“The world’s capital” – that’s how Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, describes New York. But for five days, starting January 26, Professor Schwab will be playing host, half a world away, to quite a few of the most prominent and most global-minded New Yorkers – world-class leaders in business, government, academia and the media – at what might be called a temporary world capital, a glittery gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

It’s the Annual Meeting of the forum, now in its 34th year, and this year its theme is “Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices.” Why is that especially relevant in 2005? It is, Schwab told The New York Sun, because this year marks “in many ways a new beginning: a new mandate for the Bush Administration, a new European President and Commission, a new situation in Palestine, in Iraq and in Ukraine.” This new leadership, he said, “now has to take responsibility for the tough choices to be made.”

The forum is focusing on a dozen “tough issues,” with “United States leadership” listed alongside topics such as climate change, poverty and weapons of mass destruction. Among the people chairing the discussions will be William H. Gates of Microsoft; John A. Thain, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, and Charles O. Prince, CEO of Citigroup.

More than 2,200 people from 96 countries are expected to take part in the meeting, including some 20 heads of state or government, 70 cabinet ministers and 500 corporate CEOs and chairmen. Security, as always, is expected to be tight, with Swiss police and private guards patrolling the Davos Congress Center, where the main events are held. Professor Schwab said he regretted that The New York Sun could not be allowed to cover the event because it had been “fully booked for two or three weeks.” The Forum’s director of communications, Michel Ogrizek, did not return several e-mail messages from The Sun.

Although the Forum has as its motto “Entrepreneurship in the Global Public Interest,” and it stresses the linkage between economic progress and social development, it is perhaps best known as the world’s highest-profile promoter of economic globalization. Many of the “tough issues” on its agenda relate to that role: equitable globalization, global economy, global governance, world trade. (On the other hand, there is no mention in the Forum’s literature of “outsourcing” as a tough issue calling for action.)

Some of the Forum’s annual meetings in the past have triggered noisy and sometimes violent demonstrations staged by anti-globalization forces. This year, for the third year in a row, the Forum will seek to co-opt some of those forces by inviting them to an “Open Forum,” sponsored in conjunction with Bread for All and the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches.

The Open Forum’s theme is: “When is the Economy Ethical?” Among the issues to be discussed at it are: the exploitation of children, corporate responsibilities for protecting human rights, and balancing the needs of tsunami victims in South and Southeast Asia with those of “forgotten” impoverished people in other parts of the world.

“The Forum has become a true catalyst for public-private partnerships, ” Professor Schwab, a Swiss-German, told The Sun, “and is now involved in a number of important global initiatives, such as our Global Health Initiative, our work to reform the Jordanian education system, our Disaster Resource Network, ” which he said was active in running the logistics of the airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after the tsunami.

Professor Schwab told The Sun that more than 80 “social entrepreneurs” from around the world, identified and supported by the Schwab Foundation, are being invited to Davos “to expose top business leaders and politicians to the significance of social entrepreneurship as a driving force of society.”

Three years ago, Professor Schwab talked about plans to have the Forum convene annually in New York City. Although those plans have never been implemented, he said that the Forum remains in contact with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office and that he would not exclude returning to New York “at an appropriate moment.”

He recalled that the forum’s 2002 meeting, held on Manhattan’s East Side “only some months after 9/11, was a special emotional event bringing out the solidarity of the forum and, at the same time, the hospitality and great spirit of the world’s capital.”