Abroad

After Poland, Rumania? Without attracting international attention, the Rumanian economy has slid deeply into debt to Western bankers, and the government is finding it difficult to keep up interest payments. No one here is sure just how big the debt is, but according to sources close to a private meeting of Western bankers and Rumanian treasury officials, it is at least $10 billion and could be as high as $15 billion. Heavy borrowing has been necessary in recent months to repay short-term credits and to finance exports. Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu lays the blame for much of his country’s economic plight on the high interest rates prevailing in the West, which, he charged in a speech, were a form of “colonial exploitation” by Western authorities.

A United Nations committee has given the green light to the formation of an African news service within the framework of the so-called new world information order, a newsregulation scheme bitterly opposed by Western media. The service was allotted $1.5 million to get it started. The UN committee involved is part of the International Program for the Development of Communications, an outgrowth of the clamorous debates held periodically in UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization. UNESCO, with Soviet backing, has been urging the creation of such Third World news organizations designed to tell “good” news about developing countries, now allegedly maligned around the world by Western agencies. There was no further indication of how the African news agency might operate or what its outlets might be. With the UN committee’s approval, the scene now shifts to Paris, where a full debate on the new world information order will resume later this year at a plenary UNESCO session.

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After Poland, Rumania? Without attracting international attention, the Rumanian economy has slid deeply into debt to Western bankers, and the government is finding it difficult to keep up interest payments. No one here is sure just how big the debt is, but according to sources close to a private meeting of Western bankers and Rumanian treasury officials, it is at least $10 billion and could be as high as $15 billion. Heavy borrowing has been necessary in recent months to repay short-term credits and to finance exports. Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu lays the blame for much of his country’s economic plight on the high interest rates prevailing in the West, which, he charged in a speech, were a form of “colonial exploitation” by Western authorities.

A United Nations committee has given the green light to the formation of an African news service within the framework of the so-called new world information order, a newsregulation scheme bitterly opposed by Western media. The service was allotted $1.5 million to get it started. The UN committee involved is part of the International Program for the Development of Communications, an outgrowth of the clamorous debates held periodically in UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization. UNESCO, with Soviet backing, has been urging the creation of such Third World news organizations designed to tell “good” news about developing countries, now allegedly maligned around the world by Western agencies. There was no further indication of how the African news agency might operate or what its outlets might be. With the UN committee’s approval, the scene now shifts to Paris, where a full debate on the new world information order will resume later this year at a plenary UNESCO session.