Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Sun, 1 Nov 92 20:06:09 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD;WORLD PRESS ROUNDUP \SS (WS) \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS The following editorials are from newspapers around the world: FINANCIAL TIMES On the race for the U.S. presidency: LONDON - The U.S. presidential election campaign has been dominated by a single question: Who can do most to revive the domestic economy? . . . Americans today believe that they need time off from world leadership. Preoccupied with social and economic problems at home, they have come to see their incumbent president's interest in foreign policy as an expensive luxury. . . . Yet Americans should be under no illusion that they can solve their domestic problems purely through domestic policy. While the main military threat to U.S. security has disappeared, the U.S. economy is much more dependent on international trade today than in the past. More than ever, the U.S. needs an open world market. STRAITS TIMES On Canada's vote against amending its constitution: SINGAPORE - It seems a faintly amusing thought that Canada - rich, admired for its lifestyle, a people not given to extremes of action or violent disagreement - could split up. Such a thing, much the temper of the times, is supposed to happen in arid regions where an unremitting harsh life keeps alive old feuds and the deadweight of history. Like the crazy quilt of the old Soviet empire and the Slav countries to the south. India, maybe, as a long shot. But Canada, the one of homogeneity, democratic institutions, civility? Indeed - though a breakup is not imminent - the momentum has picked up. This is what Canadians need to worry about but few, on the evidence, appear to want to contemplate that. THE INDEPENDENT On Canada and Germany: LONDON - The tribulations of the Christian Democrats in Germany and popular rejection of constitutional reform in Canada are further examples of the weakness afflicting all members of the Group of Seven, those leading industrial countries that supposedly direct the economic affairs of the world. The United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Britain are all struggling with recession. All their political leaders are unpopular. . . . The constitutional reform that the Canadians have just rejected was . . . a complex compromise among interest groups, not the expression of an overarching political vision that might have united people instead of dividing them. Similarly, Helmut Kohl is paying the price of not being honest with his people or the rest of Europe about the costs of unification. . . . The moral is that if politicians distrust or ignore their voters, the voters will reciprocate. SAUDI GAZETTE On Somalia: JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - The scene in southern Somalia has become a nightmare. . . . Every time there seems to be a ray of light, southern Somalia slips back into an inferno that is being stoked up by numerous "political" organizations. The multiplicity of the loosely organized groups operating in southern Somalia are themselves the nightmare that grips the Somalis. The warlords are not only cashing in on the misery of what is left of the Somali people in southern Somalia, but they are doing everything possible to prevent any change to the situation so that they can keep getting richer and richer at the expense of their own people. That makes them the most iron-hearted group of men in creation. DAILY TELEGRAPH On Italy: LONDON - The Italian state is dying. Discredited and insolvent, there is serious doubt whether the political system can hold together until the end of the century. . . . The prime minister, Giuliano Amato, still thinks he can muddle through and restore international confidence with cuts in public spending. But this is the view from the high window, from the palazzo, as Italians call the centers of power in Rome. It ignores what is going on below them in the piazza, and there the mood has changed radically. In the past fortnight, demonstrations the length of the peninsula have turned into riots as workers, trade unionists, Catholics and former communists have joined to vent their fury on a discredited governing class. Now only the external discipline of Maastricht can hold Italy together. Without it, the country is likely to spiral into chaos. * Compiled by the Associated Press. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM