Editorials.

The article focuses on world politics. The 13-million-member AFL-CIO had much to celebrate at its biennial convention in Los Angeles in mid-October. The two-decade hemorrhaging of union membership has been stanched. Labor has placed trade policy on the national agenda. And the cold war-era break between Big Labor and leftish social movements has mended, as unions once again reach out to religious, community and political-activist groups. Palestinian and Israeli negotiators at last began final-status negotiations on Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders and water rights. Of all the issues at stake, the fate of the refugees seems the least amenable to compromise. Israel's consensus is that there can be no Palestinian right of return to any territory within its pre-1967 borders.