UN General Assembly
1999

well-being and prosperity for all humankind, we must face up to these problems, decide what our priority goals are and seek measures to achieve them. So that the fifty-fourth session may illuminate the way, let us gather the best of our collective wisdom. The defining character of our times is change and the acceleration of change. The guiding precept of the global actors is shifting from nationalism to internationalism, and further to globalism. The whole world is converging around shared values and behaviour patterns. In economic affairs, the market economy is becoming the global norm. In political matters, reconciliation and cooperation have become the expected mode of behaviour. The world is becoming a global village of countries willing and eager to live with one another in interdependence and integration. A conspicuous exception to the tide of the times is the Korean peninsula, where the confrontational structure of the cold-war era still keeps the two divided sides in mutual distrust and hostility. Decades have passed since the end of the Korean war, but genuine peace has yet to