Deputy president F.W. De Klerk and right-wing leaders linked to the old regime urged President Nelson Mandela to grant amnesty to Malan and the others. Mandela has refused to interfere in the investigations and named Archbishop Desmond Tutu to head a commission that will investigate political crimes committed under apartheid.
Sanctions kill Iraqi children
Mary Smith Fawzi, a researcher at the Harvard University
School of Public Health, and Sarah Zaidi, science director
of the Center for Social and Economic Rights in New York,
conducted a survey. They reported that as many as 576,000
Iraqi children have died since the end of the Persian Gulf
War because of the U.S.-led economic sanctions imposed by
the United Nations Security Council. The survey was
conducted for the Food and Agriculture Organization and
stated that mortality rates for children under five had
increased fivefold in the aftermath of the war.
With water and sanitation systems deteriorating and hospitals operating at 40 percent capacity, deaths related to diarrheal diseases have tripled. "I had a sense that the situation had gotten worse, but I didn't think that there would be such a dramatic difference," Fawzi said.
Chernobyl trust fund bankrupt
An international trust fund set up to aid the victims of
the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster has run out of money
while illnesses in contaminated areas of Ukraine have shot
up 30 percent. Thyroid cancers diagnosed in neighboring
Belarus are 285 times the levels before the accident. Some
9 million people have been affected in some way by the
catastrophe.
UN officials estimated that $650 million was needed to aid the victims of the accident, but only $1 million was pledged to the trust fund at the United Nations. An additional $8 million was donated by other nations. A UN official asserted that much of the effort in the area went toward research, which prompted many of those suffering to say they "feel like laboratory rats to be studied" instead of people needing medical care.
Dengue spreading in Caribbean
The Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC) in Trinidad
recently reported that St. Lucia, Grenada, Belize, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines are experiencing new outbreaks
of dengue fever, a tropical mosquito-carried disease
sometimes fatal to children. An epidemic that hit Cuba in
1981, which grew to 270,000 and killed at least 113 people
in a seven-week period, was brought under control.
Recently, 140,000 cases have been reported in the Caribbean and Latin America, with more than 40 deaths this year. Almer Dyer, St. Lucia's medical officer of health, stated that while the region experienced waves of the dengue virus in the 1970s, the disease has become more resistant. Or health care and living standards have deteriorated. "I can say emphatically that our population is nowhere prepared to cope with an outbreak," said James St. Catherine, director of medical services in St. Lucia.
Abortion doctor shot in Canada
Dr. Hugh Short, a prominent gynecologist in Hamilton,
Ontario, was shot November 11 while watching television at
home. Short performs the majority of abortions at Henderson
Hospital, which had been heavily picketed by anti-choice
demonstrators. The cops initially tried to say the doctor
was accidentally shot by a deer hunter shooting illegally
in a conservation area.
"I would be hard pressed to believe the shooting was an accident when Dr. Short was inside his house on the second floor," said Marcia Gilbert of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. "Someone took aim at him and fired," she added.
Fuhrman facing investigation
Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles district attorney,
announced November 27 that an investigation by the state
attorney general has begun to determine if ex-cop Mark
Fuhrman committed perjury during the O.J. Simpson murder
trial. Several groups organized protests in front of the
criminal courts in the city demanding such action. Garcetti
stated that the state investigation was required because
public opinion would not "accept a decision by our office
as one made completely free from bias."
Fuhrman, who in taped interviews repeatedly used the word "nigger" and bragged about brutalizing and framing up people, denied using racist slurs in the previous decade. According to the Amsterdam News, a lawsuit filed against Fuhrman for planting a knife on Joseph Britton, a Black man, was settled out of court for $100,000 two weeks after the Simpson trial began, before the cop was called to the stand.
Court rules for union activists
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled November 28 that employers
cannot retaliate against paid union organizers in their
workforce and cannot refuse to hire job seekers whom they
suspect may be planning to organize a union from inside.
The decision overturns an appeals court ruling implying
that union organizers were not employees because they
served the union's interests, not the company's.
The case stemmed from a complaint filed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who contended that a nonunion electrical contractor in Wisconsin refused to interview 10 job applicants because of their union membership.
Senate bans abortion method
The U.S. Senate voted December 7 to approve legislation
that prohibits women from using intact dilation and
evacuation, a late-term abortion procedure. A similar bill
passed in the House of Representatives November 1.
According to the New York Times, White House officials say President Bill Clinton would probably veto the bill unless it included exceptions for the life and health of a woman seeking the procedure. The Senate okayed an amendment to allow the procedure to "save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury, provided that no other medical procedure would suffice for that purpose."
Clinton vetoes budget cuts
On December 6 Clinton vetoed the budget bill passed in
Congress, proposing substantial cuts on welfare, Medicare,
and Medicaid. Clinton put forward his budget proposal. The
president's plan projects cuts in Medicare by $124 billion
over seven years compared to the measure passed in Congress
that would cut $270 billion from the program over the same
period. Other proposed cuts by the White House include $54
billion in Medicaid programs and $20 billion in welfare.
- MAURICE WILLIAMS
Mary Ellen Marus from Toronto contributed to this column.