leader of the Opposition David Cameron, head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth, and feisty Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. Lots of pithy insight about the use of cyberspace to recruit terrorists and to wage war, plus a side argument about the definition of terrorism and whether Israel was shooting itself in the foot by denouncing even attacks on its soldiers, not just civilians, as terrorist attacks.

5. Afternoon panel disappointments: A wasted hour-long Middle East panel chaired by Tony Blair and oddly featuring three Israelis (President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Livni and Defense Minister Barak) and only one Palestinian (Prime Minister Salam Fayyad). Not one person from this impressive galaxy said a single thing we hadn't heard before, and the audience wasn't allowed to ask questions.

6. Dinner panel: I found myself speaking on whether "globalization = cultural homogenization," along with the likes of Québec Premier Jean Charest, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, genius cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the CEO of Burger King. We all agreed that it doesn't, but had fun coming up with ideas and anecdotes about cultural diversity.

7. Uneven discussions: First, the water panel, an interesting but complicated topic that had been discussed earlier in the Forum and which left me feeling I'd walked in halfway through a suspense movie and couldn't quite figure out the plot. Second, a discussion on "Brand America" with impressive panelists (starting with Rupert Murdoch) and chaired by FP's own Moisés Naím, which nonetheless went all over the place—including a bizarre attack on the United Nations by Murdoch, supported by a Bahraini royal—rather than focusing on its declared purpose of devising recommendations to the next U.S. President on how to improve America's global image.

8. Memorable informal encounters: An animated conversation on the margins with the top leaders of Bangladesh's interim government, and another at the Tata reception with two of India's more impressive cabinet ministers. Also a chat with Bombay society maven Parmeshwar Godrej, currently under pressure from Muslim fundamentalists to apologize for having hosted Salman Rushdie at her home, who is refusing to buckle under despite threats of a boycott of her company's products.

9. One-liners of the day:

• "I don't agree with the notion of Brand America. A country is not a brand and cannot be sold." – French ad tycoon Maurice Lévy

• "Foreign Minister Livni has just told me her parents were arrested by the British. Being prime minister of Britain means having to go around the world apologizing to everybody." – Tony Blair, looking remarkably unapologetic

• "As a business journalist, I feel like I've gone hunting with Dick Cheney and some sidekick has just released all the pheasants in front of me so I can't miss them." – reporter marveling at the availability of quoteworthy CEOs in every hallway

10. Change of plan: Thanks to the lateness of the hour and President Musharraf's repeating himself in the two sessions I've heard him on already, I'll skip a breakfast with him organized by a Pakistani businessman Friday morning. Midway through the Forum, and particularly at the end of a Davos day featuring six panels, three breakfasts, two lunches, four receptions, and a blog diary to maintain, my borrowed bed looks a lot more inviting than a 7 a.m. bus from Klosters. Good night...

Before Bill Gates even had chance to present his ideas for "creative capitalism," the National Review's Larry Kudlow had already misrepresented Gates's argument:

I just have to smile when a billionaire like Bill Gates turns a cold shoulder to the blessings capitalism bestows. Or when his buddy, Warren Buffett, broadcasts the importance of hiking tax rates on successful earners and investors. Look fellas, the command-and-control, state-run economics experiment was tried. It was called the Soviet Union. If you hadn't noticed, it was a miserable failure.

What's in the drinking water at this place called Davos?

Of course, the Wall Street Journal article from which Kudlow based his comments explicitly noted, "Mr. Gates isn't abandoning his belief in capitalism as the best economic system."

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

And if you look at what Gates actually said, he didn't call for governments to seize control of the means of production. Nor, truth be told, did he actually say anything profoundly new. He just wants to push for "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities." 

Another Davos-goer mentioned in Gates's speech, FP contributor C.K. Prahalad, has long advocated that businesses sell to the "bottom of the pyramid"—the poorest of the poor. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, named in 2005 by FP and Prospect magazine as one of the world's 100 top public intellectuals, literally wrote the book on why capitalism runs aground in some of the poorer areas of the world. De Soto also won the Cato Institute's "Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty" in 2004. So Gates is well within the bounds of acceptable capitalist discourse.

Maybe he's wrong—and in today's WSJ article FP contributor Bill Easterly raises an important question about the effectiveness of efforts to sell to the poor—but Gates is no socialist. He also recognizes, as he said in his speech, that "profits are not always possible when business tries to serve the very poor" and that we need to find other incentives—not Soviet diktats—for companies that do so. Gates's final closing remarks were a humble plea for market-driven efforts to combat poverty:

I'd like to ask everyone here—whether you're in business, government or the non-profit world—to take on a project of creative capitalism in the coming year. It doesn't have to be a new project; you could take an existing project, and see where you might stretch the reach of market forces to help push things forward. When you award foreign aid, when you make charitable gifts, when you try to change the world—can you also find ways to put the power of market forces behind the effort to help the poor?

That's hardly a call to implement the recommendations of Das Kapital. Too bad Kudlow would rather launch ideological polemics and attack strawmen than consider Gates's ideas on their merits.

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

Imagine the following scenario: 

Water, the source of human survival, enters the global marketplace and political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive. Wars of the future will be fought over water, not oil. Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?"

This is the plot synopsis for an upcoming documentary film Blue Gold: World Water Wars, but it could just as well be a quote from Ban Ki-moon at today's World Economic Forum panel, "Time is Running Out for Water." The U.N. chief painted an equally sobering picture of the potential effects of a global water shortage:

The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.”

It's not just the U.N. that is warning of an impending crisis. A report on climate change and conflict by the NGO International Alert highlights water shortages and their potentially aggravating effects on violent conflicts around the world. Although the report outlines some pretty worrisome consequences of water shortages, conflict need not lead to war, an author of the report tells the Times of London, but can result in opportunities for collaboration and innovation. For more information on freshwater resources around the world, check out the Pacific Institute's Web site.