July 29, 1992

You won't hear the Catalan equivalent of "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack" at the Summer Olympics. In fact, not only are nuts and popcorn banned from the stadiums and arenas (too messy and crunchy underfoot), but when the Olympics were being planned, no one was even sure if Spanish fans would want to eat while watching diving, gymnastics or pole-vaulting.

Openly scorning the Government's deployment of 7,000 soldiers to fight the Mafia in Sicily, mobsters have gunned down a third foe of organized crime on the island. Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, facing a sea of troubles after only a month in office, said today that the Government's credibility had been lost. "We are going through a phase when everything seems to be stacked against us: the economy, finances, the foreign exchange market, the Mafia, the crisis of our political parties," Mr. Amato said in a television interview.

Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which provides health insurance to 8.6 million subscribers in New York, said yesterday that its financial condition had deteriorated sharply in the last 18 months and warned that its reserves would run out by the end of the year unless it received another rate increase. The company has long had financial difficulties, but yesterday it disclosed details of the severity of its problems.

Rejecting White House efforts to describe him as an untrustworthy choice for voters, Gov. Bill Clinton today accused President Bush and his aides of playing politics with foreign policy. Mr. Clinton said that he had been prepared for Mr. Bush to attack his foreign policy credentials as a campaign tactic but that "I don't think we should turn every issue into a partisan issue."

In another setback for the struggling economic recovery and President Bush's re-election campaign, consumer confidence dropped sharply in July, the Conference Board reported yesterday. The business group's widely followed confidence index fell 16 percent, erasing nearly half of its gain since February. Investors reacted to the gloom of consumers with something like glee, in the belief that the Federal Reserve will keep lowering interest rates to keep the recovery from faltering. Investors also seem convinced that inflation will remain low.