Assignment 1991 : A Glimpse at the New Year’s Global Headlines : Reporters usually covet ‘good’ stories over merely important ones. Some thoughts on where they may occur.

There are times, face it, when our shrinking world, that splendid but begrimed Global Village, seems more to resemble a large asylum.

Such moments--fire and brimstone, falling masonry, a shocked-but-riveted international audience--are those that foreign correspondents prize most.

Foreign correspondents tend, at least in their own estimation, to be an exotic bunch: They are often slick in foreign tongues, wear impressive trench coats, and sometimes even cross their sevens. Beneath the patina, though, they’re reporters, like any other.

All reporters, whether they are covering the Himalayas or Hackensack, covet news that is both important and compelling to cover: “good stories,” in journalese.

“Good stories” are born on distant desert sands, and around the corner. Construction of a new high school is important news for any town. Construction of a new school in which building funds quietly slide into the pockets of the board of education is a “good story,” not least because it takes reportorial gumption, and luck, to get it.

Presidential or papal trips are important, like watching your cholesterol, but not always exciting for jet-lagged reporters at the back of the plane. George Bush in South America and John Paul II in West Africa are important stories. But George Bush or John Paul abroad in the Soviet Union are also “good stories.”

As they flit about the world, foreign correspondents encounter many things that are important. And they cherish those relative few that transcend importance. The difference is common sense and, yes, headlines, but those of a sort that echo over the dinner table.

Today, everybody talks about the Persian Gulf. All cab drivers have insights into Mikhail Gorbachev’s chances. But it is difficult to imagine a thirsty neighbor sliding onto a bar stool to marvel: “Did you see how Europe’s uniting?”

For reporters, “good stories” are time-robbing, all-consuming, troublesome, and sometimes dangerous. Some are the stuff of history. All, every time, are more rewarding to chase than paper. Often, they are tragic, but not always: A mudslide that swallows a South American city is a “good story,” but so is the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

That a fundamental distinction exists between an important story and a “good story”-- doctrine to reporters--is sometimes disconcerting to laymen. Around the world today live a disaffected legion of foreign correspondents’ divorced spouses who never could grasp the difference. Or understand it too well.

With that as preface, in this section today is represented an irreverent and unabashedly unscientific view of the world in 1991, fileted as a news-hungry correspondent might carve it.

The first and most important slice contains those places that will produce “good stories”--the world’s best--guaranteed to grip reporters and readers alike in ’91. No secrets here. Anticipate the venues from which your appropriately haberdashered anchorman will be urbanely stern-faced in ’91. See: ANY FOOL KNOWS.

Another slice is the sleeper countries that could drowse along, or vault overnight from nowhere to Page 1, catching most people off-balance by their urgency and intensity. Most of America’s media got blindsided in 1989 by China’s explosion and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. In 1990, there weren’t many July 4 editorials denouncing Saddam Hussein. Sorry. This year, no excuses. See: THE FIRE NEXT TIME and CARDINALS COULD ALWAYS ASSEMBLE.

The next piece holds many important places that will produce news of reach-into-your-pocketbook significance--but which, however weighty, may also prove a trifle dry to some people. Mind, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read about them. See: NEVER FORGET MOM’S BIRTHDAY . . . AND DON’T FORGET TO FLOSS.

The end cut could be well-known countries where the news is usually bad and the throbbing echoes of anguish may numb participant, observer and reader alike. Unhappy, but true, and no sense killing the messenger either. See: WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER . . . IN THE CARNAGE CLUB.

And the last cut is those places where religion is a way of death as well as a way of life (IN GOD’S NAME); where countries nudge reporters and readers to an identity crisis (CALL ME WHEN THE NAME CHANGES . . . AGAIN); where mostly nice things happen, mostly in quiet (ADORABLES ANONYMOUS), and where, whatever happens, hardly anyone seems to notice (P.S. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO . . .).

Such crystal-balling, even as New Year’s whimsy, has its pitfalls, to be sure. Drama of the sort that spawns “good stories” tends not only to march to its own drummer, but also to improvise its own tune as it goes along: The Labor Day odds on Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and the Soviet Union’s Eduard A. Shevardnadze both being out of office by this morning would have been long indeed.

Kindly hold your letters if this morning’s categories seem a tad arbitrary: Only home plate umpires are objective all of the time. And if some of the country characterizations seem outrageous, consider this: So will be much of the news that awaits Times correspondents across five continents in 1991.

ANY FOOL KNOWS

For Rip Van Winkle, spelunkers and other cavemen lately adrift in the wilds of Atlantis, here are 1991’s five biggest stories.

Soviet disUnion--A wraith neither united nor Soviet; volatile and earthshaking trauma stalk a belabored reformer’s long-shot bid to staunch ethnic, economic and political dissolution. In 1991, the best “good story” in the world.

Persian Gulf--The balloon goes up, or the air leaks out; either way Iraqi marauding etches a dangerous new Middle Eastern landscape for an international community groping in caution and perplexity for post-Cold War stability. The only contender that could dislodge the Soviet Union as the year’s biggest story.

Eastern Europe--Twelve months of winter; amid tumult abornin’, the hoboes of a new Europe wrestle with the chilling recognition that communism is easier to disassemble than capitalism is to create.

Israel--Deja vu; a stubborn country-in-the-middle wallops its enemies, infuriates its friends, and makes itself a meshuga worrying about tomorrow.

South Africa--Extremists’ carnival; nay-shooting killers from all sides seek to short-circuit the audacious, uncertain--and violent--path to eventual majority black government.

THE FIRE NEXT TIME

Don’t overdose on the sure things again this year, for there are tumults-in-the-making that could produce headlines demanding instant attention, to say nothing of catch-up expertise .

China--Paralysis in motion; Isn’t the clock near tolling a potentially violent death knell for an ossified and atavistic gerontocracy?

India--Subcontinent asunder; In the absence of strong national leadership, will renascent and uncontrolled religious, caste and regional hatreds implode into all-out civil war, making India one of 1991’s bloodiest battlegrounds?

Cuba--Caribbean Albania; How near is the last curtain for the Marxist caudillo of a decaying nation isolated and backward after three loud but empty decades?

Yugoslavia--Nation breaking; is it if , or when , hate-thy-neighbor regions fly into angry pieces through cataclysmic civil war?

THE CARDINALS COULD ASSEMBLE

Vatican-- Ave Autocracy; an uneven struggle between dominant doctrinal conservatives and dwindling liberals this year while the right-thinking Pope soldiers on. And one, uh, hellacious struggle for power between Italian and outlander cardinals for a successor if he doesn’t.

NEVER FORGET MOM’S BIRTHDAY

Many important countries do not make much news because they are peaceful and prospering. You should know all about them, and you should also lose weight, exercise regularly . . .

E Pluribus Western EuropUnum--Some back-room problems amid bold new initiatives in a smugly abuildin’ rich men’s club where $4 Big Macs enthrall visiting Japanese factory workers but become luxuries for a depleted tribe of weak-dollared American visitors.

Germany--Turmoil in the hasty marriage of disparate partners at Europe’s heart perhaps, but Germany Will Progress.

Scandinavia--Model post-industrial democracies flourish in peace, prosperity and . . . zzzzz.

Turkey--An ill gulf wind means an open door for Western allies but blows internal dissent across a Continent-straddling Muslim giant.

Mexico--Discredited political system whelps a born-again economy but, for have-not millions, el norte beckons as brightly and as cruelly as ever.

South America--Verve’s alive but the lyrics are stale in sore-tried democracies as-ever treadmilled by debt, drugs, and popular disillusionment.

AND DON’T FORGET TO FLOSS

Australia--See Scandinavia, with a beer.

Japan Inc.--Up 1 5/8; the yen for greater wealth and commercial power is unflagging, but economy’s cooling and robotic imperialism wins few foreign admirers for a mighty samurai wielding a lotus sword in world affairs.

Koreas--As the tumultuous south gets richer and stronger, poor people in the orderly and ideologically pure north pregnantly ask how Kim.

Southeast Asia--Capitalist little guys display impressive economic muscle while Vietnam wonders how to stop losing the peace.

Canada--See Scandinavia, with galoshes and an identity crisis: qualms about the future of federation roil normally placid political waters.

WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER

The world, alas, has a dark side too. Sad to tell, in some places hatred and heartache are so deep-rooted and intractable that worse follows bad with no end in sight until conflict, misadventure and often violence alternate so frequently that their impact on the world is muted by the very repetition.

Nicaragua and Philippines--Not every political widow ought to be president.

Black Africa--It’s all tragically uphill for a still-lost continent where dictatorship, ecological disaster and 13 ongoing wars institutionalize great violence, greater hunger.

Colombia--An arrogant, drug-trafficking, kidnaping, killing, racketeering Mafia mocks police and undermines democratic institutions.

Sicily, Calabria and Campania--Ditto the “real” Mafias.

Albania--One more basket case if it comes belatedly in from the cold.

IN THE CARNAGE CLUB

Afghanistan--Who are the good guys anyway?

Lebanon--Realistic to imagine that a refreshing, if Syrian-accented, calm in Beirut can translate into national peace for a shattered nation?

Liberia--There are no good guys.

Bangladesh--Expect hundreds of new victims en route to dicey spring elections promising a fraught-filled return to democratic rule after a decade of dictatorship.

Cambodia--See Liberia.

IN THE NAME OF GOD

In the Department of Religious Hatred, a new year is bound to bring new savagery in which zealots unnumbered relentlessly dispatch one another to a hereafter each claims as an exclusive preserve . . .

Iran--Encouraging signs of a political spring, but muzzling mulish mullahs is essential if Iran is to return as a member-in-good-standing of the world community.

India (op. cit.)--Hindus vs. Muslims.

Punjab--Indian Sikhs vs. Indian Hindus.

Kashmir--Kashmiri Muslims vs. Indian Hindus.

Sri Lanka--Tamil Hindus vs. Singhalese Buddhists.

Azerbaijan--Azerbaijani Muslims vs. Armenian Christians.

Cyprus--Turkish Muslims vs. Greek Orthodox.

Holy Land--Palestinian Muslims vs. Israeli Jews.

Northern Ireland--See Afghanistan.

CALL ME WHEN THE NAME CHANGES

. . . AGAIN

Myanmar--An unabating monsoon of military abuse and human misery once known as Burma.

Cote D’Ivoire-- Tres chic remake for the formerly plain-vanilla Ivory Coast, but why then must they insist on calling us Les Etats Unis?

ADORABLES ANONYMOUS

For the despairing, good news, for there still are some nice places . . .

Including postage stamp exporters, rocks, crags, islands, beef and coffee growers, bank, tax, gambling and pensioner havens, and anachronistic lands of noble heritage and liquid bearing that are proud to be cute and peaceful--if often dull.

This may be all you read in 1991 about Andorra, Barbados, Channel Islands, Costa Rica, Eire, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Switzerland and Uruguay.

P.S. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO . . .

Sometimes, countries flare assertively into the news and, just when most people are learning to mark their score cards, vanish again with hardly a trace .

Indonesia--Changes may be brewing in the ruling military aristocracy of the world’s largest Muslim country, but no threat looms to Indonesia’s generals-imposed streak as the world’s biggest country least covered by the world’s press.

Venezuela--An oil producer passed its great ‘60s democratic trial by fire with such flying colors that even now, vexed by debt and underdevelopment, it attracts scant outside attention.

Falkland Islands--When next we hear of the South Atlantic specks that were the battleground for an absurd 1982 war, will it be because Lady Margaret Thatcher becomes Countess of Stanley?

Brunei--Has that mega-rich sheik run out of right-wing causes with Ollie North out of circulation?

Grenada and Panama--Again democratic--and out of the news--now that despots have been rousted by American invasion. Was it only last New Year’s?