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The World Today
January, 1998
The 'creative destruction' of Asia's market crises has been painful for all. But is it producing some benefit with the growth of real regionalism? Will the rhetoric of the 'Asian way' give way to stronger voices for the region?
Richard Higgott is Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at Warwick University, and Editor of The Pacific Review.
Very shortly the world will be witnessing simultaneously a new year, a new decade, a new century, a new millennium. The Vatican, the media, politicians and others are of course preparing for, indeed heralding, the event. When hearing over and over again speeches, commentaries, homilies, exhortations, about the new century and millennium, one cynical temptation is to say 'so what?'
Jean-Pierre Lehmann is Professor of International Political Economy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is Executive Director of the Swiss Asia Foundation.
The conflicts in former Yugoslavia and central Africa have highlighted the problems of justice and reconciliation. South Africa's Truth Commission, which reports finally later this year, is a unique experiment bringing together publicly the violators of human rights and their victims. But can this version of truth unify a nation?
Heribert Adam is Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and teaches at the University of Cape Town. His latest book, with F. van Zyl Slabbert and Kogila Moodley, is Comrades in Business: Post-Liberation Politics in South Africa (Capetown, Tafelberg, 1997).
Concern for the health of Yasser Arafat has produced a struggle for power and for the leadership of the Palestinian people. The next generation lacks the credentials of the founder of the PLO but control could pass to a coterie of colonels, perhaps with a civilian figurehead.
Shyam Bhatia is Diplomatic Editor of The Observer.
There was an obvious warmth between Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II when they met in November 1996. Their meeting in the Vatican was hailed as 'a miracle' by the 69 year old Cuban leader. Miraculous or not, it marked the high point of an often turbulent relationship between the church and state in the only Latin American nation that the Pope has yet to visit. This isolation is set to end this month when John Paul, an anti-Communist Pope, visits Castro, the communist comandante.
Eamonn McGuiness is associated with the Latin America Bureau, London and is specialising in Latin American Politics at the University of Middlesex.
The British Government is assuming the presidency of the Council of the European Union for a six-month stint. This is a demanding and diplomatically sensitive role, which comes at a crucial time both for the Union and for Britain.
Stephen George is Jean Monnet Professor, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield. Matthew Sowemimo was Research Director of the European Movement 1995-97.
The British Government is carrying out a defence review which will conclude in the first half of the year. On what basis should defence needs be decided now the Cold War is a distant memory? Should military chiefs still plan for high intensity conflict, or should they take more account of their allies, and the demands of disputes like Bosnia?
William Hopkinson is Head of the International Security Programme at Chatham House. He was previously Assistant Under Secretary (Policy) at the Ministry of Defence in London.
Europe's most impoverished nation took several steps backwards last year. Now a new government is practising political moderation for what will be a long climb towards prosperity.
Sir Reginald Hibbert, a retired British diplomat, is an honorary fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and was Director of the Ditchley Foundation. His Albania's National Liberation Struggle was published by Pinter in 1991.
Book Reviews
Edward Mortimer, an Foreign Affairs Editor of the Financial Times, reviews Power to the People, by Robert K Schaeffer.
George Joffe, Deputy Director of Chatham House, reviews The Agony of Algeria, by Martin Stone.