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Leaders at Davos are turning "anxiety into action"
The shifting geopolitical landscape and uncertainty surrounding the future of AI have stirred anxiety among those gathered in Davos. Yet, there are glimmers of hope. “The most important thing for me is really to turn the anxiety into action," said Teresa Hutson, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft. She emphasizes the need for organizations, businesses, and individuals to tackle global challenges with proactive, “action-oriented optimism.” Only then does she believe we can start to solve problems that have so far felt unsolvable.
Others, like Annemarie Hou, Executive Director of the UN Office for Partnerships, share this hope. She sees promise in the business sector’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals at Davos as a testament. She remarks, "It's up to all of us right now, in the moment, to continue to push as far as we can and get the world as far as we can by 2030."
This conversation is presented by GZERO, in partnership with Microsoft, from the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical conversations on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Follow GZERO coverage of Davos here: https://www.gzeromedia.com/global-stage
DVF in Davos: A fashion icon is still fighting for gender equality
“I wanted to be a woman in charge,” Diane von Furstenberg said. “And I became a conduit for a certain freedom.”
The iconic fashion designer, who changed women’s apparel 50 years ago with the “wrap dress,” has long been a champion of gender equality. This week in Davos, her work earned her a Crystal Award, presented annually by the World Economic Forum to creators and innovators making a positive impact on society.
DVF, in the rare stratosphere of stars known by just their initials, sat down with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis to talk about bridging the gender gap, the “masculine wave” currently in politics and business, what it means for diversity initiatives, and how she views her legacy decades into her historic career.
She reflected on the power of a “little dress” that built her career, her own inspirations including German actress and singer Marlene Dietrich, and why she has hope for the creative women of Gen Z.
Follow GZERO coverage of Davos here: https://www.gzeromedia.com/global-stage
LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 07: A wind-driven fire burns on January 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Santa Ana wind is fueling wildfires in Los Angeles that have destroyed homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of people.
Politics inflamed amid California wildfires
As California’s most destructive wildfires continue to blaze across Los Angeles County, having killed 16 and displaced more than 166,000 residents, emergency response effortshave become politicized, both at home and abroad.
Actor James Woods, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and right-wing political commentators have accused Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley of prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives over firefighting essentials. In response, Crowley citeda $17.4 million budget reduction to the LAFD in 2025, affecting overtime staffing and essential programs. Los Angeles Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley-Hayes defended Crowley, arguing that the scale of the fires, high winds, and an empty reservoir that was under repair would have overwhelmed even a fully funded department. Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an independent investigation into water supply failures.
While domestic politics is bitterly divided, on the international front the story is one of unity. Mexico and Canadahave sent firefighting equipment, including water bombers and personnel, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of punitive tariffs against both countries.
Will the goodwill effort change hearts and minds in the Trump administration? Alberta Premier Danielle Smithposted to X that “Good neighbours are always there for each other in times of need, and we will assist our American friends in any way they need during this crisis.” She laterposted photos of herself meeting with Trump at Mar-A-Lago at the weekend, along with Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae Yul following their talks in Seoul on Jan. 6, 2025.
South Korean authorities get extension to Yoon arrest warrant
South Korean anti-corruption authorities reached a deal with police to extend their warrant against impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday after failing to arrest him on Friday. A six-hour standoff with presidential security in the official residence amounted to nothing, and the corruption investigators have asked the National Police Agency to take over the responsibility of detaining Yoon. Authorities have not disclosed the new extension's expiration date.
Police are in uncharted waters, however, as no previous South Korean president has been arrested before being removed from office. Yoon was impeached in December, but vacancies on the constitutional court have prevented his official removal. Meanwhile, his party is playing for time – hoping to stall long enough to allow the high court to rule on a case that could render the opposition leader ineligible to run in elections to replace Yoon.
The gridlock is starting to chafe allies, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had expressed “serious concerns” during talks in Seoul with his counterpart on Monday. But Blinken also praised the strong response of South Korean institutions to Yoon’s attempt to seize power through martial law.
North Korea, which has taken a cautious approach thus far amid Seoul’s domestic upheaval, used Blinken’s visit as an opportunity to test a medium-range missile with a supposedly hypersonic capacity. We’re watching how Pyongyang approaches potential provocations once the Biden administration leaves the scene.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen delivers a statement in Vienna, Austria, January 5, 2025.
Austria’s far right takes its first shot at government since World War II
Austria’s president asked the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party to form a government on Monday after talks between the traditional right and left parties collapsed over the weekend. The Freedom Party’s leader, Herbert Kickl, said he would begin negotiations with the center-right Austrian People’s Party, which had previously balked at playing second fiddle. The two parties are expected to be able to form a government now that former Chancellor Karl Nehammer from the Austrian People’s Party has stepped down.
The Freedom Party traces its roots to a former Nazi SS officer and politician, and like its peer far-right parties in Germany, France, and Italy, was heavily ostracized in the past. Now, Austria looks likely to join Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Slovakia as part of a growing bloc within the EU ruled by populist rightwingers.
How would a far-right government change Austria? On a policy level, Vienna is already quite conservative, advocating hardline migration and fiscal measures for the EU. Austria will also likely continue trying to exploit sanction loopholes with Russia, but not totally undermine them, says Eurasia Group’s Jan Techau.
“There are also fears of Orbanization in Austria as the far-right people are very ardent culture warriors,” says Techau, referring to the weakening of democratic institutions under Prime Minister Viktor Orban in neighboring Hungary. “We are not sure how far this can go. Austria is not Hungary, it’s a federal system, not a centralized state, and political and civil society pushback can be expected.”
We’re watching what the Freedom Party’s success might say about the rise of the far right in EU anchor states France and Germany this year.
Heavily armed police officers secure the scene. A car has crashed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg. Several people are killed and many injured.
Germany grapples with extremism after Christmas market attack
The Saudi doctor accused of killing 5 people in the Magdeburg Christmas market on Friday appeared in a German court on Saturday.Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was charged with five counts of murder, multiple attempted murder and multiple counts of dangerous bodily harm in an attack which also wounded over 200 people. One of those killed was9-year old André Gleißner, described by his mother in a social media post as “my little teddy bear”. A GoFundMe for the family has raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Anger is growing over missed opportunities to prevent the attack. Riyadhhad flagged the suspect to German authorities last summer,citing a post where he threatened that Germany would “pay a price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees. At the same time, al-Abdulmohsen called himself a“Saudi atheist” and evinced sympathies for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
On Friday, the AfD held a 2000-person rally at a memorial site near the market, calling for “Remigration”, and chanting “Migration Kills.” The incident has putmigration and national security front and center in Germany’s upcoming national election, anticipated for February 23. The AfD is currently polling at around 19%, second only to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at around 33%, but all other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with them.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks after signing an infrastructure agreement in Montreal, December 16, 2016.
Trudeau’s Darkest Hour
This is Justin Trudeau’s darkest hour.
Even as he shuffles his Cabinet tomorrow, it will not shuffle his political future. This is the endgame.
Eventually, all successful politicians turn into Dorian Gray — gazing into the mirror and seeing a reflection of beauty they believe voters will find irresistible. All the while, however, somewhere under a parliamentary staircase, a portrait of their political face is being ravaged by time, scandal, and betrayal. That is the bargain leaders inevitably make as they fight to stay in power.
There was President Joe Biden earlier in the year, still seeing the reflection of a robust man ready to govern for another four years despite the fact that he couldn’t get through 40 minutes of a presidential debate. He had to be pried out of the presidential limo by the Jaws of Pelosi.
In 2015, former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper thought he too saw another big election win in the mirror, but instead, insulated from reality inside his powerful prime minister’s office, he suffered a stunning defeat. The wheel of change is not partisan, but it is powerful.
Trudeau is now seeing the real portrait for the first time. After nine years in power, down 20 points in the polls, he has long refused to look, but his once trusted Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland just swiped the picture from under the stairs, waved it around publicly, and then lit it on fire.
It’s hard to imagine a more shambolic ending. Freeland was told by the PM — on a Zoom call, no less! —that she was going to be replaced as finance minister right after she presented the Fall Economic Statement (a kind of mini-budget in Canada) that would reveal the government blew past its own key deficit target by more than CA$20 billion. In other words, “Please wear this fiscal mess and let me move on to a new thing.”
How was that ever going to work? Naturally Freeland refused, but she didn’t simply quiet-quit and go gently into that good political night. Instead, just hours before she was set to deliver the FES, she chaos-quit with a controlled rage, rage-against-the-dying-of-light letter, dismissing Trudeau’s entire economic agenda as a self-serving “political gimmick.”
It blew the government apart.
It’s hard to declare winners and losers in this carnage, as everyone in the government is a casualty. The PM is now facing an open revolt by a growing number of MPs. Wayne Long, an outspoken Liberal, went on CTV’s ‘Power Play’ to say Trudeau is “delusional” and claimed that up to 40 MPS want him to resign, though that number has yet to be confirmed. Still, his sentiments were reflected in comments MPs told me, one saying bluntly, “I hope he announces he is stepping down.”
Freeland herself says she is running again, which basically kicked off the next leadership race, and she is likely the front-runner. But, as the saying goes, “The hand that wields the knife shall never wear the crown.” Freeland delivered four budgets for Trudeau, and even if she rightly fought back against the $1.6 billion goods and services tax holiday boondoggle, that hardly adds up to the over $20 billion overage on her own targets. If Canada is facing a fiscal reckoning and an angry electorate, isn’t Freeland as responsible as Trudeau? Would Canadians be able to disaggregate the two?
All this could not come at a worse time for Canada, now under direct threat from President-elect Donald Trump. He promises devastating 25% tariffs on Canada the day after he is inaugurated, and, with a hyena’s nose for weakness, he has persistently and publicly tormented Trudeau with the threat of making Canada the 51st state.
Pause on that for a second because it is unprecedented in Canadian-US history, unless you want to go back to … 1812, before Confederation. What started out as a Trump taunt is starting to look more like a Trump trial balloon. Trump’s son Eric has amplified the idea on social media, and now, on places like Fox News, taking over Canada is a topic of genuine debate.
With Trump, the first question is always: Do we take him literally, or seriously, or both?
And the lesson people have learned in the last eight years is: both.
Even as government officials have dismissed the threat as a joke, others are taking it seriously. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is showing up on American news programs defending Canada and threatening to cut off energy exports.
Trump trades in three currencies: power, fame, and loyalty. A lame duck leader of a foreign country who has only one of these three may come to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, but he might well end up on the menu.
The best hope Canada has is for the 35 state governors who depend on Canada as their top trading partner to act as de facto proxies for Canada, and push back against tariffs that will hurt their workers and economies.
Now what?
A few paths:
One, Trudeau stays and runs again after tomorrow’s Cabinet shuffle. There are no polls or signs that would suggest this is the most productive path, but, until he leaves, it has to be an option.
Two, Trudeau leaves, prorogues parliament, and the leadership race kicks off. The rules around that election will be crucial for the Liberal Party.
Can Liberals afford to take three months to elect a leader while Trump launches trade tariffs and the Conservatives consolidate their lead in the polls? It is not advisable.
On the other hand, can they afford to do a short 30-35-day process, in which case very few Canadian voters and new candidates will get involved? That might not end up injecting any fresh blood into the party at all. The Democrats tried it in the US and ended up with a frothy Kamala Harris campaign start and a miserable end.
There are few good options for the leader and the party right now, but if the government falls on a confidence motion in the new year, then the race is one with Trudeau at the helm, which is exactly what the opposition parties want most of all.
Nothing can happen until the prime minister decides what he will do.
It’s coming on Christmas, as Joni Mitchell once sang, the day the prime minister was born, but instead of seeing a star in the sky, even he knows this is his darkest political hour. The only guide he has might be those portraits of other prime ministers that hang in the halls of Parliament, each of whom has had to ask the same impossibly hard question: When is my time up?
Only a few of them got to choose their own answer.
Lisa Pauli, 47, who says she wants to apply for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) when she is eligible because of her severe anorexia, looks on, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 9, 2023.
Canada: A great place to die?
Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) regime is garnering criticism, as its rapid growth threatens to make the country the world capital of assisted suicide - if it’s not already. Health Canada has just released the statistics for 2023 that show Canada sat just behind the Netherlands in terms of the number of assisted deaths. In both countries, one in 20 deaths are due to medical assistance - a total of 15,343 Canadians in the 2023 calendar year. However, it took the Netherlands 22 years to reach that proportion; it has taken Canada just seven.
The original intent of the legislation was to offer a painless death with dignity to those with a terminal disease. Since then, court challenges have opened medical assistance in dying to people who do not have a “grievous and irremediable” condition. The most worrying statistic for opponents of expanding the regime was the revelation that 622 people with non-terminal illnesses received assisted dying. Nearly half of them cited “isolation or loneliness” as one of the causes of their suffering. Rejections of MAiD remain much higher for non-terminal applicants, but yet more liberalization of the regime is coming, unless a future government steps in to block it.
As of March 2027, people with mental illness as their underlying condition will be eligible for MAiD, a development that has many experts worried. The change was due to come in last March but was punted down the road by parliamentarians spooked by expert testimony that indicated the difficulties of predicting mental illness outcomes. One witness told members of Parliament that the long-term prognosis of a person with mental illness is wrong one half of the time.
The voices of concern will grow louder if the 2024 numbers confirm that Canada is now medically assisting the deaths of more of its own citizens than any other country on earth.