The crisis in the eurozone is critically important for Asia. At a distinguished speaker seminar at ADBI on 1 December 2011, three eminent European economists examined the crisis and put forward tentative solutions. In this post based on the seminar transcripts, Stefan Collignon outlines his hopes and fears for the single currency. We are in the midst of a very severe crisis. It is not clear that the euro will survive, and if the euro does not survive then the European Union will not survive, and if the EU does not survive than I am not sure how much longer we will have peace in Europe.

The crisis in the eurozone is critically important for Asia. At a distinguished speaker seminar at ADBI on 1 December 2011, three eminent European economists examined the crisis and put forward tentative solutions. In a post based on the seminar transcripts, one of the speakers, Charles Wyplosz, identifies some of the mistakes that have been made in the response to the crisis and puts forward three scenarios for its resolution. Since late 2009 the European debt crisis has worsened because of the wrong policy responses by European politicians. Some progress has been made but we are not yet there. We have a historic disaster with global implications on the way and unless a miracle happens I am pretty pessimistic about the future.

The death of North Korea’s Marshal Kim Jong Il, the Lodestar of the 21st century, was sudden but not unexpected. The Dear Leader, as he was usually called, suffered a stroke in 2008, and aged significantly after that. Soon after the stroke, Kim Jong Il began to prepare for his eventual demise. In 2010 his third son, 28-year-old Kim Jong Un, was made a four-star general and soon began to be featured by the official media as a young genius of leadership. Simultaneously, Kim Jong Il’s sister and her husband (both in their mid-60s), were promoted to top government positions—obviously on the assumption that they would act as regents for the young and inexperienced dictator should Kim Jong Il die soon.