August 16, 2008, Radio New Internationalist

The new superpowers

Commentators claim that as a superpower, the US is in decline. Is this the case?

If so, who will fill the power vacuum?

Russian political economist Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute of Globalisation and Social Movements, helps unmask the contenders of the future and finds social movements rather than countries may soon be the ones that are flying high.

Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at the Renmin University in China’s capital, Beijing, reveals how China and its people now see both themselves and their place in the world.

Kamil Mahdi, a fellow of the Transnational Institute and specialist in the political economy of Arab and oil-exporting countries, examines the effects that the declining influence of the United States and the rising global influence of India and China are having in the Middle East.

Patrick Bond, the director of the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, South Africa, celebrates the growing strength of social movements and the multibillion-dollar legal action being taken by South Africans against the long line of Western corporations that propped up apartheid.

With this program, the Radio New Internationalist project comes to an end. Commercial realities have pressed in forced it to close its microphones. There are now more than 80 Radio New Internationalist programs in the audio archives waiting for you to download at http://www.newint.org