Thursday Morning Briefing: Day three at the World Economic Forum

DAY 3: 2020 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

Swiss police used water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas to subdue demonstrators in Zurich who ignited fireworks and threw bottles as part of a protest targeting the WEF in Davos. Three people were arrested, one passerby was injured by fireworks and a policeman was hospitalized with unspecified injuries, Zurich police said after the demonstration broke up mid-evening.

↑ Demonstrators protest against the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2020. The banner reads 'Fight the Climate Crisis! Zurich against the WEF.' REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

For 25 years he had the ear of world leaders, CEOs and even rock stars at Davos, but the Swiss ski resort’s most-listened to man has moved on. Barry Colson, a 56-year-old piano player who lives in Halifax, Canada, led a nightly songfest for WEF attendees as the musician-in-residence at the upstairs bar of the Hotel Europe. Now, his gig is up. Colson said his contract was not renewed for 2020. Instead, he has opened up his own shop about 450 meters from the Hotel Europe, at a club sponsored by U.S. internet security company Cloudflare.

↑ Barry Colson plays piano at his new bar in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2020. REUTERS/Jenna Zucker

Just when the Swiss mountain spat between U.S. President Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg seemed to have blown over, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a new dig at the young climate activist. Asked during a news conference about Thunberg’s call to divest from fossil fuels, Mnuchin said: “Is she the chief economist? ... After she goes and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to us.”

France and the U.S. agreed on how to press ahead with a global rewrite of cross-border tax rules for the digital era, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. He said he and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had set aside a bilateral dispute over France’s digital tax on big tech companies to focus on securing a broader global deal this year that would include a minimal corporate tax rate.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said that the government needed to halt the illegal flow of gold out of the country, and sanctions might be needed. “The first thing to do is to stop the illegal traffic of gold. We need to protect the indigenous population. It is blood gold,” Guaido said during an address to the WEF. “Maybe there is a need for sanctions,” he said in comments relayed through an interpreter, adding that Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia was already helping.
Guaido said that other regional powers and the U.S. should also help.

Impeachment

↑ Rep. Adam Schiff speaks next to Rep. Jerry Nadler during a news conference to discuss the Senate impeachment trial of Trump in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2020. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert

Democrats accused President Trump at his impeachment trial of a corrupt scheme to pressure Ukraine to help him get re-elected and warned that America’s global prestige would suffer if the U.S. Senate acquits him. The Republican Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, sounded a defiant note, telling reporters in Switzerland the Democrats did not have enough evidence to find him guilty and remove him from office.

Digital detox: Some members of the U.S. Senate hearing Trump’s impeachment trial, a proceeding following decades-old precedent, said they welcomed at least one of the chamber’s anachronistic rules: a ban on cellphones.

A bipartisan majority of Americans want to see new witnesses testify in the impeachment trial, and the public appears to be largely following the proceedings even after a bruising congressional inquiry that lasted several months, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

WORLD

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China put on lockdown two cities at the epicenter of a new coronavirus outbreak that has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600, as authorities around the world scramble to prevent a pandemic.

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World Court orders Myanmar to protect Rohingya from acts of genocide

The International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to take urgent measures to protect its Rohingya population from atrocities, a ruling hailed as a "triumph of international justice" by the tiny African country that brought the case.

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World leaders gather in Jerusalem for Auschwitz liberation anniversary

Dozens of world leaders gathered in Jerusalem to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, amid a backdrop of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States.

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