Global leaders must cooperate more, Former Soviet Union leader says

Global leaders must cooperate more to adapt to rapid changes in the world, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in a speech at an Ohio university. About 9,000 people attended Gorbachev's speech at Miami University, in southwestern Ohio, on Monday, part of a lecture series sponsored by the university's business school.

Gorbachev told the crowd that politics in the world today lag behind quick developments across the globe.

"I believe the reasoning for this is because of the lack of proper vision of the world," he said through an interpreter. "The lack of proper policies and a lack of (communicating)."

"In the 1980s, we were able to solve very difficult and important problems because we worked together. Because we cooperated (and) because we united our efforts."

Gorbachev is credited with engineering a series of reforms, called perestroika, in the Soviet Union that led to the fall of communism, the rise of democratic governments in Eastern Europe and the end of the decades-long nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia. In 1990, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, reports the AP.

I.L.