Germany's Chancellor <name>Angela Merkel</name> gave yesterday's opening address to the 42nd meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is facing a distinctly different geo-political landscape from twelve months ago. Outside the WEF security cordon, in the sub-zero temperatures of Davos' train station car park, the local incarnation of the Occupy movement are setting up 'Camp Igloo'; but, with little hope of the archetypes of the 1%, 'Davos Man', arriving by public transport and seeing their sub-zero protest.

<name>David Roth</name>, heading the Swiss centre-left's youth wing — and an organiser of 'Camp Igloo', echoes much of the sentiment from 'Occupy' protests around the world; "[a]t meetings the rest of society is excluded from, this powerful '1 percent' negotiates and decides about the fate of the other 99 percent of this world, [...] economic and financial concentration of power in a small, privileged minority leads to a dictatorship over the rest of us. The motto 'one person, one vote' is no longer valid, but 'one dollar, one vote'."

<name>Roth's</name> characterisation of 'Davos Man', a term coined by the Professor <name>Samuel Huntington</name> of Harvard University, is more emotive than that of the late professor who saw 'Davos man' as "[having...] little need for national loyalty, view[ing] national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see[ing] national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations".

At 'Camp Igloo' <name>Roth</name> says he is seeking discussions with the WEF's expected 2,000 attendees; but his voice, and that of others in the worldwide 'Occupy' movement, is unlikely to be given a platform in the opening debate, "Is 20th-century capitalism failing 21st-century society?" He, and others taking part in this Swiss incarnation of the 'Occupy' movement, are still considering an invite to a side-session issued by the World Economic Forum's founder, <name>Klaus Schwab</name>; commenting on the invite <name>Roth</name> told the Associated Press they would prefer a debate at a more neutral venue.