I won’t go this year, but invited I was. Today I’m reading that for the World Economic Forum meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh, which will open on Saturday,
…the Egyptians have deployed naval aircraft and ships from the Suez Canal to guard the Red Sea resort… Egyptian security has closed jetties and moved divers’ boats out for the next four days. Pleasure boats have been ordered to stay clear of Sharm and the ferry lines from Jordan and Saudi Arabia halted.
This followed a letter from Prof. Schwab, the principal behind the WEF and initiator of the famous Davos meetings, encouraging everybody to trust in the security that the Egyptians are putting in place. Unfortunately, just a few days after his letter, the second attack this year occurred. Looks like now they are bringing in the artillery, almost literary!
I can’t tell you what it feels like making it through security for a WEF meeting in an Arab country, in particular if you aren’t on the list of expected attendees — as in my case, when I went to a WEF in Jordan a few years back. The sad thing is that the security is entirely warranted; several of the hotels that we stayed at in Amman have been bombed since.
Sounds like one has to go through a substantial amount of personal risk these days to improve the state of the world…