			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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WORLD LEADERS ANNUAL REPORT CARD
by
Eric Margolis  6 Jan 1997



What kind of year was it for some of the major players on
the world's stage? Our annual report card: 

D-  Bill Clinton, USA: a political whiz, loved by lady
voters, but heads the most corrupt administration in memory.
Whitewater, Castle Grande, Travelgate, fan dancers, Paula
Jones, Filegate, Donorgate, Asiagate, and a flood of sleaze
from chicken-plucking Arkansas.  Good thing the US of A is
run by the Republican Congress. 

A  Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Germany.  `Papa' Kohl remains the
most capable western statesman. A great German and great
European. He still needs to force his pampered workers back
to reality, and stop eating 8,000 calories daily.

No grade due to absence - Boris Yeltsin, Russia.

C-  Jacques Chirac - Mon president,  stand up to thuggish
unions and cut government spending. More audacity, less
timidity. Are you Marshall Ney, or Marcel Proust?  France's
glorious gastronomy is being destroyed by  supermarkets. Aux
armes!

D-  Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico - Senor Presidente, by now
everyone knows Mexico's government is a bunch of rapacious,
arrogant, crooks and bandits.    Clean out these
bloodsuckers before you end up with a national revolution.
Viva Zapata!

C average   Jiang Zemin, China.  F for your hamhanded
bullying of Taiwan and brutal repression of Tibet and
dissidents, acts worthy of Saddam.  But A for China's
ongoing economic development and implementation of democracy
in the countryside.

F   P.V. Narasimha Rao, India.  Rao's Congress party,
engulfed in scandals, lost power. Rao is charged with
forging documents to smear the most honest politician in
India, former PM   V.P. Singh. And with accepting bigtime
bribes from, among others, India's pickle king - paid
through Rao's  bagman, a slippery guru named Chandraswammy. 

F - Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan.  Inept and dithering, finally
kicked out of office.  Her hubby and papa-in-law, grand
panjandrums of corruption,  are in jail, where they belong. 
Pakistan is a huge mess - and will remain so until the power
of its greedy, selfish feudal oligarchy is broken.

D- Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel.  Woe is Israel. This false
prophet is leading Israelis back into the wilderness by
catering to fanatics. To captive Palestinians, he is a
modern Pharaoh.. Bring back former PM Shimon Peres (given
`A' last year), a superb leader with vision, courage, and
heart.


A+  Nelson Mandela, South Africa.  Gentleman, patriarch,
statesman, and great human being. A role model for all
Africans.  What will South Africa do without him? 

C-  John Major, England.  Britain's Conservative Party is
rotten to its snobby, wormy core.  Voters are fed up with
ministers and MPs wearing fishnet stockings and lace panties
under their Saville Row suits.  Even the Labour Party's
union cement-heads couldn't be worse than those Tory
puffters and toffs.

A+  The Chechen people. At a cost of 100,000 dead, these
lions of the Caucasus liberated - at least for now - their
tiny mountain land from 350 years of savage Russian
imperialism.  The bravest of the brave, a beacon of hope to
the oppressed of the earth.

C+  Ryutaro Hashimoto, Japan.  Japan stumbles through
unending recession. Strategically, a second Kuwait, rich but
defenseless.  This new PM has great hair and energy,  but
has not housecleaned Japan's horribly stinky political
system.  Draw your  sword, PM-san. Japan needs samurai
warriors, not clerks. More bushido; less bribes. 

A+  For a second year, the Federal president of Switzerland.
Don't know his name - neither do most Swiss.  They are rich
and happy because government stands aside and does as little
as possible, allowing citizens to keep much of what they
earn, and govern themselves locally. World's best
system of government. 

copyright  eric margolis 1997

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