Issue 89
August 2003
Contents
North Korea's endgame
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
There is little doubt that North Korea will fall; what matters is how. The manner of the regime's demise depends on how others handle it. A gentle transition is possible, but so is an East German-style collapse, or, even, a cataclysmic war
Frank Gehry
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
The world's most important architect is completing his first British building, and behind it lies an LA story - of how Gehry took on the 21st century's defining suburban city, and triumphed.
Countdown to Cancun
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
The September WTO meeting will decide whether globalisation can work for poor countries. But the WTO may follow the UN into irrelevance.
Fall of big pharma
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
The pharmaceutical industry is in poor health. Sales are declining, innovation is weak and drug trials don't work. Longer patent periods are needed.
Hope for Iraq
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Despite the current problems, a sustainable democracy in Iraq has historical pedigree. It is not only possible, it is likely. Here's the plan.
Assets for all
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
The trouble with capital assets is that too few of us have them. New Labour's child trust fund, providing cash for future 18 year olds, is revolutionary.
A wall of ambivalence
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Could the Arab/Israeli conflict play itself out over a security fence? Some see it as the last hope for a two-state solution, but Israelis are divided and Palestinians do not like the route it is taking
Balkan Proxy war
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Europe and America are battling out their differences in the Balkans. Right now the Americans have the upper hand
And be damned
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Last month, John Lloyd accused me and the Mail on Sunday of inventing news. It all depends what you mean by "choreography"
Bush won't walk it
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Whoever runs as Democratic candidate, it could be a very close race. Floating voters in the rust belt will decide Bush's fate
Separating powers
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Ending Britain's "elective dictatorship" is a slowly rolling programme which has now thrown up a British supreme court
Into the Russian night
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
David Satter's account of Russia's criminal state is savagely bleak. Did the state really kill hundreds of its own people to justify the second Chechen war?
Not just British beef
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
The cow is a simple animal, yet for centuries its meat symbolised the English character. But nationalists elsewhere have also found mythic value in beef.
Lowell's old flames
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Crazy and brilliant, Robert Lowell long stood at the peak of American poetic mythology. His star then faltered, but not much was needed to revive it.
Keeping fiction in the past
20th August 2003 — Issue 89
Pat Barker's talent for old wars does not adapt well to new ones. This failure to find power in the present stands as a core failure in British literary fiction