SU(2)_L * SU(2)_R and U(1)_A restorations high in the hadron spectrum and what it tells us about

The recent data on highly excited mesons suggests that not only the chiral $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R$ symmetry is restored high in the spectrum, but also the $ U(1)_A$ one. The restoration of the $U(2)_L\times U(2)_R$ symmetry of the QCD Lagrangian implies an appearance of the multiplets of the latter group high in the spectrum. Such a multiplet structure is naturally explained by the QCD string picture of confinement. It also supports the scenario that the $U(1)_A$ breaking is related to instantons and not to gluonic interaction responsible for confinement in QCD.