The unrest engulfing Egypt caught business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum off guard, but it became the hottest topic among the Arab elite here. Most of those leaders tuned in to the dramatic events from iPads and BlackBerrys and huddled to debate how the uprising would affect the rest of the Arab world.
“It’s all anyone’s talking about,” said Sheik Mohammed bin Essa al-Khalifa of Bahrain, who leads the nation’s economic development board and participated in many of the discussions.
For the most part, the consensus was that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt would not easily relinquish his authoritarian grip, an outcome that became more evident as he named Omar Suleiman, the country’s intelligence chief and a close ally, as his vice president on Saturday.
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