The World Today

There are tough foreign policy choices ahead for the new British Government, to be elected this month. The dilemma over Europe is well known; almost unnoticed, especially in campaigning for votes, is the potentially explosive and expensive issue of replacing or updating the country’s nuclear deterrent. Ironically one of the first negotiations for new ministers will be the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, also beginning this month.

The first anniversary of the Madrid train bombing has passed with ceremonies to commemorate the killing of over 190 people.

Anyone trying to open a new bank account comes face to face with regulations introduced to make it difficult for terrorists to finance their operations. But these new measures seem to be producing limited returns and creating their own difficulties.

This year the World Trade Organization has another chance to live up to its name. Power has shifted with a group of twenty developing nations demanding the right terms to trade themselves out of poverty. The rich trading nations need to pay attention.

The international community is again debating policy towards Burma, prompted for example, by its scheduled chairmanship next year of the regional organisation ASEAN. This month provides plenty of reminders of the unsavoury nature of the regime: it is three years since opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released – she’s since been detained again – and fifteen years since her party won the last democratic elections, but was never allowed to form a government. The generals now in power are involved in an internal conflict that will do nothing for their country’s standing.

Spending plans from the European Union could make Britain the biggest contributor to a growing budget in eight years’ time. The twenty-year-old cashback deal is at stake too as a potentially costly reverse for any government.