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TEXT: The death of Syrian ruler Hafez al-Assad draws this comment from Hawaii's Honolulu Star-Bulletin about his son and likely successor, Bashar al-Assad, :

VOICE: It's not clear whether the younger Assad can institute changes in Syria's policies, particularly toward Israel. ... With the death of such an enemy of Israel, the outlook for peace might be expected to improve. But the succession of [Mr.] Assad's 34-year- old son is clouded with uncertainty. There is no reason to assume that the ruthless hold on power of the father can be easily transferred to the son.

TEXT: In Connecticut, Waterbury's Republican-American uses a geopolitical comparison to paint a rather grim picture of what could happen.

VOICE: If you liked post-Tito Yugoslavia, you'll love post-Assad Syria. Under the iron hand of Josip Broz, Yugoslavia endured. ... But his death in 1980 released pent-up religious, ethnic and regional enmities that led to Yugoslavia as we know it today - a collection of dirt-poor, semi-autonomous armed camps where hope is a distant memory. ... Like [Mr.] Tito, [President] Assad possessed the energy, cunning and personal magnetism to hold together a nation of diverse, often hostile factions. ...The forecast for post-Assad Syria is indescribably grim. Civil and religious factions will vie for supremacy, using guns and bombs rather than debates, campaign ads and soft money. If all goes well, from the standpoint of Syria's region and the rest of the world, the conflict will stay within Syria's borders.

TEXT: A somewhat less severe warning comes from today's San Francisco Chronicle, about expectations for Mr. Assad's son.

VOICE: Push the young president for rapid changes in Syria's pushcart economy, relations with Israel, or occupation of Lebanon, and big trouble could follow. The creaky floorboards underlying the country's government could easily collapse if too much pressure is applied at once.

TEXT: Still in the Middle East, dealing effectively with Iraq's Saddam Hussein is on the mind of the Charleston [South Carolina] Post and Courier.

VOICE: Saddam Hussein has survived U-N sanctions for nearly ten years while successfully evading efforts to force him to destroy his arsenal of chemical, biological and, possibly, nuclear weapons. As the latest meeting of the Security Council made clear, the United Nations has run out of ideas, while also lacking the will or unity to prevent Iraq from re- emerging as a threat to the Middle East and world peace. Britain and the United States will have to take on a larger role in keeping an eye on Saddam if the Security Council continues to shirk its self- imposed duty as a watchdog.

TEXT: Turning to other world developments, several papers are using the term "trouble in paradise" to describe the now nearly month-old coup in the South Pacific Island nation of Fiji. Today's St. Louis Post- Dispatch despairs at the ethnic nature of the trouble.

VOICE: Fiji was once a model polyglot nation. On a visit ... in 1986, Pope John Paul the Second was so moved by the racial harmony that he hailed Fiji as "a symbol of hope to the world." That was before a small band of armed men, led by a failed businessman with a shady past, stormed the office of Prime Minister Mahendar Chaudry. The ringleader, George Speight, took Mr. Chaudry and several ... cabinet members hostage. Attempts to negotiate a settlement have been fruitless ... Indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians have lived side by side for more than a century. The Indians ... now make up 45 percent of the 800-thousand population ... [dominating] Fiji in ... commerce, education and, more recently, government. Some native Fijians say ... they are becoming second-class citizens in their own land. But such friction doesn't justify a policy that would disenfranchise a people who have every right to live in Fiji and who have helped build that country.

TEXT: Domestically, there is concern in several papers about the loss of two computer files from the top secret Los Alamos, New Mexico, nuclear lab, files that contain information on defusing primitive nuclear bombs. The Portland [Maine] Press Herald says the "breach at [the] nuclear lab presents [a] serious threat," while today's Milwaukee [Wisconsin] Journal, by reminding readers about the case of a former Los Alamos employee who was suspected of stealing nuclear secrets, says this is not the first security problem at the laboratory.

VOICE: When the Wen Ho Lee scandal broke last year, a contrite Energy Secretary Bill Richardson vowed to Congress and the nation that tougher controls would be imposed at U-S nuclear weapons labs ... Apparently, those promises contained little but the hot air that circulates over New Mexico's desert. [Mr.] Lee is the former Los Alamos scientist who was fired in March 1999 and subsequently charged with mishandling government secrets. ... On Monday ... officials disclosed that at the same lab where [Mr.] Lee worked, two computer hard drives containing detailed nuclear weapons data disappeared from a supposedly secure vault ...[perhaps] lost or misplaced when parts of the lab were evacuated in May when a forest fire threatened. ... The F-B-I and Energy Department are trying to find the missing drives... At least as important is the need to bring to Los Alamos something it doesn't seem to have: an attitude that genuinely respects the need to protect vital information.

TEXT: Turning to Latin American affairs, Mexico's presidential race comes in for praise from Boston's Christian Science Monitor.

VOICE: In less than ten years, Mexico will buy more from the U-S than Canada, predicts Herminio Blanco, Mexico's secretary of commerce and industrial development. It already usurped Japan as the Number two customer of the U-S two years ago -- even though the Japanese economy is 11 times the size of Mexico's. ... Given Mexico's long history as a highly protectionist nation, this is an astounding turnaround. ... [It's] ironic that such economic success comes just when the political party that has led Mexico for 71 years faces its most serious threat in a presidential election.

TEXT: The Monitor also points out the birth rate in Mexico has dropped precipitously in the last 25 years and soon will reach the "replacement rate" wherein the population will stabilize. Turning to Chile, where the former dictator General Augusto Pinochet has been stripped of his immunity from prosecution, the Los Angeles Times says of the move:

VOICE: Whatever the ultimate outcome of the case [against him for the disappearance of 19 of his alleged victims] the new decision restores the credibility of the Chilean justice system and repudiates the regime of [General] Pinochet and his cronies.

TEXT: Lastly, the St. Petersburg Times criticizes Greece for what the paper says is laxness on terrorism.

VOICE: The recent unchecked and underinvestigated violence of the November 17 group is souring Greece's relations with its allies in NATO and the European Union, damaging its economy and threatening to wreck the two-thousand-four Olympics. Last week, N17 gunned down Brigadier Stephen Saunders as he drove to work at the British Embassy. It was broad daylight, on a crowded Athens street, yet two gunmen on a motorcycle were able to fire four shots into the diplomat's car and then simply disappear into traffic. Brigadier Saunders was N17's 23rd victim...

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of comment from the editorial columns of Wednesday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/KL 14-Jun-2000 12:35 PM EDT (14-Jun-2000 1635 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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