THE BEST OF FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT...

THE BEST OF FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT edited by Geoff Spink (I.B. Tauris/St. Martin’s Press: $15.95; 292 pp., paperback original). These transcripts of the twice-weekly BBC broadcasts cover a wide range of topics: victims of nuclear testing in Siberia; political disaffection in Iran; ethnic violence in Sri Lanka, India and the former Yugoslavia. In a report on President Clinton’s national health insurance plan, Gavin Esler describes American health care as, “a Kafka-esque bureaucracy, delivering to millions of Americans Third World standards at superpower prices with all the compassion of the KGB.” Concise, intelligent and informative, these reports stand as a reproach to the superficiality of American network news.