- (AP) -- It will be a 365-day march to
a December midnight and the next millennium. But along the way, the world
in 1999 will try to tie up some loose ends.
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- Israelis and Palestinians face a May
deadline for finding a way to live together permanently in peace. Northern
Ireland is to convene its "unity'' assembly after decades of strife.
And the Panama Canal, a wonder of the early 20th century, will be handed
over to Panama in time for the 21st.
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- In Europe, a new continental currency
and an expanded NATO will debut. On a calendar full of election days, two
stand out: Indonesia and Nigeria, giants struggling to shake off long spells
of authoritarianism.
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- And 250 miles above it all, astronauts
will be piecing together the International Space Station, readying it for
its first live-in crew in January 2000.
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- The Associated Press asked correspondents
around the world to assess the prospects for 1999. Here are their reports:
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- Mideast
By Nicolas B. Tatro
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- JERUSALEM -- A crisis is looming between
Israel and the Palestinians over Yasser Arafat's plan to declare an independent
state in May with or without Israel's approval.
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- The issue is likely to dominate Middle
East politics and set the agenda for the Israeli election in the early
part of the year.
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- Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has vowed to annex Jewish settlements and West Bank land needed to maintain
Israel's security if Arafat chooses to sidestep the negotiating process.
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- The crisis will come to a head on May
4, when Arafat contends the Israel-Palestinian peace accords expire, and
he has the right to realize his dream.
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- It will take an all-out mediation effort
by the United States to prevent a showdown and get the two sides to negotiate
the most sensitive issues: the fate of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, borders
and the disposition of Palestinian refugees.
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- After the round of airstrikes on Iraq,
U.S. diplomacy will be tested in trying to maintain a united front in the
long-running faceoff with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein over U.N. inspections
of military facilities and economic sanctions.
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- Support within the Middle East for Washington's
hard line on Iraq was already weakening even before the latest attacks,
in large measure because of the erosion of faith in the Israel-Palestinian
peace process.
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- In Iran, the attempts at social and political
reforms by President Mohammad Khatami remain under attack from hard-liners
supported by the judiciary and clergy aligned with Iran's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At year's end, a mysterious string of slayings
was aimed at Iranian dissidents and intellectuals.
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- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government
appears to have contained Islamic militants after a six-year campaign,
but the gap between rich and poor still holds the seeds of danger for his
country.
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- Europe
By Jeffrey Ulbrich
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- BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Eleven of the 15
European Union countries leap into the new year with a new single currency,
trading in their marks, francs and lire for the euro.
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- Euro currency won't start circulating
until 2002, so the currency at first will be an accounting factor in financial
market, banking and business transactions.
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- Despite some initial uncertainty, some
people see the new monetary system as the biggest step toward European
unity since the creation of the Common Market.
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- A decade after the fall of the Berlin
Wall, East is slowly joining West. NATO will accept Poland, Hungary and
the Czech Republic into the fold and the EU continues negotiations to bring
in up to a dozen new members.
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- On the dark side of the ledger, the Balkans
worry both East and West.
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- An upsurge in violence is threatening
the cease-fire in Kosovo. On one side are the Serbs, who see Kosovo as
an integral part of their republic, and on the other the province's majority
Albanians who lost their autonomy 10 years ago and now are demanding independence.
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- The West is sending in 2,000 civilian
observers in an effort to preserve the truce. NATO missiles and bombers
remain poised, keeping pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
to behave.
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- Bosnia, another Balkan tinderbox, is
making slow progress, but there is no indication the 32,000 NATO-led peacekeepers
there will be leaving anytime soon.
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- Many nations, now considered "outs,''
will spend 1999 trying to show the world why they should be counted among
the "ins.''
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- Countries like Slovenia, Romania, Macedonia,
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ache to join the European mainstream. Already
members of organizations like the Council of Europe and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the countries are eager for the
big time " NATO and the EU.
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- Latin America
By Michelle Ray Ortiz
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- MEXICO CITY -- Weak oil prices and natural
disasters put many Latin American nations in a tough position heading into
1999.
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- Honduras and Nicaragua must rebuild from
the devastation of Hurricane Mitch, and are seeking forgiveness of their
total of $11 billion in foreign debts. Mitch killed more than 9,000 people
across Central America, destroyed roads and bridges and left thousands
homeless.
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- Peru, meanwhile, intends to spend $600
million on reconstruction from storms caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon
earlier in 1998.
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- With oil prices at a 25-year-low, leaders
in Mexico, Venezuela and Ecuador are preaching austerity and bracing for
recessions in the face of plummeting export revenues.
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- Brazil, struggling with a huge public
deficit, will try to restore investor confidence by slashing $23 billion
from its government budget.
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- Panama, meanwhile, looks forward to taking
possession of the Panama Canal from the United States on Dec. 31, 1999.
But not before presidential elections in May; Martin Torrijos, the son
of former Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos, leads in early opinion polls.
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- El Salvador, Argentina and Chile also
will elect new presidents.
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- The future of Mexico's Institutional
Revolutionary Party, which has ruled since 1929, will be reshaped as presidential
aspirants jostle in the party's first open primary.
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- The atmosphere will be friendlier when
Mexico welcomes Pope John Paul II for a 3 1/2-day visit in January.
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- A judge will determine whether two members
of Argentina's former military junta will face trial on charges of adopting
children taken from dissidents during its 1976-83 "dirty war,'' and
Chile awaits the outcome of Spain's extradition request for former dictator
Augusto Pinochet.
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- Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana,
is trying to engage leftist guerrillas in peace talks to end a 34-year
conflict " and to attract foreign aid for programs to give farmers
alternatives to growing drugs.
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- Asia
By Yuri Kageyama
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- TOKYO -- Asian nations are struggling
to turn around their crippled economies with hopes of curtailing the growing
unemployment, poverty and, in Indonesia, stirring social unrest.
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- But many hope to turn the corner toward
recovery. Key to that would be fixing the financial systems throughout
Asia that are still in shambles.
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- The Japanese economy, which could potentially
serve as an engine for regional growth, is likely to continue to shrink,
wallowing in its worst recession in a half century.
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- Voter impatience with Japan's governing
party is likely to come to the fore if parliamentary elections are held
during 1999, as some expect.
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- More serious is the turmoil in Indonesia
that threatens to explode ahead of general elections in June and the choosing
of a new president that follows. Instability is sure to keep foreign investors
away from the once booming nation and keep its economy spiraling downward.
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- Unemployment will likely persist in many
spots, including Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and mainland
China.
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- In Taiwan, which has escaped the worst
of the economic crisis, parties will choose candidates for the presidential
election in March 2000. Rhetoric in recent campaigns questioning whether
the island should reunite with China at some point has kept Taiwan's relations
with Beijing tense.
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- Next December, Macau will revert to Chinese
rule after nearly 450 years under Portuguese administration. Although Macau
will retain its political and economic system, tackling the Chinese gangs
entrenched in the enclave is a sensitive issue.
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- The major challenge in South Korea is
to clean up, under a new president, the bloated, debt-ridden business conglomerates
that thrived on cozy relations with past military governments.
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