Land Reform

GOV. PARRIS N. GLENDENING wants to use a big carrot. Environmentalists prefer a big stick. That is the crux of the difference between the governor, who has been emphasizing a redirection of suburban growth patterns, and environmental leaders, who fear the governor is not being authoritative enough.The environmentalists hearken back to Gov. Marvin Mandel's 1973 warning to Marylanders about the ecological costs of sprawl. Indeed, we've lost nearly 80 percent of bay wetlands as development has gobbled up farmland and open space for subdivisions, shopping centers and highways farther from the cities.

Mini-LibraryIn response to Terry S. Capps' March 14 letter in particular, and library closings in general:The Edgemere mini-library was a bargain for Baltimore County government.Staffed mainly by volunteers, it provided valuable assistance to its patrons and had a direct telephone line to the North Point branch for requesting materials that were sent to Edgemere quickly.While school libraries have the important goal of encouraging students to become lifelong readers, that goal is achieved most effectively when parents are readers and provide books in their homes either through a personal collection or by using the public library.

IT IS DIFFICULT to understand what is happening in Zimbabwe today. No matter which way you look at it, explanations for the destruction of this once vibrant economy fail to come to mind. Once one of southern Africa's strongest economies, Zimbabwe now experiences inflation of more than 70 percent, its unemployment is in excess of 60 percent, and at least 70 percent of its people live in abject poverty. Just four years ago, the country's urbane and well-educated citizens would never have contemplated as even remotely possible the distressing events of present-day Zimbabwe.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - After a campaign defined by death, violence and economic turmoil, Zimbabwean voters will go to the polls this weekend in an election that may lead to the first change in government in two decades - or, some fear, may push their country further into chaos. Zimbabweans will be choosing new parliamentary leaders. But the election is viewed not so much as a contest between individual candidates as a battle between President Robert Mugabe's ailing, yet firmly entrenched, one-party government and a powerful new opposition group giving the government its first serious challenge.

LONDON -- "We have made our choice -- we stand for a mixed economy and equality of state, private and all other forms of property ownership."Those may have been the words that eliminated Mikhail S. Gorbachev's chances for large-scale economic assistance from the rich countries. They were contained in a letter written by the ++ Soviet leader to the leaders of the Group of Seven.Had his plan ever been considered seriously by the group, that was the one point they all found unacceptable, the fatal flaw in his strategy.

London -- For Pakistan, America's front-line state in rolling back Soviet imperialism in Asia, the Afghan war is over. What justification remains for Pakistan's massive military machine lies solely in its security needs vis-a-vis India. But will Pakistan's generals still find reasons for continuing one of the world's most lopsided military-social spending imbalances?This is the question posed by Mahbub ul Haq, who served in Pakistan as President Zia ul Haq's (no relation) minister of finance and who has now returned to his former profession as an economic gadfly, deflating the pretensions and gobbledygook in the stalled and stale debate on poverty, misery and war in the Third World.

PHILADELPHIA - This has been an awful year for sub-Saharan Africa, as violent conflicts have proliferated and HIV/AIDS has spread. So this weekend's elections in the beautiful southern African nation of Zimbabwe have become an important indicator of whether the downward slide can be halted. The contest involves all the key questions haunting the continent: the prospects for democracy, the chances for economic growth and the ability of African leaders to work together to solve Africa's problems.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The first of 100 world leaders to address the environmental summit meeting here strongly criticized rich polluting nations - the United States chief among them - for refusing to ratify a treaty intended to prevent the devastating effects of climate change. But despite the pointed remarks from the leaders of France, Britain and other nations about the treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, U.S. officials succeeded last night in winning an important concession.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - With grain stores dwindling, the scourge of HIV/AIDS decimating an already weakened population and farmers fearing another grim harvest, the food crisis in southern Africa has worsened and now threatens more than 14 million people, United Nations officials announced yesterday. James T. Morris, the U.N. special envoy for humanitarian needs, said that a new assessment had found 14.4 million people in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland are in dire need of food assistance - up from previous estimates of 12.8 million.

CHICAGO - On March 20, 22-year-old Salim Ahmedi did something he'd never done before: He went to a party. Not a big deal in most places, but the medical student lives in Kabul, which until last year was ruled by the fanatically medieval Taliban regime. "Now that Afghanistan is free," he told a reporter, "I think we will have more parties like this one." They're not the only people celebrating. This was a year in which many people around the world got to do things their governments had not allowed them to do before, particularly letting them choose their own governments.