NBOSI | OHENE

By Gideon Rachman Most of my career has been spent reporting on a world where things were steadily improving. I started work in London during the Thatcher boom of the mid-1980s. At the BBC World Service, we followed the spread of democracy around the world, from Latin America to south-east Asia. I first visited Moscow during the Gorbachev years, as the long Soviet nightmare was coming to a close. I was in Madison Square Garden to see Bill Clinton accept the Democratic party nomination in 1992, while the crowd danced to “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”. I spent the next five years reporting on Asia – witnessing how rapid economic growth was transforming people’s lives from Bangkok to Bangalore. Based in Brussels from 2001, I followed the reunification of Europe under the umbrella of the European Union, as countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic rejoined the ranks of free and prosperous nations. I was in London when Tony Blair won his first electoral victory in May 1997, swep