The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cleaning out old files and folders. This is a package of news clippings from 1978. I was particularly interested in Africa at the time, so it is over-represented. What strikes me is both how much has stayed the same AND how much has changed. One big change is that we get fewer headlines out of Africa anymore. It is just another developing region. In the late seventies, there were still countries attaining their independence from their colonial masters and a great frequency of droughts. Revolutionary fervor suffused the continent. The Soviets and their puppets the Cubans were interfering across the continent.

On the other hand, half these headlines could be from yesterday's papers rather than from 40 years ago.

Here are the headlines, almost all from the International Herald Tribune. I apparently clipped these while traveling and never got around to filing them. In that sense they are a random selection.

A window on Russia - in the travel section, accompanied by a bleak photo of a train in the tundra.

Cubans Anguished Over Relatives' Deaths in Africa - IHT, June 22, 1978. 40,000 Cubans in Angola and 15,000 others in Ethiopia.

Smith, Partners Assailed By Rhodesian Lawmakers - IHT. Rhodesia was still a white colony under its unilateral declaration of independence.

Mannequin: Standing Still for a Living - IHT, June 28, 1978. Actual mannequin buskers on European streets, not the modern mannequin videos.

Tough Gurkha Soldiers Dwindle - IHT, June 27, 1978. The downsizing of the British Army (even during the height of the Cold War) led to reduced recruitment. That trend of European countries not just demilitarizing themselves but almost completely disarming themselves has now just about played itself out. Nations which could once deploy fleets of dozens of ships, hundreds of planes and armies of tens and hundreds of thousands can barely launch a submarine, maintain a single squadron of twenty planes or deploy a couple of companies of soldiers. Demilitarization has been a blessing. Evisceration of defense capabilities is a tragedy waiting to occur.

Soviet Rate-Cutting Held A Threat to U.S. Shipping - IHT June 19, 1978. Trade wars were even more common then.

Balloon Helps Clear Heart Arteries - June 15, 1978. Angioplasty coming into its own and here we are forty years later still debating some aspects of its effectiveness.

Nuclear Power Plants, Like Plastic Bottles, Are Not Disposable - IHT, June 18, 1978. Need for cheap clean energy was as pressing then (or more so given the history of OPEC disruptions) but nuclear was much more discussed then than now. It is interesting. In the 1970s, nuclear power was still seen among policy-makers as the solution to energy needs but it was ardently opposed by the public. Today the need for cheap, clean energy is the sustained vocal demand from global warming activists but nuclear power is not even on the table for discussion.

U.S. Subsidizes Drive for Electric Cars - IHT, June 21, 1978. Nothing approaches immortality like a subsidy. Forty years on, the subsidies are dramatically larger and the practical solutions still a promise on the horizon.

A Soviet Gain Is Seen in Afghanistan - IHT, June 25, 1978. The performers change but the conflict continues.

Iran Dropping Plans for Pact on Gulf Defense - June 25, 1978. Middle East, Iran, on and on.

To Succeed in Hong Kong, You Gotta Have Feng-Shui - IHT, June 25, 1978. Feng Shui in Asia is a perennial journalistic filler.

Yemen President Assassinated - IHT, June 25, 1978. That one continues as well. Instead of the Soviet Union and the US interfering, it is now Saudia Arabia and Iran calling the shots with their local proxies.

Russia to Aid Abkhazia After Secession Threats - IHT June 25, 1978. Russia meddling in Georgia. Nothing's changed there either.

A Mostly Affluent Middle Class Grows in S. Korea - IHT June 25, 1978. OK, this headline is dated. The South Korean middle class have arrived in the community of developed nations.

Chinese Weapons-Buyers Tour Europe - IHT, June 25, 1978. Mostly building their own at this point but still making some strategic purchases.

Chinese Army May Restore Ranks System - IHT, June 25, 1978. Done. This was the beginning of the rebuilding of the PLA after the devastation of the Cultural Revolution. The process has continued, marked in recent years by the milestone of their first aircraft carrier.

Pro-Soviet Unit Tightens S. Yemen Grip - IHT, June 27, 1978. The Soviet Union is gone but the dynamics remain the same. Today's headline would be Iran Tightens Grip on South Yemen Proxy.

China Said to Cut Nuclear Gap - IHT, June 30, 1978. The warhead gap. Today it is more about power generation. Just yesterday I saw headlines announcing India was going to build an additional 13 nuclear power plants.

Overture to Pyongyang by Mr. Park has little chance - NYT, June 23, 1978. The capacity to generate headlines from Korea remains but today the headlines alternate between a thaw engineered by Trump (a united Korean team at the Olympics) and the missile antics of North Korea's dictator.

China Moves to Bolster Eastern European Ties - NYT, June 28, 1978. Their tie bolstering is now global but similar.

Rebels in Zaire Say They Never Went to Angola - IHT, June 19, 1978. Trouble in Africa. Zaire, now Congo again, still has the same problem but in its east with rebels circulating between Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

U.S. Says Russia Has Armed 12 African Nations - IHT, June 18, 1978. Trouble in Africa.

Rebels in Angola Claim They Killed 50 Cubans - IHT, June 15, 1978. Trouble in Africa. Virtually mirrors last week's headlines about 200 Russians killed by Syrian rebel forces.

2 Kurdish Factions Reportedly Fighting - IHT, June 18, 1978. Evergreen.

Soweto: The Malaise Continues - IHT, June 15, 1978. Trouble in Africa. South Africa anxiously celebrating last week as their corrupt President was forced to resign.

West Mounts Aid to Boost to Bolster Zambia - IHT, June 22, 1978. Trouble in Africa. We are far less inclined to slosh around aid money than we were forty years ago but we still do so with some regularity.

Third World Seeks Ways to Assure Resource Prices - IHT, June 26, 1978. "Third World"; you don't hear that term much anymore but the underlying dynamics remain the same. Most developing nations remain tragically dependent on commodity resources.

Mozambique Makes Progress Toward Socialist Goals - IHT, July 4, 1978. The mainstream media remains strongly disposed to admire Marxist dictatorships; last week's example being the teen crush the enamored media had for the presence at the Winter Olympics of the sister of the North Korean Marxist dictator.