NNA Breaking News Update 12/14/98>>
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NNA Breaking News Update 12/14/98
US News
1. ADL: Prison racism on the rise
2. Clinton marks rights declaration with genocide warning center
3. Judge rules against Klan ad bid
4. Man cannot live by by test scores alone
5. Chiles warns against subtle racism
6. Wayne County: Garden City diversity grows
7. Holocaust Survivors Meet Protector
World News
8. Remembering Ukraine's Unknown Holocaust
9. Ignorance Puts China On Verge Of AIDS Explosion
10. AIDS Epidemic Sweeping South Africa
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ADL: Prison racism on the rise
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A report by the Anti-Defamation League
says racist prison gangs are thriving and contributing to increased
racial tensions and violence in the American penitentiary system.
ADL spokeswoman Sue Stengel says, ``The vicious and racially
motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, has drawn
attention to the disturbing fact that some prison inmates develop
and spread racist idealogies as members of prison gangs.''
The report, ``Bigotry Behind Bars: Racist Groups in U.S. Prisons,''
says prison officials estimate up to 10 percent of the nation's
inmates are affiliated with racist gangs that are bolstered by
hate groups outside the prisons.
The ADL says the most notorious gang is the Aryan Brotherhood, which
was established in the 1960s at Northern California's San Quentin
Prison and has spread to prisons throughout the United States.
But the ADL report says racist prison gangs aren't only made up of
white supremacists.
The report says the Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan has
``organized an extensive prison outreach program since 1984'' that
sends literature and tapes filled with ``anti-Semitic and anti-white
statements'' to inmates.
Stengel says the report also shows the danger of racist gangs
doesn't stop at prison gates because many members ``stay affiliated
long after their release from prison, bringing their racist
ideologies into society at large.''
--
[A "genocide early-warning center?" Training "intelligence
resources?"]
Clinton marks rights declaration with genocide warning center
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (AFP) - US President Bill Clinton announced
the creation Thursday of a genocide early-warning center and other
initiatives marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The center -- to be run jointly by the US State Department and
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) -- will warn of risks of
genocide in latent conflicts around the world, Clinton said.
"Today, we recommit ourselves to the ideas of the universal
declaration to keep moving toward the promise outlined in Paris 50
years ago," the president said.
"It is really the Magna Carta of our humanity."
"We're taking steps to respond quickly to genocidal conditions
through the International Coalition Against Genocide I announced
during my visit to Africa, and a new genocide early-warning center,"
Clinton said.
The center will "train intelligence resources on situations that
could potentialy lead to genocide," he said.
The president also announced the creation of the Eleanor
Roosevelt Award, named for the wife of President Franklin Delanor
Roosevelt who played a key role in the declaration's drafting in
1948.
The first four winners of the award were Robert Berstein, lawyer
for Human Rights Watch; Democratic congressman John Lewis; writer
Bette Bao Lord, president of Freedom House; and feminist Dorothy
Thomas of Human Rights Watch.
"From different backgrounds and generations, they stand all in
the great tradition of Eleanor Roosevelt -- pioneers in the fight to
expand the frontiers of freedom," Clinton said.
He also said the United States would increase financial aid for
victims of human rights violations.
US contributions to anti-child labor the International Labour
Organization (ILO) were slashed earlier this year from 30 million
dollars to three million dollars.
Washington will also provide eight million dollars to
humanitarian agencies, as well as three million dollars in 1999 to
the UN's Voluntary Fund for Torture Victims.
Clinton additionally signed an executive order obliging US
federal government agencies to comply with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
--
Judge rules against Klan ad bid
ST. LOUIS, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled against a Ku
Klux Klan bid to underwrite programming at a radio station at the
University of Missouri-St. Louis.
The Klan filed suit in December after the university, which runs
KWMU-FM, rejected the white supremacist group's offer of a
sponsorship in return for 15-second promotional announcements.
The Klan hoped to run the spots locally during the National Public
Radio program, ``All Things Considered.''
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Mummert today rejected the Klan's
assertion that KWMU is obligated as a ``designated public forum''
to accept the sponsorship and run the ads.
Mummert wrote, ``Broadcasters have a finite amount of air time; what
is broadcast during that time is a matter of discretion.''
The Klan alleges its sponsorship was rejected in retaliation for its
``social and political views.'' Robert Herman, a lawyer representing
the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Realm of Missouri, told the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch he expects the case will reach the 8th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.
University spokesman Bob Samples said he was ``delighted'' with the
ruling, saying, ``It has been our contention from the beginning that
the university and KWMU have the right to decline gifts and that
Chancellor (Blanche) Touhill made the right decision in rejecting
the Klan's offer".
--
[Politically Correct Logic: Blacks score lower than Whites. Blacks
who score lower than Whites and graduate go on to successful careers.
What is missing? How about Affirmative Action hiring programs?]
Man cannot live by by test scores alone
Miami Herald
New research is wearing down the stubborn notion that grades and
standardized test scores alone can predict who has the potential to
succeed in life -- and who should get to attend college in order
to turn that potential into reality.
Florida's Board of Regents is contemplating lowering admission
standards for some of the state's four-year colleges, which would
allow more students to qualify for admission. Florida is the only
state with a single admission standard for all its universities.
That will make some folks howl, given the recent popularity of
toughening academic requirements from kindergarten on up. But
Chancellor Adam Herbert says Florida is denying admission to
students who would qualify for good colleges in other states.
It makes no sense to deny opportunity to someone eager to have it and
capable of utilizing it. Curiously, support for the policy change --
which would benefit all students -- is coming from new research into
the performance disparities between black and white students.
Research by William G. Bowen and Derek Bok, former presidents of
Princeton and Harvard universities, found that black students who
attended top universities thanks to affirmative action typically went
on to highly productive careers. This was true even though their
grades and test scores were lower than their white counterparts.
The presidents' book, The Shape of the River, documents that black
affirmative-action students didn't perform as well academically as
white students, and dropped out at a higher rate.
But their career success challenges the notion that affirmative action
hurts society. Enhancing access to top schools has spurred the growth
of the black middle class (and with negligible detrimental effect on
white aspirations, the authors note), which may be the single most
important factor in easing the corrosive effects of racial tension.
There is another, albeit less obvious, benefit. The Black-White Test
Score Gap, by Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, reveals that
racial differences in test scores begin to appear even before
kindergarten. The authors speculate -- at last, some scholarship is
being lent to what should be an obvious conclusion -- that cultural
expectations play a critical role in preparing a child for the
competitive world.
In short: If parents within a cultural group maintain doubts that
better skills will lead to eventual success, and if society reinforces
those doubts, their children are destined to underperform, no matter
what help is given later.
This is the hidden cost of relying too heavily on standardized test
scores, and using them as an excuse to roll back affirmative action:
The perception among black, Hispanic and other distressed groups that
there is no point in striving.
If society's message is, ``We want you to succeed,'' performance among
these groups will certainly improve.
But if a new message, delivered by anti-affirmative-action referendums
in Texas, California and now Washington state, prevails -- ``You're
on your own and we really don't care what happens to you'' -- optimism
will plummet, and performance will follow. There is absolutely no
long-term benefit to the nation in dashing the aspirations of people
already struggling to catch up.
How does this analysis benefit all Florida students? If it helps
demolish the myth that test scores and grade-point averages alone
determine who will succeed in life, more students will get a shot
at the higher education that could make the difference.
By searching for ways to make educational opportunity available to
more,not fewer, students, Florida's Regents are on the right track.
--
[Florida leads the nation in the number of "Hate" groups. Florida
Gov. said he is disgusted. Unfortunately for Gov. Chiles, he died
yesterday of a heart attack. One less traitor.]
Chiles warns against subtle racism
Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE -- While Florida has the dubious distinction of leading
the nation in the number of hate groups, it also must guard against
more subtle forms of racism, Gov. Lawton Chiles said Monday.
``We've made great strides over the last three decades in ending
discrimination in this country,'' Chiles said at the eighth annual
Civil Rights Conference, sponsored by the Florida Commission on Human
Relations. ``We have laws that protect civil rights and open the doors
of opportunity, but even with these advantages we still see racism.''
``There are more than 48 hate groups in Florida. We have the
distinction of having more than any state in the nation,'' the
governor said. ``Most Floridians are united in their disgust for
this type of racism. It is harmful to our society and it's offensive
to all of us.''
But Floridians need to be aware of the more insidious forms of racism,
Chiles said.
``The racism I'm speaking of is so subtle that many of us don't see it
or choose to look away. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist,'' Chiles
said.
``People from many cultural backgrounds experience some forms of
racism every day when they attempt to buy homes, get a bank loan,
shop for clothing, put their children into school. We have to open
our eyes to the fact that racism exists,'' he said.
Community dialogues about race relations can forge new understandings,
said Chiles, who leaves office in January after eight years as
governor.
``Florida's diversity is one of its greatest strengths. But in my 40
years of public service, I've learned people are more alike than they
are different. Hopefully, through these dialogues, we can change a few
hearts and a few minds.''
Florida is the nation's fourth largest state with a population of 14.4
million. About 83 percent of Florida's residents are white, 15 percent
black and about 2 percent Asian. About 15 percent of those from all
races identify themselves as being of Hispanic origin, the governor's
office said.
``It's important for us to reach a deeper level of understanding of
people who are different from us,'' said Charlene Taylor Hill,
executive director of the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission.
``We need to break down those barriers that keep us apart.''
--
[As the White population drops by 8% as minorities move in, city
leaders celebrate diversity. Indian immigrant families like the
Patels apply and receive huge government grants to start new
businesses while Whites struggle to feed their families. Sound
familar? If not, it's coming to your city soon enough.]
Wayne County: Garden City diversity grows
Ethnic minorities are opening more businesses in city
Jayesh Patel is the general manager of Patel Brothers grocery store
in Garden City. "I came for economic opportunity, to better myself,"
said Patel, who lives in Canton.
The Detroit News
GARDEN CITY -- This small blue-collar town is home to more than
a dozen Indian restaurants and businesses -- more than double the
number a decade ago -- that fill small store-fronts along Ford
Road Garden City has seen a upswing in retail developments in the
last few years -- and a growing number of ethnic minorities are
opening businesses in this still predominately white city.
While the city's population has dropped by 2,100 people since 1990
-- down nearly 8 percent to 29,729 -- the number of jobs are expected
to increase by one-third in the next 20 years to 13,840, from 10,390
in 1990.
Many of the Indian immigrants live in Canton and other fashionable
suburbs, like Sterling Heights and Farmington Hills.
"We used to be the only store that sold Indian clothing. Now, there's
one across the street," said Shanti Lala, the 49-year-old owner of
the Sari Palace in Garden City. She lives in Canton.
City Manager Jon Bayless said Garden City is expected to become more
diverse in the next decade and he noted that development was
increasing.
Its first new subdivision in years is nearing completion -- Tall
Timbers, a 15-acre development in the city's southwest corner
featuring 20 $200,000 homes.
"We're seeing an increase in development and with that comes an
influx of people and new jobs into the city," said Bayless. "I think
like all of Metro Detroit, Garden City will continue to get more
diverse."
Jayesh Patel is the general manager of Patel Brothers grocery store
in Garden City.
"I came for economic opportunity, to better myself," said Patel, 31,
who lives in Canton and has three children. "This is the American
dream."
Varsha Amini works at another Indian clothing store in Garden City.
The 46-year-old Canton woman came to the United States because her
husband was from here.
"I think our community has grown amazingly in the last two decades.
All cultures have to find their niches here."
--
Holocaust Survivors Meet Protector
NEW YORK (AP) -- Julian Bilecki was a gangly teen-ager when he
and his family helped hide 23 Jews in an underground bunker, saving
them from Nazi death squads in war-torn Poland.
The Christians showed the desperate Jews where to hide, helped
them move when they were almost detected and brought food regularly
for years.
``In order not to leave traces in the snow, they would jump from
tree to tree ... in order to come to us,'' said Sabina Grau
Schnitzer, one of those saved. ``They provided us with food and
moral support, and come and visit us. It meant so much, it was like
food for the soul.''
More than a half-century later, a gray-haired Bilecki, now 70,
was reunited with five of those Jewish survivors in a tearful
reunion at Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday night.
``Julian walked in and he stopped and he was in shock,'' said
Stanlee Stahl, executive director of the Jewish Foundation for the
Righteous. ``He couldn't believe that they were all there.
``Tears welled up into his eyes, and he looked around stunned.
... This is his first airplane ride, first time out of his country.
He was overwhelmed,'' she said.
The foundation, which brought Bilecki to the United States,
plans to give him an award next week.
A retired bus driver who grew up in an area of Poland that later
became part of Ukraine, Bilecki arrived for a month-long visit with
his son carrying just a gym bag. He was greeted with flowers, hugs
and kisses from the survivors.
``What I felt, it was very, very emotional,'' said Mrs. Grau
Schnitzer, 65. ``I said to him in Russian and Ukrainian ... `God
should be praised for this moment, and thanks for all your
goodness.'''
Bilecki, who does not speak English and did not want the town
where he now lives named, said he was amazed he and the survivors
had lived long enough to see each other again.
``He said `I remember you when you were young and didn't have
gray hair,''' Ms. Stahl said. ```You have gray hair and so do I.
Look where we are now, did we ever think we could be here?'''
The Bileckis hid Jews who escaped from the Podhajce ghetto,
where nearly all the Jewish families from the town of Zawalow were
killed by Nazis.
Mrs. Grau Schnitzer, then 9, left the ghetto with her parents to
bury a wagon full of dead bodies and then escaped. Her father and
uncle, who had known the Bileckis before the war, went to them for
help.
``We knew that they were believers and we knew that they were
good people,'' she recalled. ``We had no choice, and we hoped that
they would not report us. ... We said `Here we are, help us,' and
they helped us.''
The 23 Jews in the Bileckis' bunker went free when the Russian
army arrived in 1944. Many survivors have sent food and clothing
over the years to the Bileckis, who remained poor.
The group planned to spend the evening at the home of Genia
Melzer, 75, left for dead by the Nazis in a pile of corpses after a
mass shooting. She crawled out from among the bodies and ran to the
woods near Podhajce, where Bilecki found her covered with blood and
took her in.
Nazis ``would have murdered (the Bileckis) on the spot if they
would have found out that they were helping us,'' Mrs. Grau
Schnitzer said. ``They had a heart, they were humanitarians, and we
want to show the world there were people like this.''
--
World News
[All I have to say is WOW! Mr. Margolis must be listen to American
Dissident Voices as this topic was just cover a short time ago.]
Remembering Ukraine's Unknown Holocaust
>From the Toronto Sun
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor
As Britain's socialist government cleared the way for a gaudy
show trial of that Great Satan of the left, Chile's Gen. Augusto
Pinochet, the 65th anniversary of this century's bloodiest crime
was utterly ignored. Leftists now baying for Pinochet's head don't
want to be reminded of the Unknown Holocaust.
In 1932, Soviet leader Josef Stalin unleashed genocide in Ukraine.
Stalin determined to force Ukraine's millions of independent farmers
- called kulaks - into collectivized Soviet agriculture, and to
crush Ukraine's growing spirit of nationalism.
Faced by resistance to collectivization, Stalin unleashed terror and
dispatched 25,000 fanatical young party militants from Moscow -
earlier versions of Mao's Red Guards - to force 10 million Ukrainian
peasants into collective farms. Secret police units of OGPU began
selective executions of recalcitrant farmers.
When Stalin's red guards failed to make a dent in this immense number,
OGPU was ordered to begin mass executions.
But there were simply not enough Chekists (secret police) to kill so
many people, so Stalin decided to replace bullets with a much cheaper
medium of death - mass starvation.
All seed stocks, grain, silage and farm animals were confiscated from
Ukraine's farms. (Ethiopia's Communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam
used the same method in the 1970s to force collectivization: the
resulting famine cased one million deaths.)
OGPU agents and Red Army troops sealed all roads and rail lines.
Nothing came in or out of Ukraine. Farms were searched and looted
of food and fuel. Ukrainians quickly began to die of hunger, cold
and sickness.
When OGPU failed to meet weekly execution quotas, Stalin sent
henchman Lazar Kaganovitch to destroy Ukrainian resistance.
Kaganovitch, the Soviet Eichmann, made quota, shooting 10,000
Ukrainians weekly. Eighty percent of all Ukrainian intellectuals
were executed. A Ukrainian party member named Nikita Khruschchev
helped supervise the slaughter.
During the bitter winter of 1932-33, mass starvation created by
Kaganovitch and OGPU hit full force. Ukrainians ate their pets,
boots and belts, plus bark and roots. Some parents even ate infant
children.
The precise number of Ukrainians murdered by Stalin's custom-made
famine and Cheka firing squads remains unknown to this day. The KGB's
archives, and recent work by Russian historians, show at least seven
million died. Ukrainian historians put the figure at nine million,
or higher. Twenty-five percent of Ukraine's population was
exterminated. Millions of victims
Six million other farmers across the USSR were starved or shot during
collectivization. Stalin told Winston Churchill he liquidated 10
million peasants during the 1930s. Add mass executions by the Cheka
in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; the genocide of three million
Muslims in the USSR; massacres of Cossacks and Volga Germans and
Soviet industrial genocide accounted for at least 40 million victims,
not including 20 million war dead. Kaganovitch and many senior OGPU
officers (later, NKVD) were Jewish. The predominance of Jews among
Bolshevik
leaders, and the frightful crimes and cruelty inflicted by Stalin's
Cheka on Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland, led the victims of
Red Terror to blame the Jewish people for both communism and their
suffering. As a direct result, during the subsequent Nazi occupation
of Eastern Europe, the region's innocent Jews became the target of
ferocious revenge by Ukrainians, Balts and Poles.
While the world is by now fully aware of the destruction of Europe's
Jews by the Nazis, the story of the numerically larger holocaust in
Ukraine has been suppressed, or ignored. Ukraine's genocide occurred
8-9 years before Hitler began the Jewish Holocaust, and was committed,
unlike Nazi crimes, before the world's gaze. But Stalin's murder of
millions was simply denied, or concealed by a left-wing conspiracy
of silence that continues to this day. In the strange moral geometry
of mass murder, only Nazis are guilty. Socialist luminaries like
Bernard Shaw, Beatrice and Sidney Webb and PM Edouard Herriot of
France, toured Ukraine during 1932-33 and proclaimed reports of
famine were false. Shaw announced: "I did not see one under-nourished
person in Russia." New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who
won a Pulitzer Prize for his Russian reporting, wrote claims of
famine were "malignant propaganda." Seven million people were dying
around them, yet these fools saw nothing. The New York Times has
never repudiated Duranty's lies.
Modern leftists do not care to be reminded their ideological and
historical roots are entwined with this century's greatest crime -
the inevitable result of enforced social engineering and Marxist
theology.
Western historians delicately skirt the sordid fact that the
governments of Britain, the U.S. and Canada were fully aware of
the Ukrainian genocide and Stalin's other monstrous crimes. Yet
they eagerly welcomed him as an ally during World War II. Stalin,
who Franklin Roosevelt called "Uncle Joe," murdered four times
more people than Adolf Hitler.
None of the Soviet mass murderers who committed genocide were ever
brought to justice. Lazar Kaganovitch died peacefully in Moscow a
few years ago, still wearing his Order of the Soviet Union, and
enjoying a generous state pension.
--
Ignorance Puts China On Verge Of AIDS Explosion
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is on the verge of a devastating AIDS
epidemic, fueled by ignorance about the HIV virus and a rise in
intravenous drug use, experts said Monday.
Speaking on the eve of World AIDS Day, disease specialists from China
and abroad added that the growth of prostitution also threatened to
spread HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) from high-risk fringe
groups to the general public.
``HIV cases will increase dramatically in the next few years,'' said
Wu Zunyou, an AIDS expert at the Chinese Academy of Preventive
Medicine.
His dire prediction was echoed by a senior Beijing-based World Health
Organization (WHO) official.
``If no action is taken, if there is not active education, there
could be 10 million HIV cases by the year 2010,'' said WHO technical
officer Alan Schnur.
In early November, China's Ministry of Health said the country had
11,170 confirmed HIV cases. Of those infected 338 had developed
full-blown AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and 184 had
already died.
But health officials warned the actual number of HIV patients could
be as high as 300,000, since only high-risk groups such as
prostitutes,
drug addicts and blood donors have been tested.
The ministry also predicted that the number of HIV cases would top 1
million by the year 2000 if effective action is not taken.
Both Wu and Schnur blamed the looming crisis on the lack of education
about HIV.
``Ordinary people are short of knowledge about AIDS,'' Wu said.
``Half of them believe shaking hands or eating together could
transmit HIV and 60-70 percent believe a mosquito bite would infect
them with the virus,'' he added.
The two experts said a surge in the number of intravenous drug users
and the growing acceptance of prostitution threatened to spread the
disease to the general public.
At present, nearly 70 percent of China's HIV carriers are drug users,
Wu said. Drug use, endemic among prostitutes, is on the rise, he
added, citing Ministry of Public Security statistics.
``If we can control the AIDS epidemic among drug users, it may be
possible to control the spread of AIDS in the entire society,'' Wu
said.
China will mark World AIDS Day Tuesday by kicking off a nationwide
program aimed at curbing HIV transmission by 2010.
The plan focuses on education and targets high-risk groups with a
multi-media traveling exhibition aimed at fostering AIDS awareness.
Schnur said the WHO was pleased with China's efforts to boost
understanding of the disease, but cautioned that results would be
slow in coming.
``Educating 1.2 billion people takes time,'' he said.
--
AIDS Epidemic Sweeping South Africa
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 30 (AFP) - South Africa has one of the world's
fastest growing epidemics of Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV),
the precursor to the deadly AIDS, according to a report released
here Monday.
The country this year notched up more than half of the new HIV
infections in the world's worst infected area, sub-Saharan Africa,
according to the head of the UN programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS),
Peter Piot.
About 70 percent of people infected with HIV this year were in
sub-Saharan Africa, where four-fifths of all Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) deaths occurred in 1998, according to
UNAIDS statistics.
The UN programme also estimates that South Africa has more
HIV-infected people than in any other country, except India.
Addressing a press briefing ahead of World AIDS Day on December
1, Piot warned that southern Africa is facing an "unprecedented
emergency" as the number of people infected with the virus climbs at
"alarming" rates.
This year 1.4 million people aged between 15 and 49, the most
sexually active age group, were infected with HIV in the nine
countries which make up southern Africa, he said.
Piot said the four worst-affected countries in the region were
Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, where between 20 and 26
percent of people aged 15-49 were living with HIV or AIDS.
But South Africa is "catching up," he said.
Piot added: "It is not by chance Africa is so much affected by
this epidemic, because the driving forces of this epidemic are
poverty, migration (and) conflict."
The first UN-sponsored South African Human Development Report,
also released at the briefing, said that projections suggested the
epidemic would infect almost 25 percent of South Africa's population
by 2010.
By that year, life expectancy is expected to drop from 68.2 to
48 years.
The report said the epidemic was fuelled by apartheid's legacy
of the migrant labour system, under which sexually transmitted
diseases flourish, and the subordinate status of women in the
country.
According to a separate Department of Health report, "South
Africa's epidemic has been one of the last to develop in Africa,
because of this country's most southerly position on the continent.
"However, the epidemic is now growing rapidly with over 1,500
people becoming infected each day."
Welfare and Population Development Minister Geraldine Fraser
Moleketi reacted to criticism that the government had been slow in
acting on the AIDS threat saying it was never "too late."
She said: "We are looking at taking on this battle in every
way."
One of the government's first attempts at spreading awareness
about AIDS in South Africa was a controversial play, "Sarafina 2,"
which cost 14 million rand (now more than two million dollars).
The production, cancelled in 1996, was widely criticised for
imparting little information about the virus and is currently under
investigation in an attempt to recoup the EU funds allocated to it.
In September Deputy President Thabo Mbeki launched the
government AIDS Action Plan, to start with an awareness campaign for
which 80 million rand (14 million dollars) has been budgeted.
Piot, who said his decision to commemorate World AIDS Day in
South Africa was an indication of the seriousness of the problem in
the region, said the epidemic can and must be fought.
"These projections suppose that we don't act, but that would be
immoral and irresponsible," he said.
--
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