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Last month, Fidel Castro, president of Cuba since 1959, gave an exclusive interview to Euromoney editor Garry Evans – his first interview with the western press in years. The old dog is having to learn new tricks. While he makes it clear he is not about to allow democracy or convert Cuba to capitalism, he is gung-ho about encouraging foreign investment. But, with the Cuban economy going into a tailspin, he admits he has little choice.

Want to invest in repackaged loans for low-cost black housing? Or the City of Johannesburg? South African telecommunications? The lifting of sanctions on South Africa could unleash a pent-up demand for funds totalling $3 billion to $4 billion a year or more.

In the first quarter of 1991, as European stock markets roared ahead by an average of 20%, the most profitable – and potentially the riskiest – game for equity brokers was the bought deal. Houses make up to £8 million ($13.5 million) a deal selling large chunks of equity held by one company in another. Some brokers even suggest that a new mechanism for distributing shares has come of age.

Later this year 50 people will go on trial in Venice charged with complicity in illegal arms trafficking to Iran. Among the defendants will be leading figures, past and present, from the world of Italian finance as well as senior government officials. Evidence amassed over several years strongly suggests that banks in a number of European countries have been involved.

Gulf bankers have been through a trauma — and there is more pain to come. News of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait brought instant demand for cash, a rapid fall in local currencies and a haemorrhage of funds from the region. Some institutions will not survive; others must undergo rapid change. And as bankers set about repairing the damage there are warnings of further shocks to come.

"The grand old man of Wall Street" is a title John Weinberg, chairman of Goldman Sachs, wears uneasily.

Babacar Ndiaye, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), is only too well aware of the need to present a more positive image of Africa as a continent of business opportunities, given the lively international interest in eastern Europe.

The soaring Tokyo Stock Exchange prevented Japan's Ministry of Finance from realising its ambition to restructure the country's smaller banks and securities houses. So, in concert with the Bank of Japan, it engineered the crash that sent the Nikkei plummeting. To outsiders, Japan's financial regulators appeared to be in open conflict. And the lack of clear guidance caused the jitters that greased the skids under the TSE. Tony Shale reports on the plot that fooled the world.

Reform of the Soviet financial system is causing tension between the newly-licensed banks and Gosbank, the state monolith-turned-supervisor. It seems that the co-operative banks are leading the drive towards such free market practices as client confidentiality. Ron Cooper reports from Moscow on what officials of one co-op bank and Gosbank say about each other.

On September 26 last year, a new Russian revolution got under way: a quiet revolution, which has passed almost unnoticed in the West.

With his four wives and baronial castle, Jacob Palmstierna, chief executive of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, had long been a target of the gossip-mongers in Stockholm. Not very pleasant gossip at that: his haughty manner had made Palmstierna unpopular as long ago as his college days. So when details of a juicy little scandal over his personal taxes began to leak out earlier this year, Sweden thoroughly enjoyed the whole affair, particularly the part where police raided S-E-Banken, the Wallenberg bank. But Palmstierna's resignation last month is bad news for all of the Swedish financial community, as Neil Osborn explains.

The best that can be said for Citibank is that it wasn't solely to blame for the most embarrassing deal in years; Chase, Salomon and Lazard should all bow their heads for their parts in the LBO financing that so nearly sent the world's markets into the abyss. Only the Japanese were blameless – even though everyone tried to put the blame on them. Here, Peter Lee reveals how the incredible earnings projections for UAL were developed and names the executives who put the transaction together. And one moral emerges from the story: if you're a mean, hard-nosed CFO, sooner or later the banks will exact their revenge.