THE task of good reporting lies not ' merely in the struggle for the gritty word that captures the death of an African rebel in a dusty Congo boulevard, or for the succinct phrase that clarifies the politely vague deliberations of the conference room. More challengingly. the job demands the timely summing-up that gives recent events meaning in the light of what has gone before. By its annual Man of the Year cover story, by CINEMA'S choices of the year's top films, by FOREIGN NEWS'S analysis of the plight of the world's troubled homeless during the International Refugee Year, TIME this week takes year-end heed of the newsmagazine's duty to summarize.

And two other summary stories not only put the news in context but dramatically compare two U.S. neighbors.

Modest Canada would blush to have invented Red China's grandiose motto "Great Leap Forward"--but in the past decade Canada has leaped. High in resources and low in population. Canada has taken giant strides toward a level of prosperity that only the U.S. surpasses; while the U.S.'s gross national product has climbed 50% since 1950, Canada's has jumped 90%--an advance in which U.S. investment dollars played a dominant role. Cuba, for its part, seems intent on adopting patterns from Red China. In the eleven months since Fidel Castro appeared on TIME'S cover (which asked: "Democracy or Dictatorship?"), a supergov-ernment called INRA has grown up--as such prerevolutionary institutions as Congress and the courts wither away --and has set up 485 commune-like farm cooperatives. For how Canada grew rich while Cuba took the path to economic chaos, see THE HEMISPHERE.

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