The basic dominance of the industrialized North over the developing South did not change with the end of the Cold War, but the same cannot be said with regard to relations between the principle poles of power in the North. How is this massive shift in power and competition between and among the powerful countries of the North affecting the South? Beginning with an assessment of the increasing impoverishment of the South, this study turns to the global implications of recent developments in the North - recession, the creation of regional trading blocs - and analyzes the growing tendency towards parallel power lines: those of nation-states and those of multinational corporations, as they contend and co-operate for control of markets, profits and peoples of the North and South.