The World - News from Sept. 30, 1987

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said that Latin America’s $380-billion debt is in part a result of the arms race and jeopardizes development of the region. “We are all aware of the high budget reserved to the arms race; meanwhile, developing countries are struggling with grave internal problems and a growing foreign debt,” Shevardnadze said in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, on the second day of his three-day visit to the country. He called the debt “a real tumor” and said that the next U.S.-Soviet agreement “must be fundamental, so as to correct the large economic gap existing in the world today.”