Davos grapples with bleak forecast

Cloud of gloom descends on Swiss resort town hosting key economic forum

DAVOS, Switzerland - The European debt crisis and global challenges have cast a pall over the Swiss Alpine resort town of Davos unlike anything experienced before at the World Economic Forum, leading economists said.

"The mood here is one of depression and gloom and no one is sure if the future will be any better," Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel-winning Bangladeshi economist and founder of Grameen Bank, told China Daily at the forum.