Economic Collapse

ONCE AGAIN the Nicaraguan people have repudiated the leftist Sandinista movement that plunged their country into war, economic collapse and confrontation with the United States during the 1980s. They first did so six years ago when a landslide vote brought moderate, reconciliatory Violeta Chamorro to the presidency. This time, by a narrower margin, they have elected rightist Arnaldo Aleman, head of the (conservative) Liberal Alliance, to lead an increasingly polarized nation.Until Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega accepts the election verdict, which so far he has refused to do, Nicaragua is faced with the threat of protests and renewed violence.

Nationalisms feed on the protest vote, but weaken with any prospect of success. Then fear of the unknown takes over, instilling thoughtful moderation. Quebec is the latest case in point.When Jacques Parizeau's Parti Quebecois was elected to five years of power in the Canadian province last September, the new premier promised a referendum this year on sovereignty. He counted on enthusiasm and momentum to carry it, and let federal Canada worry about the legalities. He said a yes vote would bind his provincial parliament to bring about independence.

There is a direct connection between protest demonstrations in eastern Germany and the unseemly wrangling between Bonn and Washington over the financing of the Persian Gulf war. This week, President Bush and German Finance Minister Theo Waigel sought to put the dispute behind them, with the latter promising prompt payment of Germany's $6.4 billion pledge and Mr. Bush expressing appreciation.Nevertheless, the matter will probably continue to rankle. Many Americans were vocally unhappy over Germany's reluctance to supply troops during the war, even in support of NATO ally Turkey, and about illegal German shipments of chemical warfare materials to Iraq.

KENYA IS SUCH an important African country that it matters to the rest of the world who will succeed President Daniel arap Moi when his 25-year rule ends in four months. That question matters so much to Mr. Moi as well that he wants the ruling party to consider only his choice. When Vice President George Saitoti dared to promote his own candidacy, he was summarily fired. Since its independence from Britain in 1963, Kenya has had only two presidents. And Mr. Moi insists that the first president's son, Uhuru Kenyatta, should succeed him, although half a dozen other ruling party officials of the Kenya African National Union (KANU)

MOSCOW -- A U.S. diplomat was shot to death in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in a murky incident that Georgian authorities attribute to banditry or possibly just a stray bullet, officials said yesterday.In Washington, U.S. officials said privately that the slain man, Fred Woodruff, 45, of Herndon, Va., was an agent with the Central Intelligence Agency.Officials said Mr. Woodruff was on a temporary assignment in Georgia. They said he had been due to leave Georgia on Aug. 20, but they declined to provide specifics about his mission there.

HONG KONG -- The social costs of the Asian economic crisis are far higher than initial estimates and are "dramatically worsening," according to a report Tuesday by the International Labor Organization.The United Nations agency said the economic collapse had resulted in a combustible mixture of soaring unemployment, spreading poverty and dashed expectations. The lack of social welfare programs made the hardest-hit countries, such as Indonesia, "fertile ground for breeding social unrest.""I would veer to the pessimistic side," said Eddy Lee, an ILO economist, who wrote the report.

The New York Times said in an editorial Monday:THE Russian reform movement has produced few leaders with an uncompromising dedication to democracy. Galina Starovoitova was one, and her murder in St. Petersburg on Friday was a terrible loss for Russia. In a bleak season of economic collapse and political timidity, the killing can only heighten fears that Russia is slipping into an ugly era of intolerance and political violence.Initial evidence suggests that the killing was a political assassination.

MOSCOW -- The nation's chief prosecutor absolved the Soviet army of all wrongdoing in January's bloody assault on a broadcast center in Lithuania that claimed 14 lives and earned Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev the world's condemnation.Hours after the prosecutor's report was released yesterday, Soviet troops conducted identity checks outside key buildings in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, local officials told Western reporters in telephone interviews.Several thousand residents entered the square in front of the Parliament building last night after Lithuania's President Vytautas Landsbergis went on television to appeal for their support.

Columnist Ron Smith states that our economic collapse is inevitable ("When will collapse come?" Sept. 16). As a tea party guy, I hold out hope that there will come a day when voters put enough pressure on our politicians that they see the light and we start paying down our debt to avoid that collapse. But seeing as how Senate Leader Harry Reid just inserted federal funding to create more bike paths into one of the bills going through Congress, I can see why Mr. Smith would conclude that our politicians don't get the gravity of the situation with regard to the debt.

Looking for signs of recovery in our part of the country, we note that homebuilders took out permits to construct nearly 1,900 new residential units in the Baltimore metropolitan area in the first four months of the year. That's a 70 percent rise over the same period a year ago. According to The Baltimore Sun's report on this, there's something of a land rush taking place, with builders snapping up lots "at an aggressive rate," according to John Kortecamp, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Maryland.