Love him or hate him, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir is one of the true firebrands of the global economy. Our "Read My Lips" feature provides a few quotes from him over the course of the last few years:

"Although the West advocates free speech, they don't like others to freely criticize them. It is also the same with globalization. While they insist on free flows of capital across borders, they object to free flows of people, especially poor colored people into their countries." (1999)

But despite his differences with the West, Mr. Mahathir is an economic realist:

"When the cold war ended with the defeat of communism, it was not democracy that won. It was capitalism with a big capital 'C.'" (2000)

What about corruption in the global economy?

"Cronyism and corruption are more rampant in developed countries. The powerful countries use their influence on crony countries to get contracts for their companies. This is cronyism and corruption at the highest level." (2000)

Is what matters most one's reputation abroad -- or at home?

"The important thing is what people in this country think of me. I don't think I can change the image I have in the Western press because I will continue to condemn the West and their press if they do anything wrong. They would like to see me go -- and so they will always give me a bad image." (2000)

Eighty percent of the world's population have never used a telephone, let alone sent an e-mail message. In this new millennium, the rich are getting smarter while the poor get left behind.

Ted Turner, the owner of CNN and the man who gave a billion dollars of his fortune to the United Nations, knows a thing or two about globalization. And he thinks that something is going seriously wrong.

"Even as communications, transportation and technology are driving global economic expansion headway on, poverty is not keeping pace," he said in a UN human development report released a couple of months back. "It is as if globalization is in fast forward and the world's ability to react to it is in slow motion."

Turner is right. For economic globalization has not been matched by political globalization, or a system that can control its powerful forces. There is a vacuum at the heart of globalization. It lacks a moral dimension, a sense that there is something wrong with a system that apportions risk to those able to bear it least and that tolerates grotesque disparities in wealth.

Policymakers can't cope with the new disorder. Financial crises are becoming more frequent and virulent, trade policy is governed by multinationals, market forces are on a collision course with the global environment and there is no structure to ensure that the development of, say, genetically modified food is based on health rather than short-term profit.

Two examples illustrate that talk of the benefits of the high-tech revolution trickling down from rich to poor are so much hot air. To buy a computer in the U.S. costs a month's wages; in Bangladesh, eight years' income. A U.S. medical library subscribes to 5,000 journals just to keep abreast of the latest health research; Nairobi University Medical School, long regarded as a center of excellence for East Africa, receives 20. The idea that the Internet and technology transfer will make globalization all-inclusive is fatuous when a country such as Tanzania has three phone lines for every 1,000 people.

So how do we get from where we are to where we ought to be when those states that have the power lack the will and those that have the will lack the power? The UN sees the need for a beefed-up UN, a global central bank, a WTO armed with global anti-monopoly powers and a code of conduct for multinationals, a world environment agency, and an international criminal court with a broader mandate for human rights.

Will any of this happen? Who knows? But the global destiny of the human race lies in our hands, and the situation is not only intolerable, but unnecessary.

Around the globe, more and more corporations are beginning to act like governments. They negotiate with guerrilla leaders, build roads, and set up schools. Increasingly, they're setting labor standards in places where nations can't or won't.

By most accounts, corporations are getting stronger while governments are getting weaker. "Business has taken a much more central role in our society," says Michael Maccoby, an anthropologist and management consultant in Washington. Reasons given for this shift vary. Some observers say the trend is irreversible because globalization will make the corporation, not the nation-state, the primary entity on the world stage in the 21st century.

(Speaking of the Nuremberg War Crimes trial, which Cronkite covered:)

BBC: You hoped that some good would come out of Nuremberg, that there would be a "Parliament of Nations." If the UN is anything to go by, that’s not going to work, is it?

Cronkite: I wouldn’t give up on the UN yet. I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law.

We need not only an executive to make international law, but we need the military forces to enforce that law and the judicial system to bring the criminals to justice before they have the opportunity to build military forces that use these horrid weapons that rogue nations and movements can get ahold of—germs and atomic weapons.

Our whole society is in danger—more than it’s ever been from limited numbers of people—terrorism, national war movements, civil war type movements.

There’s going to be a realization of that now. Whereas before, there was a possibility of each nation being in its own way insular, particularly the USA, being protected by two great oceans.

We are not protected by two great oceans any longer. American people are going to begin to realize that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law, and I think that’s going to come to other people as well.

Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, said that the European Commission was gradually evolving into a fledgling government. Those who disputed that a European military force was being created were splitting hairs, he suggested. "When I was talking about the European army I was not joking. If you don't want to call it a European army, don't call it a European army. You can call it 'Margaret', you can call it 'Mary-Ann', you can find any name, but it is a joint effort for peace-keeping missions--the first time you have a joint effort at European level." Mr. Prodi also challenged Europe's big countries to cooperate with him in the interests of their own survival. "If, in the new globalization, our strong nation states don't join the effort, [they] will disappear or will have only a marginal role," he said. He added: "It is clear: either we stick together or we disappear from the history books."

JAKARTA, Indonesia--Father Ricardo walked gingerly across the charred remains of a church that recently was torched by a band of Muslim fanatics. In a macabre scene, burned pews, crushed stained glass windows, tattered vestments, a communion chalice and a few torn pages from a hymnal dotted the floor.

"It's a nightmare. My Lord, when is it going to stop? Where is this all going to lead?" he said softly again and again, in great despair.

Indeed, post-dictatorship Indonesia's stab at democracy--after having been ruled by either a left-wing or right-wing strongman for decades--is in great peril, with Christian-Muslim violence continually festering here in the capital of Jakarta.

He is not afraid. "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind," he said thoughtfully. "An eye for an eye would leave us with a lot of blind people. An arm for an arm is not a proper response. Love can melt the hearts of evildoers."

The priest then led the way through a small alley to a green park nearby, where he sat down on a bench near to a group of Indonesian soldiers from the elite and feared Koppassus--the Special Forces division.

Sporting green camouflage and red berets, the soldiers sat in a group of 12, checking their gear and basking in the warm summer sun. They carried M-16s, AK-47s, pistols and even small grenade launchers. One of the soldiers took out a large Rambo-style knife, spit on a sharpening stone and began to hone the edge in small rhythmic circles.

Father Ricardo eyed the soldier warily. "For over 400 years, Indonesia was a Dutch colony. The Dutch united Indonesians into one country. Since the Japanese invaders were driven out by the Allies at the end of World War II, we have had a left-wing dictator--Sukarno--and then a right-wing dictator--Suharto. Now, just as democracy has supposedly arrived, everything is coming apart at the seams," he told WorldNetDaily as the smooth yet discomforting sound of the knife sharpening ritual filled the quiet afternoon air.

In the "New Indonesia," the military, long a bastion of power, has come under international scrutiny, with calls for war crimes trials to be held over the military's role in East Timor. An anti-communist country since Suharto's takeover in 1965, the military is not well pleased with seeing the Marxist Xanana Gusmao installed to power in East Timor by Australia and the United Nations.

As such, tensions are high in Jakarta and throughout Indonesia. Rumors of a military coup against the new government are rampant. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke went so far as to warn Indonesia's military rulers against a coup.

Almost all of the Indonesian soldiers questioned by WorldNetDaily mocked Holbrooke's warnings.

"We are so sick of the United Nations and America telling us what to do. Your President Clinton is a rapist and a murderer who has committed treason against your own nation. Why don't your generals stage a coup against him? Just leave us alone to work out our own problems."

According to one Western military attaché based in Jakarta, "The West fears the growing power of General Wiranto, the former chief of the army. Wiranto has maintained active duty status. He is now the most powerful member of the new cabinet. Will he just stand by when his troops are tried for rape, arson and killing in East Timor?" said the attaché, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"When the TMI [Indonesian army] invaded Timor in 1975," he said, "Henry Kissinger was in Jakarta the day before the invasion, presumably to give the go-ahead. It was an anti-communist counterinsurgency type of operation. Now the TMI has been asked to hand over the country to the communists. As such, I expect to see the TMI continue to close ranks. The Damocles Sword of military interventionism will continue to hang over Indonesia for the next year at least."

The attaché also told WorldNetDaily that East Timor was home to a deep-water sea passage vital to the Australian navy. "The Timor Sea provides the only deep water corridor for Australian submarines to pass north into Southeast Asia. So it is vital that Australia maintain an active presence in the region."

Indonesia's problems are large and complex. To begin, Indonesia is a vast archipelago comprised of some 13,700 islands spread over 1,475,000 square kilometers. It is also the fifth most populated country on earth, with 220 million people, and the third largest democracy in the world--trailing only India and the U.S.

With 86 percent of its population nominally Muslim, Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country on earth--most people being the moderate Sunni Muslims.

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Indonesia's economy has hit bottom, with millions of Indonesians unemployed. The nation's foreign debt is about $135 billion.

Clearly, a Balkans-style break-up of the nation is not out of the question.

"How can we hold the country together?" said one Koppassus soldier who talked with WorldNetDaily. "Are we here to fight for Chevron or Mobil? Or is it Christianity? Or against Islam? Or for the territorial integrity of Indonesia? If so, why did we abandon East Timor?"

East Timor is in the grips of an uneasy truce. Indonesia is gone, but Australian soldiers in East Timor have been accused of rape. Tuberculosis is rampant, killing scores of Timorese.

There is unrest in Sumatra and Jakarta. And in Lombok, near the vacation haven of Bali, Muslims burned seven churches to the ground on January 17. In the fabled Spice Islands of Maluku, Christian-Muslim violence continues to rage unabated. A virtual lockdown of the islands has been put in effect by the TMI.

Over 1,700 Indonesians have been killed in violence in the Spice Islands since January 1999. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the violence. Over 700 have been killed in the past 10 days. Despite the presence of 10,000 TMI troops, including 600 Koppassus Special Forces soldiers and nine new battalions, the carnage continues to rage.

Newcrest Mining, an Australian gold mining company digging in North Malaku, has been accused of aiding the Christians in their struggle against the Muslims. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has confirmed that the Iran-based Hezbollah, or "Party of God," has been trying to smuggle arms to the Muslims in the Spice Islands. Both Muslims and Christians alike have accused the Indonesian military of siding with the other.

As for just where all of this violence and anarchy will lead the "New Indonesia," no one can be sure.

"It comes down to control," said one CIA official interviewed in Jakarta by WorldNetDaily. "Dictatorships, left or right, are too unstable. They breed dissent. Except for the Middle East, we eschew them. Get used to a new term: 'Polyarchy.' That meaning, two foreign-funded political parties, supposedly competing to rule any particular country. Yet no matter which one wins, both will do the bidding of America, the West and the transnational corporations. In Indonesia today, you have [vice president] Megawati and [president] Wahid, both foreign funded, both having sold their soul to the West. The only force that can wreck our cozy little arrangement is the Indonesian military. You see, patriotism has become a dirty word in the new world order."