World IN BRIEF : WEST GERMANY : Kohl Challenged on Unification Taxes

Social Democrat Oskar Lafontaine, opening the first all-German election campaign since 1933, said in Saarbruecken that Chancellor Helmut Kohl should raise taxes to cover the costs of reuniting Germany. Lafontaine blamed Kohl’s center-right coalition government for high unemployment in East Germany. He said that Kohl is afraid to raise taxes before the election Dec. 2. “The government must finally stop this hide-and-seek game,” Lafontaine told a meeting of his party in the state of Saar, of which he is premier. Kohl has said that higher taxes are not needed, that unification will pay for itself via revenues from an enlarged population and economic revival in the East.