title: Richard Branson

text: In April 2018, Branson announced the acquisition of the Las Vegas based Hard Rock Casino-Hotel with plans to re-brand the property under his Virgin Hotels business. Virgin Hotels Las Vegas opened on 25 March 2021.


title: Richard Branson

text: In May 2018, it was announced that he would become a partner in a private equity fund that will be co-managed by Metric Capital. The fund will seek out consumer goods firms to invest in.


title: Richard Branson

text: In September 2018, Branson took part in his fourth Virgin Strive Challenge, where he and a core team travelled more than 2,000 km from Cagliari in Sardinia to the summit of Mont Blanc entirely under human and sail power. It was a gruelling month-long challenge where they hiked, biked and kayaked across Europe and had a near-miss on Mont Blanc when a rockfall rained down on them as they crossed the perilous Gouter Couloir. They raised more than £1m for Holly and Sam Branson's charity Big Change, which supports young people.


title: Richard Branson

text: In February 2019, Branson helped organise an international benefit concert, Venezuela Aid Live, to bring worldwide attention to the humanitarian crisis and raise funds for humanitarian aid. The concert took place on 22 February in Cúcuta, Colombia, on the Venezuelan border.


title: Richard Branson

text: In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic which saw a dramatic decline in international air travel of around 60% globally, Branson and Virgin attracted criticism by asking staff to take eight weeks' unpaid leave. In response to the global pandemic, Branson put his luxury Necker Island up as collateral for a commercial loan to save Virgin Atlantic from going bust. Branson said: "Over the five decades I have been in business, this is the most challenging time we have ever faced... From a business perspective, the damage to many is unprecedented and the length of the disruption remains worryingly unknown." On 5 May 2020, it was announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline would lay off 3000 staff, reduce the fleet size to 35 by the summer of 2022, retire the Boeing 747-400s and would not resume operations from Gatwick following the pandemic.


title: Richard Branson

text: On 11 July 2021, Richard Branson took a flight with Beth Moses, Sirisha Bandla and Colin Bennett and reached edge of space (86 kilometers or 53 miles) on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft called VSS "Unity". This made him the first billionaire founder of a space company to travel to the edge of space.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson has been involved in a number of failed business ventures, such as Virgin Cola, Virgin Cars, Virgin Publishing, Virgin Clothing and Virgin Brides. However, Branson holds an optimistic view of failure. He has written: "I suppose the secret to bouncing back is not only to be unafraid of failures but to use them as motivational and learning tools... There's nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as you don't make the same ones over and over again."


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson made several world record-breaking attempts after 1985, when in the spirit of the Blue Riband he attempted the fastest Atlantic Ocean crossing by ship. His first attempt in the Virgin Atlantic Challenger led to the boat capsizing in British waters and a rescue by Royal Navy helicopter, which received wide media coverage. Some newspapers called for Branson to reimburse the government for the rescue cost. In 1986, in his Virgin Atlantic Challenger II, he beat the record by two hours with sailing expert Daniel McCarthy. A year later his hot air balloon Virgin Atlantic Flyer crossed the Atlantic.


title: Richard Branson

text: In January 1991, Branson crossed the Pacific from Japan to Arctic Canada, , in a balloon of . This broke the record, with a speed of .


title: Richard Branson

text: Between 1995 and 1998, Branson, Per Lindstrand, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Larry Newman, and Steve Fossett made attempts to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. In late 1998, they made a record-breaking flight from Morocco to Hawaii but were unable to complete a global flight before Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in "Breitling Orbiter 3" in March 1999.


title: Richard Branson

text: In March 2004, Branson set a record by travelling from Dover to Calais in a Gibbs Aquada in 1 hour, 40 minutes and 6 seconds, the fastest crossing of the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle. The previous record of six hours was set by two Frenchmen.


title: Richard Branson

text: The cast of "Top Gear", Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, attempted to break this record in 2014 with an amphibious vehicle which they had constructed and, while successfully crossing the channel, did not break Branson's record. After being intercepted by the Coast Guard and asked what their intentions were, Clarkson remarked "...our intentions are to go across the Channel faster than 'Beardy' Branson!". The Coast Guard wished them 'Good luck and Bon Voyage'.


title: Richard Branson

text: In September 2008, Branson and his children made an unsuccessful attempt at an eastbound record crossing of the Atlantic Ocean under sail in the sloop "Virgin Money". The boat, also known as "Speedboat", is owned by NYYC member Alex Jackson, who was a co-skipper on this passage, with Branson and Mike Sanderson. After two days, four hours, winds of force 7 to 9 (strong gale), and seas of , a 'monster wave' destroyed the spinnaker, washed a ten-man life raft overboard and severely ripped the mainsail. The sloop eventually continued to St. George's, Bermuda.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson has guest starred, usually playing himself, on several television shows, including "Friends", "Baywatch", "Birds of a Feather", "Only Fools and Horses", "The Day Today", a special episode of the comedy "Goodness Gracious Me" and "Tripping Over". Branson made several appearances during the 1990s on the BBC Saturday morning show "Live & Kicking", where he was referred to as 'the pickle man' by comedy act Trev and Simon (in reference to Branston Pickle).


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson also appears in a cameo early in XTC's "Generals and Majors" video. He was also the star of a reality television show on Fox called "" (2004), in which sixteen contestants were tested for their entrepreneurship and sense of adventure and only lasted one season.


title: Richard Branson

text: His high public profile often leaves him open as a figure of satire—the 2000 AD series "Zenith" features a parody of Branson as a supervillain, as the comic's publisher and favoured distributor and the Virgin group were in competition at the time. He is also caricatured in "The Simpsons" episode "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" as the tycoon Arthur Fortune, as the ballooning megalomaniac Richard Chutney (a pun on Branson, as in Branston Pickle) in "Believe Nothing", and voiced himself in "The Princess Guide". The character Grandson Richard 39 in Terry Pratchett's Wings is modelled on Branson.


title: Richard Branson

text: He has a cameo appearance in several films: "Around the World in 80 Days" (2004), where he played a hot-air balloon operator, and "Superman Returns" (2006), where he was credited as a 'Shuttle Engineer' and appeared alongside his son, Sam, with a Virgin Galactic-style commercial suborbital shuttle at the centre of his storyline. He also has a cameo in the James Bond film "Casino Royale" (2006). Here, he is seen as a passenger going through Miami Airport security check-in and being frisked – several Virgin Atlantic planes appear soon after. British Airways edited out Branson's cameo in their in-flight screening of the movie. He makes a number of brief and disjointed appearances in the documentary "Derek and Clive Get the Horn" (1979), which follows the exploits of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore recording their final comedy album. Branson and his mother were also featured in the documentary film "Lemonade Stories". On the TV series "Rove Live" in early 2006, Rove McManus and Sir Richard pushed each other into a swimming pool fully clothed live on TV during a "Live at your house" episode.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson is a "Star Trek" fan and named his new spaceship VSS "Enterprise" in honour of the "Star Trek" spaceships, and in 2006, reportedly offered actor William Shatner a ride on the inaugural space launch of Virgin Galactic. In an interview in "Time" magazine, published on 10 August 2009, Shatner claimed that Branson approached him asking how much he would pay for a ride on the spaceship. In response, Shatner asked "how much would you pay "me" to do it?"


title: Richard Branson

text: In August 2007, Branson announced on "The Colbert Report" that he had named a new aircraft Air Colbert. He later doused political satirist and talk show host Stephen Colbert with water from his mug. Branson subsequently took a retaliatory splash from Colbert. The interview quickly ended, with both laughing as shown on the episode aired on Comedy Central on 22 August 2007. The interview was promoted on "The Report" as the "Colbert-Branson Interview Trainwreck". Branson then made a cameo appearance in "The Soup", playing an intern working under Joel McHale who had been warned against getting into water fights with Stephen Colbert, and being subsequently fired.


title: Richard Branson

text: In March 2008, he launched Virgin Mobile in India; during that period, he made a cameo appearance in Bollywood film "London Dreams". In July 2010, Branson narrated Australian sailor Jessica Watson's documentary about her solo sailing trip around the world.


title: Richard Branson

text: In April 2011, Branson appeared on CNN's Mainsail with Kate Winslet. Together they re-enacted a famous scene from the 1997 film "Titanic" for the cameras. On 17 August 2011, he was featured in the premiere episode of Hulu's first long-form original production entitled, "A Day in the Life".


title: Richard Branson

text: At the 2012 Pride of Britain Awards on ITV on 30 October, Branson, along with Michael Caine, Elton John, Simon Cowell and Stephen Fry, recited Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—" in tribute to the 2012 British Olympic and Paralympics athletes.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 1998, Branson released his autobiography, titled "Losing My Virginity", an international best-seller. Branson was deeply saddened by the disappearance of fellow adventurer Steve Fossett in September 2007; the following month he wrote an article for "Time" magazine, titled "My Friend, Steve Fossett".


title: Richard Branson

text: In the late 1990s, Branson and musician Peter Gabriel discussed with Nelson Mandela their idea of a small group of leaders working to solve difficult global conflicts. On 18 July 2007, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mandela announced the formation of a new group, The Elders. Kofi Annan served as Chair of The Elders and Gro Harlem Brundtland as deputy chair. The Elders is funded by a group of donors, including Branson and Gabriel.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 1999, Branson became a founding sponsor of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children ("ICMEC"), the goal of which is to help find missing children, and to stop the exploitation of children, as his mother Eve became a founding member of ICMEC's board of directors.


title: Richard Branson

text: Through the Carbon War Room, founded in 2009, the entrepreneur sought solutions for global warming and the energy crisis. "We all have a part to play, but I believe entrepreneurs will have a really significant role to play in bringing investment and commercial skills to help develop the new technologies needed to grow a post-carbon economy", he said in his interview with "Vision". Through Carbon War Room initiative he has focused efforts on finding sustainable alternatives for three industry sectors: shipping, energy efficiency and aviation and renewable jet fuels.


title: Richard Branson

text: He also launched Virgin Startup, an official delivery partner for the UK's Start Up Loans programme. Through this new organisation, he provided loans to entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 30 UK-wide. A pilot of the scheme, which ran over 11 months, injected £600,000 into 100 businesses.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson's other work in South Africa includes the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, set up in 2005 as a partnership between Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of Virgin, and entrepreneur Taddy Blecher, the founder of CIDA City Campus, a university in Johannesburg. The school aims to improve economic growth in South Africa by supporting start-ups and micro-enterprises with skills, mentors, services, networks and finance arrangements. Fundraising activity to support the school is achieved by "The Sunday Times" Fast Track 100, sponsored by Virgin Group, at its yearly event, where places to join Richard Branson on trips to South Africa to provide coaching and mentoring to students are auctioned to attendees. In 2009, Jason Luckhurst and Boyd Kershaw of Practicus, Martin Ainscough of the Ainscough Group and Matthew Riley of Daisy Communications helped raise £150,000 through the auction.


title: Richard Branson

text: In March 2008, Branson hosted an environmental gathering at his private island, Necker Island, in the Caribbean with several entrepreneurs, celebrities, and world leaders. They discussed global warming-related problems, hoping that the meeting would be a precursor to future discussions regarding similar problems. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Larry Page of Google were in attendance.


title: Richard Branson

text: On 8 May 2009, Branson took over Mia Farrow's hunger strike for three days in protest of the Sudanese government expulsion of aid groups from the Darfur region. In 2010, he and the Nduna Foundation (founded by Amy Robbins), and Humanity United (an organization backed by Pam Omidyar, the wife of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar) founded Enterprise Zimbabwe.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson is a signatory of Global Zero campaign, a non-profit international initiative for the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide. Since its launch in Paris in December 2008, Global Zero has grown to 300 leaders, including current and former heads of state, national security officials and military commanders, and 400,000 citizens worldwide; developed a practical step-by-step plan to eliminate nuclear weapons; launched an international student campaign with 75 campus chapters in eight countries; and produced a documentary film, "Countdown to Zero", in partnership with Lawrence Bender and Participant Media.


title: Richard Branson

text: Since 2010, Branson has served as a Commissioner on the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a UN initiative which promotes universal access to broadband services. In 2011, Branson served on the Global Commission on Drug Policy with former political and cultural leaders of Latin America and elsewhere, "in a bid to boost the effort to achieve more humane and rational drug laws."


title: Richard Branson

text: In December 2013, Branson urged companies to boycott Uganda because of its "anti-homosexuality bill". Branson stated that it would be "against my conscience to support this country...governments must realize that people should be able to love whoever they want."


title: Richard Branson

text: In 2014, Branson joined forces with African Wildlife Foundation and partner WildAid for the "Say No" Campaign, an initiative to bring public awareness to the issues of wildlife poaching and trafficking.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson is an opponent of the death penalty, stating: "the death penalty is always cruel, barbaric and inhumane. It has no place in the world." In 2015, Branson released a letter in support of American inmate Richard Glossip on the day he was due to be executed, and in 2021 Branson was among the public figures who called on Singapore to halt the execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, a Malaysian drug trafficker who was convicted and sentenced to Singapore's death row for heroin trafficking. After Nagaenthran was executed by hanging at Changi Prison, Branson expressed disappointment in Singapore for its "relentless machinery of death" since it left "no room for decency, dignity, compassion, or mercy". In October 2022, the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs invited Branson to Singapore for a live televised debate on Singapore’s approach towards drugs and the death penalty with K Shanmugam, Singapore’s Minister for Home Affairs and Law. Branson rejected the offer.


title: Richard Branson

text: In October 2018, Branson spoke out for Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was killed by Saudi authorities in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey by suspending his advisory role from Saudi Arabia's biggest Red Sea tourism project. He issued a statement saying, "The disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi Government."


title: Richard Branson

text: On 1 December 2020 Virgin Orbit launched The Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, designed to offer paid work experience and mentorship in the aerospace industry for 'extraordinary Black students.'


title: Richard Branson

text: In 2006, Branson made a high-profile pledge to invest $3 billion toward addressing global warming over the course of the following decade. However, author and activist Naomi Klein has criticised Branson for contributing "well under $300 million" as of 2014, far below the originally stated goal. Additionally, Klein says Virgin airlines' greenhouse gas emissions increased considerably in the years following his pledge.


title: Richard Branson

text: In the 1980s, Branson was briefly given the post of "litter Tsar" by Margaret Thatcher—charged with "keeping Britain tidy". During the BBC Coverage of the 1997 UK General Election, Branson was interviewed at the Labour Party celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall. In 2005, he declared that there were only negligible differences between the two main parties on economic matters. He was suggested as a candidate for Mayor of London before the first 2000 election, with polls indicating he would be a viable candidate, but he did not express interest.


title: Richard Branson

text: In March 2015, Branson said that almost all drug use should be decriminalised in the UK, following the example of Portugal.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson supported continuing British membership of the European Union and was opposed to the 2016 referendum. On 28 June 2016, interviewed for ITV's "Good Morning Britain", he said that his company had lost a third of its value as a result of the referendum result and that a planned venture, employing over 3,000 people, which he had announced before the referendum, had been shelved. He gave his backing for a second referendum. Branson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 US presidential election.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson openly criticised the Philippine drug war marred by allegations of extrajudicial killings. In September 2016, he, along with former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, wrote a letter to then-Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte calling on his government to halt the killings and develop evidence-based policies to address the Philippines' drug situation.


title: Richard Branson

text: After expressing his opposition to the death penalty for crimes such as drug trafficking, in October 2022, Branson was invited by Singapore's government to participate in a live television debate regarding this country's approach to drugs and the death penalty. However, Branson declined this invitation, stating that such debates often focus on the personalities rather than the issue itself.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 1971, Branson was convicted and briefly jailed for tax evasion, having fraudulently obtained export documents for records to be sold on the domestic market to avoid paying Purchase Tax. Customs officials caught onto the scheme and executed a sting operation, marking records bought for the international market with invisible ink and subsequently buying them on the domestic market. Branson was advised of the sting by an anonymous tip-off and attempted to dispose of the evidence, but this was unsuccessful.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson's business empire is owned by a complicated series of offshore trusts and companies. "The Sunday Times" stated that his wealth is calculated at £3 billion; if he were to retire to his Caribbean island and liquidate all of this, he would pay relatively little in tax. Branson has been criticised for his business strategy, and has been accused of being a carpetbagger. Branson responded that he is living on Necker for health rather than tax reasons.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 2013, Branson described himself as a "tax exile", having saved millions in tax by ending his mainland British residency and living in the British Virgin Islands. This was echoed by the then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Labour's John McDonnell, in 2016, amid calls for his knighthood to be revoked.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson married Kristen Tomassi in 1972 and divorced her in 1979. They had no children together. In 1976, Branson met Joan Templeman and later began a relationship with her. Three children were born during the course of the relationship: daughter Clare Sarah (b.1979) who died only four days after birth; another daughter Holly (b. 1981) and a son Sam (b. 1985). Branson and Templeman got married in 1989 on Necker Island.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 2017, Branson's Necker Island home was left uninhabitable after Hurricane Irma. It was the second time the Necker Island home had been severely damaged after the building caught fire when it was struck by lightning caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Branson's mother Eve died from COVID-19 complications in January 2021 at the age of 96. A celebration of her life was posted online by her son.


title: Richard Branson

text: In 2007, Branson was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery to conduct an on-flight wedding as part of a marketing effort for domestic flights in the USA on Virgin America airline. From 2013 to 2017, he served as President of the Old Stoic Society of Stowe School.


title: Richard Branson

text: In November 2017, singer Antonia Jenae, a backing singer for Joss Stone, claimed Branson sexually assaulted her at Necker Island by "putting his head between her cleavage and making boat engine noises", a practice that, when performed consensually, is known as motorboating. A spokesperson for Branson confirmed to "The Sun" newspaper that members of the band had been invited for a party on the island in 2010, but that he and friends and family in attendance had "no recollection" of the events and that "there would never have been any intention to offend or make anyone feel uncomfortable. Richard apologises if anyone felt that way."


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson is an experienced kitesurfer, and set two world records in the sport. The first was as the oldest person to kitesurf across the English Channel. Then in 2014 he broke the Guinness World Record for most people riding a surfboard by kiting with three women attached to him, including professional kiteboarder Susi Mai and entrepreneur Alison Di Spaltro. Also an avid cyclist, in August 2016, he was injured while riding his bicycle in the British Virgin Islands, resulting in torn ligaments and a cracked cheek.


title: Richard Branson

text: Branson has stated in a number of interviews that he has been much influenced by non-fiction books. He most commonly mentions Nelson Mandela's autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom", explaining that Mandela was "one of the most inspiring men I have ever met and had the honour to call my friend." Owing to his interest in humanitarian and ecological issues, Branson also lists Al Gore's best-selling book, "An Inconvenient Truth", and "The Revenge of Gaia" by James Lovelock amongst his favourites. According to Branson's book, "Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons in Life", he is also a fan of Jung Chang's "Wild Swans" and Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad". In fiction, Branson has long admired the character Peter Pan, and in 2006, he founded Virgin Comics LLC, stating that Virgin Comics will give "a whole generation of young, creative thinkers a voice".


title: AliExpress

text: AliExpress () is an online retail service based in China and owned by the Alibaba Group. Launched in 2010, it is made up of small businesses in China and other locations, such as Singapore, that offer products to international online buyers. It is the most visited e-commerce website in Russia and was the 10th most popular website in Brazil. It facilitates small businesses to sell to customers all over the world. AliExpress has drawn comparison to eBay, as sellers are independent and use the platform to offer products to buyers.


title: AliExpress

text: AliExpress started as a business-to-business buying and selling portal. It has since expanded to include business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer, cloud computing and payment services. As of 2016 AliExpress ran websites in English, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian and Russian languages - English being the default offered to those countries with languages outside the preceding list. AliExpress is often used by e-commerce stores that use a dropship business model.


title: AliExpress

text: Sellers on AliExpress can be either companies or individuals. AliExpress is different from Amazon because it acts only as an e-commerce platform and does not itself sell products directly to consumers. It directly connects Chinese businesses with buyers.


title: AliExpress

text: Although most of the retailers are Chinese, AliExpress is aimed at international import buyers and does not sell to customers in mainland China. Customers in China use fellow Alibaba-subsidiary Taobao, because of its convenience in delivery and service, especially the payment method, Alipay. The site offers a popular affiliate marketing program where partners are rewarded with a commission on sales for sending visitors to the site.


title: AliExpress

text: In November 2020, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology banned the AliExpress mobile phone app and 42 other apps from China.


title: AliExpress

text: In 2022, the Office of the United States Trade Representative added AliExpress to its list of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy.


title: AliExpress

text: AliExpress is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau Review which (as of September 3, 2022) lists 240 complaints about the e-commerce platform. In review ratings (with 5.0 being the highest), review aggregator Trustpilot.com gives a 2.7 rating for AliExpress out of 127,882 reviews, with "invited" reviews tending to be the more positive. Another review source, Resellerratings.com, provides 1.00 score for AliExpress based upon 7,562 reviews. Reviews.io provides a low 1.5 rating (out of 5) for Aliexpress based upon 2,185 Reviews. Likewise Aliexpress receives a 1.4 rating from Productreview.com.au based upon 935 reviews, AliExpress is rated at 37% by MouthShut.com based upon 5,089 votes.


title: AliExpress

text: AliExpress does comply with its own 90 day refund policy, if the article did not arrive within 90 days and the claim is raised after 90 days.


title: AliExpress

text: If AliExpress or the seller is closing his store, the contact to the seller will vanish and the EU refund right [Guideline 2011/83/EU] can't be executed. AliExpress does not provide further contact details in such cases.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, which is mostly funded by its 1,000 member companies – typically global enterprises with more than five billion US dollars in turnover – as well as public subsidies, views its own mission as "improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas".


title: World Economic Forum

text: The WEF is mostly known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 3,000 paying members and selected participants – among whom are investors, business leaders, political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists – for up to five days to discuss global issues across 500 sessions.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Next to Davos, the organization convenes regional conferences in locations across Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and India and holds two additional annual meetings in China and the United Arab Emirates. It furthermore produces a series of reports, engages its members in sector-specific initiatives and provides a platform for leaders from selected stakeholder groups to collaborate on multiple projects and initiatives.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Forum suggests that a globalised world is best managed by a self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organizations (CSOs), which it expresses through initiatives like the "Great Reset" and the "Global Redesign".


title: World Economic Forum

text: The World Economic Forum and its annual meeting in Davos have received criticism over the years, including the organization's corporate capture of global and democratic institutions, its institutional whitewashing initiatives, the public cost of security, the organization's tax-exempt status, unclear decision processes and membership criteria, a lack of financial transparency, and the environmental footprint of its annual meetings. As a reaction to criticism within Swiss society, the Swiss federal government decided in February 2021 to reduce its annual contributions to the WEF. The WEF has also been the target of conspiracy theories.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The WEF was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a business professor at the University of Geneva. First named the European Management Forum, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In February 1971, Schwab invited 450 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the Davos Congress Centre under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, where Schwab sought to introduce European firms to American management practices. He then founded the WEF as a nonprofit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The second European Management Forum, in 1972, was the first meeting at which one of the speakers at the forum was a head of government, President Pierre Werner of Luxembourg.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Events in 1973, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate mechanism and the Yom Kippur War, saw the annual meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues, and, for the first time, political leaders were invited to the annual meeting in January 1974.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Through the forum's first decade, it maintained a playful atmosphere, with many members skiing and participating in evening events. Appraising the 1981 event, one attendee noted that "the forum offers a delightful vacation on the expense account."


title: World Economic Forum

text: Political leaders soon began to use the annual meeting as venue for promoting their interests. The "Davos Declaration" was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, helping them turn back from the brink of war. In 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached a draft agreement on Gaza and Jericho.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In October 2004, the World Economic Forum gained attention through the resignation of its CEO and executive director José María Figueres over the undeclared receipt of more than US$900,000 in consultancy fees from the French telecommunications firm Alcatel. Transparency International had highlighted this incident in their Global Corruption Report in 2006.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In January 2006, the WEF published an article in its "Global Agenda" magazine titled "Boycott Israel", which was distributed to all 2,340 participants of the Annual Meeting. Following the publication, Klaus Schwab described the publication as "an unacceptable failure in the editorial process".


title: World Economic Forum

text: In late 2015, the invitation was extended to include a North Korean delegation for the 2016 WEF, "in view of positive signs coming out of the country", the WEF organizers noted. North Korea has not been attending the WEF since 1998. The invitation was accepted. However, WEF revoked the invitation on 13 January 2016, after the 6 January 2016 North Korean nuclear test, and the country's attendance was made subject to "existing and possible forthcoming sanctions". Despite protests by North Korea calling the decision by the WEF managing board a "sudden and irresponsible" move, the WEF committee maintained the exclusion because "under these circumstances there would be no opportunity for international dialogue".


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2017, the WEF in Davos attracted considerable attention when, for the first time, a head of state from the People's Republic of China was present at the alpine resort. With the backdrop of Brexit, an incoming protectionist US administration and significant pressures on free trade zones and trade agreements, Paramount leader Xi Jinping defended the global economic scheme, and portrayed China as a responsible nation and a leader for environmental causes. He sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the plenary speech, becoming the first head of government from India to deliver the inaugural keynote for the annual meet at Davos. Modi highlighted global warming (climate change), terrorism and protectionism as the three major global challenges, and expressed confidence that they can be tackled with collective effort.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gave the keynote address at the plenary session of the conference. On his first international trip to Davos, he emphasized liberal economic policies despite his populist agenda, and attempted to reassure the world that Brazil is a protector of the rain forest while utilizing its resources for food production and export. He stated that "his government will seek to better integrate Brazil into the world by mainstreaming international best practices, such as those adopted and promoted by the OECD". Environmental concerns like extreme weather events, and the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation were among the top-ranking global risks expressed by WEF attendees.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The 2021 World Economic Forum was due to be held from 17 to 20 August in Singapore. However, on 17 May the Forum was cancelled; with a new meeting to take place in the first half of 2022 instead with a final location and date to be determined later in 2021.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In late December 2021, the World Economic Forum said in a release that pandemic conditions had made it extremely difficult to stage a global in-person meeting the following month; transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant and its impact on travel and mobility had made deferral necessary. In early 2022, the annual meeting in Davos was rescheduled for 22 to 26 May 2022. Its themes include the Russo-Ukrainian War, climate change, energy insecurity and inflation. Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a special address at the meeting, thanking the global community for its efforts but also calling for more support. The 2022 Forum was marked by the absence of a Russian delegation for the first time since 1991, which "The Wall Street Journal" described as signalling the "unraveling of globalization." The former Russia House was used to present Russia's war crimes.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Headquartered in Cologny, the WEF also has offices in New York, Beijing and Tokyo. In January 2015, it was designated an NGO with "other international body" status by the Swiss Federal Government under the Swiss Host-State Act.


title: World Economic Forum

text: On 10 October 2016, the WEF announced the opening of its new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. According to the WEF, the center will "serve as a platform for interaction, insight and impact on the scientific and technological changes that are changing the way we live, work and relate to one another".


title: World Economic Forum

text: The World Economic Forum claims to be impartial and that it is not tied to any political, partisan, or national interests. Until 2012, it had observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, when it was revoked; it is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Council. The foundation's highest governance body is the foundation board.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The managing board is chaired by the WEF's president, Børge Brende, and acts as the executive body of the World Economic Forum. Managing board members are Børge Brende, Julien Gattoni, Jeremy Jurgens, Adrian Monck, Sarita Nayyar, Olivier M. Schwab, Saadia Zahidi, and Alois Zwinggi.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The WEF is chaired by founder and executive chairman Professor Klaus Schwab and is guided by a board of trustees that is made up of leaders from business, politics, academia and civil society. In 2010 the board was composed of: Josef Ackermann, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Kofi Annan, Victor L. L. Chu, Tony Blair, Michael S. Dell, Niall FitzGerald, Susan Hockfield, Orit Gadiesh, Christine Lagarde, Carlos Ghosn, Maurice Lévy, Rajat Gupta, Indra Nooyi, Peter D. Sutherland, Ivan Pictet, Heizo Takenaka, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon,


title: World Economic Forum

text: Joseph P. Schoendorf, H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah. Members of the board of trustees (past or present) include: Mukesh Ambani, Marc Benioff, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Mark Carney, Laurence D. Fink, Chrystia Freeland, Orit Gadiesh, Fabiola Gianotti, Al Gore, Herman Gref, José Ángel Gurría, André Hoffmann, Christine Lagarde, Ursula von der Leyen, Jack Ma, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Maurer, Luis Alberto Moreno, Muriel Pénicaud, H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, L. Rafael Reif, David M. Rubenstein, Mark Schneider, Klaus Schwab, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Jim Hagemann Snabe, Feike Sijbesma, Heizo Takenaka, Zhu Min.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies, typically global enterprises with more than five billion dollars in turnover (varying by industry and region). These enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and initiatives rises. In 2011, an annual membership cost $52,000 for an individual member, $263,000 for "Industry Partner" and $527,000 for "Strategic Partner". An admission fee costs $19,000 per person. In 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 percent, bringing the cost for "Strategic Partner" from CHF 500,000 ($523,000) to CHF 600,000 ($628,000).


title: World Economic Forum

text: The flagship event of the World Economic Forum is the invitation-only annual meeting held at the end of January in Davos, Switzerland, bringing together chief executive officers from its 1,000 member companies, as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia, NGOs, religious leaders, and the media in an alpine environment. The winter discussions ostensibly focus around key issues of global concern (such as the globalization, capital markets, wealth management, international conflicts, environmental problems and their possible solutions). The participants also take part in role playing events, such as the Investment Heat Map. Informal winter meetings may have led to as many ideas and solutions as the official sessions.


title: World Economic Forum

text: At the 2018 annual meeting, more than 3,000 participants from nearly 110 countries participated in over 400 sessions. Participation included more than 340 public figures, including more than 70 heads of state and government and 45 heads of international organizations; 230 media representatives and almost 40 cultural leaders were represented.


title: World Economic Forum

text: As many as 500 journalists from online, print, radio, and television take part, with access to all sessions in the official program, some of which are also webcast. Not all the journalists are given access to all areas, however. This is reserved for white badge holders. "Davos runs an almost caste-like system of badges", according to BBC journalist Anthony Reuben. "A white badge means you're one of the delegates – you might be the chief executive of a company or the leader of a country (although that would also get you a little holographic sticker to add to your badge), or a senior journalist. An orange badge means you're just a run-of-the-mill working journalist." All plenary debates from the annual meeting also are available on YouTube while photographs are available on Flickr.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Some 3,000 individual participants joined the 2020 annual meeting in Davos. Countries with the most attendees include the United States (674 participants), the United Kingdom (270), Switzerland (159), Germany (137) and India (133). Among the attendees were heads of state or government, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, heads or senior officials of international organizations) attended the annual meeting, including: Sanna Marin (prime minister of Finland), Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Commission), Christine Lagarde (ECB president), Greta Thunberg (climate activist), Ren Zhengfei (Huawei Technologies founder), Kristalina Georgieva (managing director of the IMF), Deepika Padukone (Bollywood actress), George Soros (investor) and Donald Trump (president of the United States).


title: World Economic Forum

text: An analysis by "The Economist" from 2014 found that the vast majority of participants are male and more than 50 years old. Business accounts for most of the participants' background (1,595 conference attendees) with the remaining seats shared between government (364), NGOs (246) and press (234). Academia, which had been the basis of the first annual conference in 1971, had been marginalised to the smallest participant group (183 attendees).


title: World Economic Forum

text: Next to individual participants, the World Economic Forum maintains a dense network of corporate partners that can apply for different partnership ranks within the forum. For 2019, Bloomberg has identified a total of 436 listed corporates that participated in the Annual Meeting while measuring a stock underperformance by the Davos participants of around -10% versus the S&P 500 during the same year. Drivers are among others an overrepresentation of financial companies and an underrepresentation of fast-growing health care and information technology businesses at the conference. "The Economist" had found similar results in an earlier study, showing an underperformance of Davos participants against both the MSCI World Index and the S&P 500 between 2009 and 2014.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2007, the foundation established the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also called Summer Davos), held annually in China, alternating between Dalian and Tianjin, bringing together 1,500 participants from what the foundation calls Global Growth Companies, primarily from rapidly growing emerging countries such as China, India, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, but also including quickly growing companies from developed countries. The meeting also engages with the next generation of global leaders from fast-growing regions and competitive cities, as well as technology pioneers from around the globe. The Premier of China has delivered a plenary address at each annual meeting.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Every year regional meetings take place, enabling close contact among corporate business leaders, local government leaders, and NGOs. Meetings are held in Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mix of hosting countries varies from year to year, but consistently China and India have hosted throughout the decade since 2000.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The group of Young Global Leaders consists of 800 people chosen by the WEF organizers as being representative of contemporary leadership, "coming from all regions of the world and representing all stakeholders in society", according to the organization. After five years of participation they are considered alumni.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Since 2000, the WEF has been promoting models developed by those in close collaboration with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, highlighting social entrepreneurship as a key element to advance societies and address social problems. Selected social entrepreneurs are invited to participate in the foundation's regional meetings and the annual meetings where they may meet chief executives and senior government officials. At the Annual Meeting 2003, for example, Jeroo Billimoria met with Roberto Blois, deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, an encounter that produced a key partnership for her organization Child helpline international.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The foundation also acts as a think tank, publishing a wide range of reports. In particular, "Strategic Insight Teams" focus on producing reports of relevance in the fields of competitiveness, global risks, and scenario thinking.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The "Competitiveness Team" produces a range of annual economic reports (first published in brackets): the Global Competitiveness Report (1979) measured competitiveness of countries and economies; The Global Information Technology Report (2001) assessed their competitiveness based on their IT readiness; the Global Gender Gap Report examined critical areas of inequality between men and women; the Global Risks Report (2006) assessed key global risks; the Global Travel and Tourism Report (2007) measured travel and tourism competitiveness; the Financial Development Report (2008) aimed to provide a comprehensive means for countries to establish benchmarks for various aspects of their financial systems and establish priorities for improvement; and the Global Enabling Trade Report (2008) presented a cross-country analysis of the large number of measures facilitating trade among nations.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The "Risk Response Network" produces a yearly report assessing risks which are deemed to be within the scope of these teams, have cross-industry relevance, are uncertain, have the potential to cause upwards of US$10 billion in economic damage, have the potential to cause major human suffering, and which require a multi-stakeholder approach for mitigation.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2020, the forum published a report named: "Nature Risk Rising". In this report the forum estimated that approximately half of the global GDP is dependent highly or moderately on nature and 1 dollar spent on nature restoration yields 9 dollars in profit.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Global Health Initiative was launched by Kofi Annan at the annual meeting in 2002. The GHI's mission was to engage businesses in public-private partnerships to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and health systems.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Global Education Initiative (GEI), launched during the annual meeting in 2003, brought together international IT companies and governments in Jordan, Egypt, and India that has resulted in new personal computer hardware being available in their classrooms and more local teachers trained in e-learning. The GEI model, which is scalable and sustainable, now is being used as an educational blueprint in other countries including Rwanda.


title: World Economic Forum

text: On 19 January 2017 the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global initiative to fight epidemics, was launched at WEF in Davos. The internationally funded initiative aims at securing vaccine supplies for global emergencies and pandemics, and to research new vaccines for tropical diseases, that are now more menacing. The project is funded by private and governmental donors, with an initial investment of US$460m from the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Between 21 and 24 January 2020, at the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, CEPI met with leaders from Moderna to establish plans for a COVID-19 vaccine at the Davos gathering, with a total global case number of 274 and total loss of life the virus at 16.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Water Initiative brings together diverse stakeholders such as Alcan Inc., the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, USAID India, UNDP India, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Government of Rajasthan, and the NEPAD Business Foundation to develop public-private partnerships on water management in South Africa and India.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In an effort to combat corruption, the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) was launched by CEOs from the engineering and construction, energy and metals, and mining industries at the annual meeting in Davos during January 2004. PACI is a platform for peer exchange on practical experience and dilemma situations. Approximately 140 companies have joined the initiative.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In the beginning of the 21st century, the forum began to increasingly deal with environmental issues. In the Davos Manifesto 2020 it is said that a company among other:


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Environmental Initiative covers climate change and water issues. Under the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, the U.K. government asked the World Economic Forum at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to facilitate a dialogue with the business community to develop recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This set of recommendations, endorsed by a global group of CEOs, was presented to leaders ahead of the G8 Summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan held in July 2008.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2016 WEF published an article in which it is said, that in some cases reducing consumption can increase well-being. In the article is mentioned that in Costa Rica the GDP is 4 times smaller than in many countries in Western Europe and North America, but people live longer and better. An American study shows that those whose income is higher than $75,000, do not necessarily have an increase in well-being. To better measure well-being, the New Economics Foundation's launched the Happy Planet Index.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In January 2017, WEF launched the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which is a global public private partnership seeking to scale circular economy innovations. PACE is co-chaired by Frans van Houten (CEO of Philips), Naoko Ishii (CEO of the Global Environment Facility, and the head of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the International Resource Panel, Circle Economy, Chatham House, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the United Nations Environment Programme and Accenture serve as knowledge partners, and the program is supported by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DSM, FrieslandCampina, Global Affairs Canada, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Rabobank, Shell, SITRA, and Unilever.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Forum emphasized its 'Environment and Natural Resource Security Initiative' for the 2017 meeting to achieve inclusive economic growth and sustainable practices for global industries. With increasing limitations on world trade through national interests and trade barriers, the WEF has moved towards a more sensitive and socially-minded approach for global businesses with a focus on the reduction of carbon emissions in China and other large industrial nations.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Also in 2017, WEF launched the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for the Earth Initiative, a collaboration among WEF, Stanford University and PwC, and funded through the Mava Foundation. In 2018, WEF announced that one project within this initiative was to be the Earth BioGenome Project, the aim of which is to sequence the genomes of every organism on Earth.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The World Economic Forum is working to eliminate plastic pollution, stating that by 2050 it will consume 15% of the global carbon budget and will pass by its weight fishes in the world's oceans. One of the methods is to achieve circular economy.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The theme of the 2020 World Economic Forum annual meeting was 'Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World'. Climate change and sustainability were central themes of discussion. Many argued that GDP is failed to represent correctly the wellbeing and that fossil fuel subsidies should be stopped. Many of the participants said that a better capitalism is needed. Al Gore summarized the ideas in the conference as: "The version of capitalism we have today in our world must be reformed".


title: World Economic Forum

text: At the 2021 annual meeting UNFCCC launched the 'UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs'. The aim of the campaign is to transform 20 sectors of the economy in order to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of each sector should take specific measures, and 10 sectors should be transformed before COP 26 in Glasgow. According to the organizers, 20% is a tipping point, after which the whole sector begins to irreversibly change.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In April 2020, the forum published an article that postulates that the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to the destruction of nature. The number of emerging diseases is rising and this rise is linked to deforestation and species loss. In the article, there are multiple examples of the degradation of ecological systems caused by humans. It is also says that half of the global GDP is moderately or largely dependent on nature. The article concludes that the recovery from the pandemic should be linked to nature recovery.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The forum proposed a plan for a green recovery. The plan includes advancing circular economy. Among the mentioned methods, there is green building, sustainable transport, organic farming, urban open space, renewable energy and electric vehicles.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Network of Global Future Councils meets annually in the United Arab Emirates and virtually several times a year. The second WEF annual meeting was held in Dubai in November 2017, when there were 35 distinct councils focused on a specific issue, industry or technology. In 2017 members met with representatives and partners of WEF's new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Ideas and proposals are taken forward for further discussion at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters in January.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Global Shapers Community, an initiative of World Economic Forum, selects young leaders below 30 years old based on their achievement and potential to be change agents in the world. Global Shapers develop and lead their city-based hubs to implement social justice projects that advance the mission of World Economic Forum. Some critics see the WEF's increasing focus on activist areas such as environmental protection and social entrepreneurship as a strategy to disguise the true plutocratic goals of the organisation.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In regards to the future of work, the 2020 WEF set the goal of providing better jobs, access to higher quality education and skills to 1 billion people by 2030.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In May 2020, the WEF and the Prince of Wales's Sustainable Markets Initiative launched "The Great Reset" project, a five-point plan to enhance sustainable economic growth following the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. "The Great Reset" was to be the theme of WEF's Annual Meeting in August 2021.


title: World Economic Forum

text: According to forum founder Schwab, the intention of the project is to reconsider the meaning of capitalism and capital. While not abandoning capitalism, he proposes to change and possibly move on from some aspects of it, including neoliberalism and free-market fundamentalism. The role of corporations, taxation and more should be reconsidered. International cooperation and trade should be defended and the Fourth Industrial Revolution also.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The forum defines the system that it wants to create as "Stakeholder Capitalism". The forum support Trade unions.


title: World Economic Forum

text: During the late 1990s, the WEF, as well as the G7, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and International Monetary Fund, came under heavy criticism by anti-globalization activists who claimed that capitalism and globalization were increasing poverty and destroying the environment. In 2000, about 10,000 demonstrators disrupted a regional WEF meeting in Melbourne, by obstructing the path of 200 delegates. Small demonstrations are held in Davos on most but not all years, organised by the local Green Party "(see Anti-WEF protests in Switzerland, January 2003)" to protest against what have been called the meetings of "fat cats in the snow", a tongue-in-cheek term used by rock singer Bono.


title: World Economic Forum

text: After 2014, the physical protest movement against the World Economic Forum largely died down, and Swiss police noted a significant decline in attending protesters, 20 at most during the meeting in 2016. While protesters are still more numerous in large Swiss cities, the protest movement itself has undergone significant change. Around 150 Tibetans and Uighurs protested in Geneva and 400 Tibetans in Bern against the visit of China's paramount leader Xi Jinping for the 2017 meeting, with subsequent confrontations and arrests.


title: World Economic Forum

text: A number of NGOs have used the World Economic Forum to highlight growing inequalities and wealth gaps, which they consider not to be addressed extensively enough or even to be fortified through institutions like the WEF. Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the anti-poverty confederation Oxfam International co-chaired the 2015 meeting, where she presented a critical report of global wealth distribution based on statistical research by the Credit Suisse Research Institute. In this study, the richest 1% of people in the world own 48% of the world's wealth. At the 2019 meeting, she presented another report claiming that the gap between rich and poor has only increased. The report "Public Good or Private Wealth" stated that 2,200 billionaires worldwide saw their wealth grow by 12% while the poorest half saw its wealth fall by 11%. Oxfam calls for a global tax overhaul to increase and harmonise global tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The formation of a detached elite, which is often co-labelled through the neologism "Davos Man", refers to a global group whose members view themselves as completely "international". The term refers to people who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations" according to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who is credited with inventing the neologism. In his 2004 article "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite", Huntington argues that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the nationalist majority of the people.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Transnational Institute describes the World Economic Forum's main purpose as being "to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization's "Mafiocracy" of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own."


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2019, the "Manager Magazin" journalist Henrik Müller argued that the "Davos Man" had already decayed into different groups and camps. He sees three central drivers for this development:


title: World Economic Forum

text: Critics argue that the WEF, despite having reserves of several hundred million Swiss francs and paying its executives salaries of around 1 million Swiss francs per year, would not pay any federal tax and moreover allocate a part of its costs to the public. Following massive criticism from politicians and the Swiss civil society, the Swiss federal government decided in February 2021 to reduce its annual contributions to the WEF.


title: World Economic Forum

text: As of 2018, the police and military expenditures carried by the Federal Government stood at 39 million Swiss francs. The "Aargauer Zeitung" argued in January 2020 that the additional cost borne by the Kanton Graubünden stand at CHF 9 million per year.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Swiss Green Party summarised their criticism within the Swiss National Council that the holding of the World Economic Forum has cost Swiss taxpayers hundreds of millions of Swiss francs over the past decades. In their view, it was however questionable to what extent the Swiss population or global community benefit from these expenditures.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Women have been broadly underrepresented at the WEF, according to some critics. The female participation rate at the WEF increased from 9% to 15% between 2001 and 2005. In 2016, 18% of the WEF attendees were female; this number increased to 21% in 2017, and 24% in 2020.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Several women have since shared their personal impressions of the Davos meetings in media articles, highlighting that issues were more profound than "a quota at Davos for female leaders or a session on diversity and inclusion". The World Economic Forum has in this context filed legal complaints against at least three investigative articles by reporters Katie Gibbons and Billy Kenber that were published by the British newspaper "The Times" in March 2020.


title: World Economic Forum

text: According to the European Parliament's think tank, critics see the WEF as an instrument for political and business leaders to "take decisions without having to account to their electorate or shareholders".


title: World Economic Forum

text: Since 2009, the WEF has been working on a project called the Global Redesign Initiative (GRI), which proposes a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. According to the Transnational Institute (TNI), the Forum is hence planning to replace a recognised democratic model with a model where a self-selected group of "stakeholders" make decisions on behalf of the people.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Some critics have seen the WEFs attention to goals like environmental protection and social entrepreneurship as mere window dressing to disguise its true plutocratic nature and goals. In a "Guardian" opinion piece, Cas Mudde said that such plutocrats should not be the group to have control over the political agendas and decide which issues to focus on and how to support them. A writer in the German magazine "Cicero" saw the situation as academic, cultural, media and economic elites grasping for social power while disregarding political decision processes. A materially well-endowed milieu would in this context try to "cement its dominance of opinion and sedate ordinary people with maternalistic-paternalistic social benefits, so that they are not disturbed by the common people when they steer". The French "Les Echos" furthermore concludes that Davos "represents the exact values people rejected at the ballot box".


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2017, the former "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" journalist Jürgen Dunsch criticized that financial reports of the WEF were not very transparent since neither income nor expenditures were broken down. In addition, he outlined that the foundation capital was not quantified while the apparently not insignificant profits would be reinvested.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Recent annual reports published by the WEF include a more detailed breakdown of its financials and indicate revenues of CHF 349 million for the year 2019 with reserves of CHF 310 million and a foundation capital of CHF 34 million. There are no further details provided to what asset classes or individual names the WEF allocates its financial assets of CHF 261 million.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" criticised in this context that the WEF had turned into a "money printing machine", which is run like a family business and forms a comfortable way to make a living for its key personnel. The foundation's founder Klaus Schwab draws a salary of around one million Swiss francs per year.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In a request to the Swiss National Council, the Swiss Green Party criticised that invitations to the annual meeting and programmes of the World Economic Forum are issued according to unclear criteria. They highlight that "despots" such as the son of the former Libyan dictator Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi had been invited to the WEF and even awarded membership in the club of "Young Global Leaders". Even after the beginning of the Arab spring in December 2010 and related violent uprisings against despot regimes, the WEF continued to invite Gaddafi to its annual meeting.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Critics emphasise that the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is counterproductive when combating pressing problems of humanity such as the climate crisis. Even in 2020, participants travelled to the WEF annual meeting in Davos on around 1,300 private jets while the total emissions burden from transport and accommodation were enormous in their view.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The World Economic Forum's "Global Redesign" report suggests to create "public-private" United Nations (UN) in which selected agencies operate and steer global agendas under shared governance systems. It says that a globalised world is probably best managed by a coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organizations (CSOs), which it expresses through initiatives like the "Great Reset" and the "Global Redesign".


title: World Economic Forum

text: In a 2017 interview, Schwab said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been recognized as a Young Global Leader, and also mentioned Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "I have to say, when I mention now names, like Mrs. (Angela) Merkel and even Vladimir Putin, and so on, they all have been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. But what we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau … We penetrate the cabinet. So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I know that half of his cabinet, or even more than half of his cabinet, are actually Young Global Leaders."


title: World Economic Forum

text: In September 2019, more than 400 civil society organizations and 40 international networks heavily criticised a partnership agreement between WEF and the United Nations and called on the UN Secretary-General to end it. They see such an agreement as a "disturbing corporate capture of the UN, which moved the world dangerously towards a privatised global governance". The Dutch Transnational Institute think tank summarises that we are increasingly entering a world where gatherings such as Davos are "a silent global coup d'état" to capture governance.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In December 2021, the Dutch government published its past correspondence with representatives of the World Economic Forum, showing extensive interaction between the WEF and the Dutch government. The documents were officially made available by the Dutch government.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In 2019, the Swiss newspaper "WOZ" received a refusal of its accreditation request for the Annual Meeting with the editors and subsequently accused the World Economic Forum of favoring specific media outlets. The newspaper highlighted that the WEF stated in its refusal message that it [the Forum] prefers media outlets it works with throughout the year. "WOZ" deputy head Yves Wegelin called this a strange idea of journalism because in "journalism you don't necessarily have to work with large corporations, but rather critique them".


title: World Economic Forum

text: In addition to economic policy, the WEF's agenda is in recent years increasingly focusing on positively connotated activist topics such as environmental protection and social entrepreneurship, which critics see as a strategy to disguise the organisation's true plutocratic goals.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In a December 2020 article by "The Intercept", author Naomi Klein described that the WEF's initiatives like the "Great Reset" were simply a "coronavirus-themed rebranding" of things that the WEF was already doing and that it was an attempt by the rich to make themselves look good. In her opinion, "the Great Reset is merely the latest edition of this gilded tradition, barely distinguishable from earlier Davos Big Ideas.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Similarly, in his review of "COVID-19: The Great Reset", ethicist Steven Umbrello makes parallel critiques of the agenda. He says that the WEF "whitewash[es] a seemingly optimistic future post-Great Reset with buzz words like equity and sustainability" while it functionally jeopardizes those goals.


title: World Economic Forum

text: A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research investigated the sociological impact of the WEF. It concluded that the WEF do not solve issues such as poverty, global warming, chronic illness, or debt. The Forum has, according to the study, simply shifted the burden for the solution of these problems from governments and business to "responsible consumers subjects: the green consumer, the health-conscious consumer, and the financially literate consumer."


title: World Economic Forum

text: In December 2021, the Catholic Cardinal and former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Gerhard Ludwig Müller criticised in a controversial interview that people like WEF founder Schwab were sitting "on the throne of their wealth" and were not touched by the everyday difficulties and sufferings people face e.g. due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the contrary, such elites would see crises as an opportunity to push through their agendas. He particularly criticised the control such people would exercise on people and their embracement of areas such as transhumanism. The German Central Council of Jews condemned this criticism, which is also linked to Jewish financial investors, as anti-Semitic.


title: World Economic Forum

text: In June 2021, WEF founder Klaus Schwab sharply criticised what he characterized as the "profiteering", "complacency" and "lack of commitment" by the municipality of Davos in relation to the annual meeting. He mentioned that the preparation of the COVID-related meeting in Singapore in 2021/2022 had created an alternative to its Swiss host and sees the chance that the annual meeting will stay in Davos between 40 and 70 per cent.


title: World Economic Forum

text: As there are many other international conferences nicknamed with "Davos" such as the "Davos of the Desert" event organised by Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative Institute, the World Economic Forum objected to the use of "Davos" in such contexts for any event not organised by them. This particular statement was issued on 22 October 2018, a day before the opening of 2018 Future Investment Initiative (nicknamed "Davos in the desert") organised by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.


title: World Economic Forum

text: Since the annual meeting in January 2003 in Davos, an "Open Forum Davos", which was co-organized by the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, is held concurrently with the Davos forum, opening up the debate about globalization to the general public. The Open Forum has been held in the local high school every year, featuring top politicians and business leaders. It is open to all members of the public free of charge.


title: World Economic Forum

text: The Public Eye Awards have been held every year since 2000. It is a counter-event to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Public Eye Awards is a "public competition of the worst corporations in the world." In 2011, more than 50,000 people voted for companies that acted irresponsibly. At a ceremony at a Davos hotel, the "winners" in 2011 were named as Indonesian palm oil diesel maker, Neste Oil in Finland, and mining company AngloGold Ashanti in South Africa. According to Schweiz aktuell broadcast on 16 January 2015, a public presence during the WEF 2015, may not be guaranteed because the massively increased security in Davos. The Public Eye Award will be awarded for the last time in Davos: "Public Eyes says Goodbye to Davos", confirmed by Rolf Marugg (now "Landrats" politician), by not directly engaged politicians, and by the police responsible.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Leighton Marissa Meester (; born April 9, 1986) is an American actress, singer, and model. She is best known for her starring role as the devious socialite Blair Waldorf on "Gossip Girl" on The CW (2007–2012). She has also appeared in films such as "Killer Movie" (2008), "Country Strong" (2010), "The Roommate" (2011), "Monte Carlo" (2011), "The Oranges" (2011), "The Judge" (2014) and "The Weekend Away" (2022). She portrayed Angie D'Amato on the ABC sitcom "Single Parents" (2018–2020). Meester made her Broadway debut in "Of Mice and Men" (2014).


title: Leighton Meester

text: In addition to acting, Meester has ventured into music. In 2009, she was featured on the Cobra Starship single "Good Girls Go Bad", which charted in the top ten on the "Billboard" Hot 100. She released solo singles "Somebody to Love" (2009) and "Your Love's a Drug" (2010) on the Universal Republic label. Meester has also recorded songs for various soundtracks. Her debut album, "Heartstrings", was independently released in 2014. She has also modeled, having been the face of the Jimmy Choo, Herbal Essences, and Vera Wang brands.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Douglas Jay Meester and Constance Lynn (née Haas). Her father is a real estate broker; her mother is a writer. She has two brothers: an older brother, Douglas Logan Meester (born 1983), and a younger brother, Alexander "Lex" Meester (born 1994). At the time of her birth, Meester's parents were serving time in a federal prison for their involvement in a drug ring that smuggled marijuana from Jamaica to the United States. Constance was able to give birth to Leighton in a hospital and nurse her for three months in a halfway house, before returning to prison to complete her sentence. Her paternal grandparents cared for Meester during this period. She has maintained that her parents gave her a normal upbringing and, despite their criminal past, has stated, "It made me realize that you can't judge anyone—especially your parents—for what they've done in their past, because people change." She grew up in Marco Island, Florida, where she participated in productions at a local playhouse. Her parents separated in 1992.


title: Leighton Meester

text: When she was 11 years old, Meester and her siblings moved with their mother to New York City. She attended the Professional Children's School and began working as a model with Wilhelmina, booking a Ralph Lauren campaign shot by Bruce Weber, and working with then-photographer Sofia Coppola. Meester also booked commercials for Tamagotchi and Clearasil, and modeled for Limited Too alongside Amanda Seyfried. At age 14, she relocated to Los Angeles and attended Hollywood and Beverly Hills High Schools. Meester then transferred to a small private school and graduated a year earlier than usual.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester made her acting debut in 1999 as a murder victim's friend, Alyssa Turner, on an episode of "Law & Order". Following this, she made her film debut in "Hangman's Curse" (2003), based on the bestselling book by Frank Peretti. She had a series regular role in "Tarzan", which aired for only eight episodes. A recurring role in "Entourage" as Justine Chapin and "Veronica Mars" as Carrie Bishop followed in 2004 and 2005. Meester booked guest roles in the series "Crossing Jordan", "8 Simple Rules", "7th Heaven" and "24". She was cast as series regular in "Surface" as Savannah Barnett.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In 2006, Meester appeared in two films, "Flourish" and "Inside". She also guest starred in an episode of "Numbers" and appeared in two episodes of "House" as Ali Johnson, a teenager who has a crush on Gregory House. She then had guest roles on "" and "Shark", and portrayed the female lead in the horror film "Drive-Thru", for which she recorded the song "Inside the Black". Meester was cast as identical twin sisters Kayla and Kelly Rhodes in the ABC crime-drama series "Secrets of a Small Town", but the network decided not to forward the series.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In 2007, Meester was cast in The CW's teen drama series "Gossip Girl" as Blair Waldorf, based on the book series of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar. She first auditioned for the role of Serena van der Woodsen, but told the producers that she could better play Blair. However, it was important that Serena was blonde and Blair was brunette, so Meester dyed her hair brown for the role. Her performance was the most critically acclaimed of the show, with Blair being cited as the series' breakout character. She also garnered media attention for her wardrobe on the show. The series ended after six seasons and 120 episodes. Meester later starred in the television film "The Haunting of Sorority Row", and had a role in the ensemble comedy-drama film "Remember the Daze". In 2008, she appeared in the horror-thriller film "Killer Movie" and reprised her role in "Entourage" singing with Tony Bennett in the episode.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Early in 2009, Meester partnered with Reebok to model their new Top Down sneakers. Apart from "Gossip Girl", Meester worked with co-star Ed Westwick in a Nikon Coolpix series camera advertisement, and both were the faces of the Korean clothing line ASK Enquired. In April 2009, she released the song "Birthday" featuring duo Awesome New Republic. A version without her vocals was included on their "Rational Geographic Vol. I" album. Later that month, Meester signed a recording contract with Universal Republic. Meester provided vocals on Cobra Starship's song "Good Girls Go Bad", which peaked at number seven on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In July, "Body Control" surfaced on the internet. Meester's first official single, "Somebody to Love", featuring R&B singer Robin Thicke, was released for airplay on October 13, 2009, and became available for digital download the following day. She recorded a cover of the song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" for the compilation album "A Very Special Christmas 7".


title: Leighton Meester

text: Her second single, "Your Love's a Drug", was digitally released on March 30, 2010, and she is also featured on Stephen Jerzak's song "She Said". Meester did a duet with DJ Clinton Sparks on "Front Cut", which appeared on the internet in February 2011. Lil Wayne worked with her on an unreleased song titled "Make It Rain" and Jesse McCartney wrote another song. The album was produced by Polow Da Don, Harvey Mason Jr., and Spencer Nezey. Meester began working on it in March 2009 and the album was initially projected to be released in the fall of 2009, but was later delayed to early 2010. It was pushed back again to late 2010, and was ultimately shelved.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester had small roles in the comedies "Date Night" and "Going the Distance". She then starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Garrett Hedlund in the country music drama "Country Strong". Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" described Meester as the best part of the film, writing, "She's just doing Reese Witherspoon's June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line" with dabs of Miley Cyrus and Kellie Pickler. But it's not an impersonation; it's a performance with its own comedy and sweetness." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" was also positive, stating "Meester shows she can do more than play one of "Gossip Girl" privileged Manhattan socialites." For the film, Meester recorded a cover of the song "Words I Couldn't Say" by Rascal Flatts as well as "A Little Bit Stronger" by Sara Evans featured on the film's soundtrack; a promotional single titled "Summer Girl"; and a duet with Garrett Hedlund titled "Give In To Me". After wrapping, she received a guitar from Tim McGraw and decided to learn how to play it. In October 2010, Meester said she had been working with a band called Check in the Dark and had been writing for the last six months after being inspired by "Country Strong". She revealed her influences, "I love Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, that style of music, and as far as songwriting I think that's where my heart is."


title: Leighton Meester

text: In 2010, Meester signed on to be the spokesperson for Herbal Essences hair products. In the same year, she took part in Bulgari's humanitarian efforts for the Save the Children organization with Isabella Rossellini and Maribel Verdú. She next fronted a beauty campaign for Korean brand eSpoir. Vera Wang selected her to be the face of the fragrance Lovestruck in 2011, stating that Meester's "beauty, talent and spirit will inspire all the young women that I hope will enjoy this passionate, new young fragrance." The next year, Meester shot a campaign for the follow-up fragrance, Lovestruck Floral Rush. Italian fashion house Missoni named Meester the face of their spring/summer 2011 campaign.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester next starred in the thriller film "The Roommate" as Rebecca Evans, an obsessive, bipolar woman. Though the film received mainly negative reviews, Meester's portrayal was praised. "Entertainment Weekly" found she was the only one to bring "the slightest trace of something fascinating to her role," while "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "[Meester's] performance often has the feeling of a sports car in neutral. When she punches it for quick changes of tone from manic to wounded or around the bend, she shows how much more she is capable of." In the teen comedy film "Monte Carlo", Meester portrayed Meg Kelly, Selena Gomez's stepsister and Katie Cassidy's friend. Movieline noted, "As in "Country Strong", Meester's crack timing and irresistible poignancy illuminate a part that would leave other actresses simpering themselves off the screen." Her final film of the year, "The Oranges", opposite Hugh Laurie and Adam Brody, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Meester's performance was again met with positive reviews, with the "San Francisco Chronicle" writing that she "succeeds in embodying all that is alluring and alarming about a 24-year-old woman."


title: Leighton Meester

text: In April 2012, Meester announced via Twitter a five-city tour with Check in the Dark, which started on May 29 and ended on June 4, 2012. Reflecting on her past pop collaborations, she said she "loved" them, but that folk music was "a lot closer to [her] heart." In May 2012, she endorsed the Philippine clothing brand Penshoppe's campaign All Stars. In June, Meester said she and the band had recorded all the songs for an album that served as a demo.


title: Leighton Meester

text: She next starred in the comedy film "That's My Boy", alongside Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, and Milo Ventimiglia, which was released in June 2012. The film received mainly negative reviews, was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, and was a box office failure, grossing less than $58 million, failing to recoup its production budget of $70 million. In August 2012, Meester, Wilmer Valderrama and Vanessa Curry appeared in house music group The Nomads' music video for "Addicted to Love". She was unavailable to reprise her role as Carrie Bishop in the film "Veronica Mars" due to scheduling issues, and was replaced by singer Andrea Estella of the band Twin Sister. In October 2013, Biotherm, a French luxury skincare company, announced Meester as its new global ambassador.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In April 2014, her comedy film "Life Partners" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It follows the friendship between a lesbian (Meester) and a straight woman (Gillian Jacobs) who begin a new relationship. Meester made her Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men", starring opposite James Franco and Chris O'Dowd. The production filmed and broadcast in cinemas for one night through National Theatre Live, the first Broadway production to be selected by the program. She then appeared opposite Robert Downey, Jr., Robert Duvall, and Vera Farmiga in the David Dobkin-directed comedy-drama film "The Judge", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and released in October 2014. Meester next appeared in "Like Sunday, Like Rain" directed by Frank Whaley, playing the girlfriend of Green Day's singer Billie Joe Armstrong, and "By the Gun", alongside Ben Barnes. She won the Best Actress Award for "Like Sunday, Like Rain" at the 2014 Williamsburg Independent Film Festival. She was the face of French brand Naf Naf's autumn/winter 2014 collection.


title: Leighton Meester

text: On September 9, 2014, it was announced her debut album, "Heartstrings", would be released independently through her own label, Hotly Wanting, on October 28. With its style compared to ethereal singer-songwriters such as Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell, the nine-song LP was written by Meester and produced by Jeff Trott. The music video for the eponymous title track "Heartstrings" was released on October 29.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In 2015, Meester embarked on a tour to support the album, which began on January 6 in Los Angeles, California and ended on March 2 in San Francisco, California. Later that year, she appeared in advertisements for the Malaysian fashion brand Jimmy Choo. Meester was one of the 100 celebrity narrators featured in the documentary "Unity", which had a limited theatrical release. In March 2016, she was cast in Fox's comedy series "Making History" as Deborah Revere, a colonial woman from 1775 and the daughter of American artisan Paul Revere. The series was cancelled after one season of nine episodes. Meester had a guest role on "The Last Man on Earth".


title: Leighton Meester

text: In January 2018, Meester joined the cast of "Semper Fi", starring alongside Jai Courtney, Nat Wolff and Finn Wittrock, which was released in October 2019. Meester starred in ABC's "Single Parents" alongside Taran Killam, which premiered in September 2018 and was cancelled after two seasons. In 2019, Meester was a guest star in an episode of "The Orville" titled "Lasting Impressions" as Laura Huggins. In 2022, she appeared in a recurring role of Meredith in "How I Met Your Father", starred in the thriller film "The Weekend Away" and voiced a role in the animated film "My Father's Dragon".


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester has participated in several charitable campaigns. In 2008, she was a spokesperson for Sunsilk's "Life Can't Wait" campaign, which aimed at motivating women to pursue their dreams. She also collaborated with Safe Horizon in 2009 to raise awareness about domestic violence. In 2015, Meester auctioned off fashion and accessories in a charity auction on eBay. The proceeds benefited Many Hopes, a charity organization that builds schools and homes for children in Kenya.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester has been volunteering with the non-profit organization Feeding America since 2017. During her first two years working with Feeding America, she has volunteered at Los Angeles' Downtown Women's Center and assisted with relief efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017. Meester and Adam Brody also worked with children at Para Los Niños Charter School in Los Angeles, where they helped the organization serve lunches to children. In January 2019, she participated in Feeding America's campaign with Subway and Shamrock Farms. For every child's meal with milk purchased on January 11, 2019, at Subway, $1 will be donated to Feeding America to fight hunger and homelessness.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In May 2019, Meester worked together with Feeding America and Los Angeles Food Bank to help families in need. "Together, we helped fill grocery baskets for families who lined up to receive important staples, like fruit, rice and cereal," Meester wrote in an Instagram post.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In 2021, to encourage donations to help people with Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome, Leighton Meester started promoting meetings on the Omaze network ("Win a Coffee Date with Leighton Meester").


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester has been included in magazine lists of the world's most beautiful women. Meester was named one of "People" magazine's "100 Most Beautiful" in 2008. She was ranked No. 48 on "Maxim" magazine's "Hot 100 of 2008" list and #12 on "Hot 100 of 2009" list. "FHM" magazine's ranked her #1 on their list of "Fall TV's Hottest Stars" in 2008. Meester has been included on The Independent Critics' list of "100 Most Beautiful Famous Faces". She ranked No. 21 in 2008, #14 in 2009, #4 in 2010, #36 in 2011, and #76 in 2012.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester has graced the cover of numerous international fashion magazines, including US' "Lucky", "Flaunt", "Shape", "Nylon", "Allure", "Teen Vogue", "Harper's Bazaar" and "Rolling Stone"; Indonesia's "Elle", "Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan" and "CosmoGirl"; UK's "Company" and "InStyle"; Morocco's "L'Officiel"; Australia's "Cleo"; Mexico's "GQ" and "Seventeen"; Russia's "Elle Girl" and "Joy" and Italy's "Glamour". She has appeared in commercials and print ads throughout her career. She has appeared in print ads for Missoni, Reebok, Herbal Essences, Vera Wang and Jimmy Choo. In 2013, she worked as a global brand ambassador for skin care company Biotherm. In 2022 she became the face for the luxury fashion retail platform


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester is popular on social media and endorses products such as beauty and wellness products on Instagram. She has 6.2 million followers on Instagram, and 1.6 million followers on Twitter as of November 2020. She has partnered with several brands, including Shamrock Farms, Nexxus New York Salon and Sunglass Hut.


title: Leighton Meester

text: Meester resides in Los Angeles. In November 2013, she became engaged to actor Adam Brody, whom she met while filming "The Oranges" in March 2010. The couple were married in a private ceremony on February 15, 2014. Their first child, a daughter, was born on August 4, 2015. In April 2020, it was revealed that the couple were expecting their second child. In September 2020, Brody confirmed their second child, a son, was born.


title: Leighton Meester

text: In July 2011, Meester and her mother, Constance, filed lawsuits against each other over Meester's financial support of her younger brother, Alexander, who has multiple health problems. Meester's suit claimed that her mother used the money she sent for "cosmetic procedures", such as botox and hair extensions. Her mother's suit made a counterclaim alleging breach of contract and physical abuse. Constance claimed that a verbal contract was in place where Meester had promised US$10,000 a month, instead of the US$7,500 she received. Her mother also claimed that she was due a larger sum in return for "sacrificing her own happiness" when she moved Meester to Los Angeles as a child to pursue acting. In court, the judge dismissed this claim. Constance accused her daughter of calling social services and fabricating a claim that she was abusing Alexander; investigators interviewed Meester and found no merit in the complaint. In November 2011, Constance dropped the US$3 million claim for damages against her daughter. Meester said that she would be willing to pay for her brother's medical expenses as well as his school tuition, but denied that she agreed to pay US$10,000 each month, which she stated was a "ridiculous" claim. Meester obtained a default judgment on December 7, 2011. In June 2012, Meester won the lawsuit, with the judge rejecting the claims in her mother's counter-suit.


title: Aruba

text: Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba (; ) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. It measures long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and across at its widest point. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. Collectively, these and the other three Dutch substantial islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean, of which Aruba has about one-third of the population. In 1986, it became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.


title: Aruba

text: Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Its capital is Oranjestad.


title: Aruba

text: Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. The climate has helped tourism, because visitors to the island can expect clear, sunny skies all year. Its area is and it is quite densely populated, with 108,166 inhabitants as at the 2020 Census.


title: Aruba

text: The name Aruba most likely came from the Caquetio "Oruba" which means "Well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetio who were present on the island when it was first set foot upon by Alonso de Ojeda. Between 1529 and the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish. After the signing, the island was ceded to the Dutch and its name was changed to Aruba.


title: Aruba

text: There were many different names for Aruba used by other Amerindian groups, all of which could have contributed to the present-day name Aruba. Another Caquetio name for the island was "Oibubia" which means "Guided island". The Taino name for the island was "Arubeira". The Kalinago also had two names for the island "Ora Oubao" which means "Shell island" and "Oirubae" which means "Companion of Curaçao".


title: Aruba

text: A common misconception is that the name Aruba came from the Spanish "Oro hubo" which means "There was gold". However the Spanish found no gold on Aruba during the time of their occupation, nicknaming Aruba and the rest of the ABC islands "Islas Inútiles", meaning "Useless islands" due to the lack of gold. It was not until much later in 1824 that gold was found on Aruba by Willem Rasmijn, starting the Aruban Gold Rush. Another early Spanish name for Aruba was "Isla de Brasil", named as such because of the many Brazilwood trees that grew on the island.


title: Aruba

text: There has been a human presence on Aruba from as early as circa 2000 BC. The first identifiable group are the Arawak Caquetío Amerindians who migrated from South America about 1000 AD. Archaeological evidence suggests continuing links between these native Arubans and Amerindian peoples of mainland South America.


title: Aruba

text: The first Europeans to visit Aruba were Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, who claimed the island for Spain. Both men described Aruba as an "island of giants", remarking on the comparatively large stature of the native Caquetíos. Vespucci returned to Spain with stocks of cotton and brazilwood from the island and described houses built into the ocean. Vespucci and Ojeda's tales spurred interest in Aruba, and the Spanish began colonising the island. Alonso de Ojeda was appointed the island's first governor in 1508. From 1513 the Spanish began enslaving the Caquetíos, sending many to a life of forced labour in the mines of Hispaniola. The island's low rainfall and arid landscape meant that it was not considered profitable for a slave-based plantation system, so the type of large-scale slavery so common on other Caribbean islands never became established on Aruba.