Opinion in 1989

The pre-winter equinox is a time for getting back to serious business. Mr Gorbachev and his counterparts in the West have a great deal to do before they let the northern winter take over.

Impatience and intemperance may have persuaded the British government to cancel a timely project.

The managers of Britain's universities need devices for offsetting the attractions of successful institutions.

This week's strategy for saving the United States from a new wave of drug dependency may create a sense that something is being done, but the real war will have to be won by different means.

The US Congress, now interested in conflicts of interest, should aim at a few prescriptive principles.

Hopes that drug therapy will improve the lot of those infected with HIV have brightened, but it is too soon to tell what the consequences will be for the general spread of the disease.

The new regime in Poland has to walk a delicate tight-rope. Here is how well-wishers can help.

British ambitions to find a better convertible currency than the European Commission's await fulfilment.

The doctrine that polluters and other environmental desperadoes should be required to pay for the damage they do is beguiling, but first requires general agreement on broad philosophical principles unlikely soon to be reached.

The widespread conversion of democratic governments to environmental causes is understandable: it keeps, or even catches, votes. But the consequences are increased costs and the tolerance of irrationality.

West Germany's Max Planck Society wrings Its hands about immobility in research, but could do much to help.

The British seem to be heading for trouble in their sporting relations with South Africa, but the case for an academic boycott remains as insubstantial as it has always been.

The US Department of Defense is being given a predictably but understandably rough ride by the US Congress. It should prepare itself for the end of the Strategic Defense Initiative and should put the B2 bomber on ice.

The British government has been given good advice on the conditions under which fetal tissue may be used.

Britain's new minister in charge of research and higher education has some formidable tasks ahead of him.

The re-reorganization of British civil science seems destined to come about, but only with difficulty.

President George Bush's plans for Mars will disappoint the enthusiasts, but they will not send the value of the US dollar into decline, for which everybody should be thankful.

The British House of Lords has made a perceptive comment on relations between Europe and Japan.