Discord, controversy at Davos gathering

DAVOS, Switzerland -- While domestic woes sidelined major figures like U.S. President Donald Trump, this year's gathering of the global elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos showcased divisions on pressing issues like trade and the environment.

In the end, a spunky 16-year-old Swedish climate activist all but stole the show.

The World Economic Forum, which wrapped up Friday, was characterized by discord over momentous issues such as Brexit and world trade. Many of the leaders closest to those questions -- from Trump to Britain's Theresa May and China's Xi Jinping -- did not show up as they had in past years.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, howled about alleged hypocrisy after reports a record number of flights by carbon-spewing private jets would ferry rich corporate bigwigs to talk at the event this year -- including about global warming.

As the adults deliberated, Greta Thunberg, an environmentalist teenager, sounded the alarm.

"I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day," said the student, who got a waiver from school to travel 32 hours from her home in Sweden -- by train, to keep he carbon footprint down.

Since founder Klaus Schwab first gathered European business executives back in 1971, the World Economic Forum has defended globalization as a force for good improving lives and boosting prosperity.

Now, advocates of closer economic and cultural ties are on the defensive. Trump's "America First" sloganeering, the Brexit-style self-interest, populist politics and the rise of "strongman" leaders in countries from the Philippines to Brazil have shaken confidence in the international rules and organizations set up since World War II.

The conference center in Davos still bustled with business executives, presidents and prime ministers, heads of non-governmental organizations, scientists and artists. They met privately or sat on publicly broadcast discussions about world issues: Poverty, climate change, the rise of machines, diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer and trade disputes among them.

Organizers of the event trumpeted some achievements and commitments made in Davos.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan will push for global data governance when it hosts the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing nations this year. Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia held talks toward ending the long-standing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Britain's health secretary unveiled a five-year plan to tackle the global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

"If it didn't exist, someone would have had to create it, because we cannot solve the most pressing global challenges without a unique partnership between governments, business and civil society," WEF president Borge Brende said Friday of the gathering.