We went to two theatrical performances during our visit to South Africa in July, 1979. One was at a faintly sleazy nightclub in the stylish Hillbrow section of Johannesburg, whose familiar aspect was puzzling until we realized that it reminded us of the Kit-Kat Klub in Ccbaiet.

It hardly seems possible that two decades have elapsed since the floodtide of African independence. We have become so accustomed to associating Africa with newness that we are apt to forget that the premier states of independent Africa—Ghana and Sudan—are coming up on their twenty-fifth anniversaries of freedom from colonial rule. The scant score of years has seen some remarkable transformations. Nigeria, whose first decade was blighted by Africa's bloodiest civil war, has emerged not merely as a regional power but a major world actor. Second only to Saudi Arabia as a supplier of oil to the United States, Nigeria is able to exert a degree of influence on this country unequaled among the states of the African continent.

Tropical rain forests have long been recognized as a rich repository of plant species, but it is only relatively recently that scientists have understood their crucial role in maintenance of the world's biotic diversity. Ecologists now estimate that the tropical rain forests harbor fully a fourth of the world's species of plantsmore than any other single ecosystem —and it is for this reason that concern is mounting over the recent devastation of tropical forests.

St. Lucia, one of the British West Indies and the most recent to achieve independence (February 22, 1979), provides a case study of a tiny island-state's prospects for development. It is also the prototype of a Caribbean nation in the throes of choosing whether to remain in the Western camp or to follow the way of Fidel Castro and his Grenadian ally, Maurice Bishop.

Government-sanctioned mass killings in Kampuchea and Uganda in recent years argue forcefully for military intervention on humanitarian grounds. While international law does permit such intervention in special circumstances, there remains the need to devise satisfactory procedures for carrying out this intervention as well as effective international mechanisms to ensure that it is not used to promote a nation's own self-interest.