Foreign Affairs

Jonathan Lawley, director of the Royal African Society, will address the problems that affect Africa and threaten its stability at 6 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Constellation Room of the World Trade Center in Baltimore. Lawley's speech, which will include reflections on 52 years living and working in southern Africa and suggestions on the need to reassess aid programs for Africa, will be delivered before the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs. Founded in 1980, the council presents 20 speakers each year and sponsors three conferences for faculty and students, sharing them with the public on cable television.

WASHINGTON - Eighteen months ago a relatively obscure academic named Condoleezza Rice published a prescription for U.S. foreign policy in Foreign Affairs, a bimonthly journal in New York. Titled "Promoting the National Interest," the article included a pointed warning against "symbolic" treaties and urged American diplomats to focus on big powers such as Russia and China. Although Rice had recently joined Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign, the piece attracted little notice, blending into a background of "Rwanda in Retrospect" and other items in the same issue.

WASHINGTON -- Despite concerns about the nuclear arms programs launched by Iraq and other countries, the Bush administration is quietly seeking to head off efforts in Congress to clamp down on U.S. exports of products or technology that can be used in manufacturing such weapons.In a letter to Congress last week, the administration declared that it opposed legislation that would strengthen the existing system of U.S. export controls for nuclear-related technology. The measure is now nearing a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dante Fascell,81, a Florida Democrat in Congress for 38 years who played a leading role in U.S. foreign policy as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, died Saturday of colon cancer.He died at home in Clearwater, Fla., said Barbara Burris van Voorst, his press secretary until 1992, when he retired."He really cared about people. He had an uncanny ability to cut through a lot of rhetoric and get to the heart of the issue," she said yesterday.Mr. Fascell's service in Congress spanned the terms of eight presidents, beginning with his election in 1954.

Cyrus L. SulzbergerPulitzer Prize winnerPARIS -- Cyrus Leo Sulzberger, who earned an international reputation and a Pulitzer Prize covering foreign affairs and the Cold War for the New York Times for nearly 40 years, died Monday at his home here.The 80-year-old author of two dozen books and a foreign affairs columnist for the Times for 24 years was also a member of the family that helped lead the paper into journalistic renown.He was a nephew of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Times publisher from 1935 to 1961, and a cousin of Times Co. Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher from 1963 to 1992.

Sir Isaac Wolfson, a British business leader and philanthropist, died on Thursday at his house in Rehovot, Israel, his main residence in recent years. He was 93 and had been a longtime resident of London. Sir Isaac, the Glasgow-born son of a cabinetmaker who had fled Russia, was praised by a British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, for his "princely generosity" as a philanthropist. He was made a baronet in 1962. By the time Queen Elizabeth II bestowed his baronetcy, he had built his chief company, Great Universal Stores, into what was said to be the largest mail-order concern in Europe.

Chicago. -- Lord Bryce, in his classic work ''The American Commonwealth,'' which appeared at the end of the last century, explored many reasons for the lack of American statesmanship. One explanation he found is the lack of any political use found for ex-presidents. It is absurd, he argued, that a man who reaches the pinnacle of American power should, after four or eight years, be consigned to permanent irrelevancy.Jimmy Carter has solved the Bryce conundrum. He is an ex-president, and he has found many uses for himself.

BEIJING - Chinese legislators appointed new leaders yesterday to oversee economic, defense and foreign affairs, capping an extensive but evolutionary leadership transition that has placed technocratic, career bureaucrats in command of the country. The National People's Congress approved 28 new ministers, four vice premiers and five state councilors to serve in the Cabinet headed by Wen Jiabao, who was promoted Sunday to prime minister. Though many of the new ministers are not well known in the West, many appear to resemble Wen, who has a reputation for pragmatism, quiet competence and loyalty to the top bosses of the Communist Party.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush returned to the foreign affairs arena yesterday -- a place he has not visited much during the political campaign in the face of criticism that he wasn't paying enough attention to domestic issues.But buoyed by Super Tuesday's primaries that all but assured his nomination, the president appeared yesterday to be more willing to talk again in global terms.He started by endorsing for the first time an internationally financed effort to help Russia stabilize the ruble and make it convertible to international currencies, signaling that he may be ready to announce U.S. participation later this spring.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional investigators say that they suspect one or more top aides to White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III did not tell the truth in the inquiry over the State Department's handling of Bill Clinton's passport file, and said that they plan to pursue the issue in a probe that may take several months.The investigators said yesterday that members of Congress have asked the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, to examine apparent conflicts in accounts of the affair given by White House Communications Director Margaret D. Tutwiler and White House Political Director Janet G. Mullins for a report expected in January.