NATION/IWO RLD - U.N.: Iraq may have mistreated some prisoners The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 15. 1998 arribean region aces high AIDS rate Los Angeles Times biological w WASHINGTON -- U.N. weapons Butler said. inspectors this week investigated alle- looked for t gations that Iraq conducted germ war- n't find the fare experiments on political prisoners for all of t but found that records covering the sus- there." pected time period had been removed, Butler sa the chief arms inspector said yesterday. tinue trying Iraq dismissed reports of prison tests biological 5 "a sheer lie." made by ex Richard Butler, head of the special - are true U.N. commission charged with elimi- In Washi nating Iraq's weapons of mass destruc- said the U tion, said in a television interview that structed de the prison inspection was conducted pointed to g Monday by members of the U.N. team prison but headed by American Scott Ritter, evidence. although Ritter was not present. President Later in the day Monday, Iraqi government President Saddam Hussein's regime mation that j1allenged the United States and the prisoners. [ nited Nations by announcing that it White Hou would ban Ritter's team from carrying he believes out its assignment. Ritter and his col- on, we shoo leagues were blocked yesterday for a to insist that second day. ... I would Although Iraq originally accused (the Iraqis); Ritter of being a spy, and complained chemical an that his team was overloaded with Butler di Americans and Britons, yesterday Iraqi might have officials cited the prison inspection as prison recor the sort of activities they were trying to on ABC- op. America," h "I did authorize an inspection ... to a dence that prison in order to look at the documen- inspectors. tary record of the possible testing of a "We've b Recession cli Los Angeles Times SEOUL, South Korea-- When it comes to self-sac-= Mice, no detail is too small for the earnest citizens of this newly troubled country. Wedding halls have stopped serving the tradi- tional wedding repast between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the grounds that most guests, already full from lunch, were wasting the food. Apartment dwellers are stopping their elevators on alternate floors to save electricity. Average folks have tossed more than $135 million in gold trinkets into the nation- al hat as a way to stoke foreign reserves. Not that this industriousness is always carried out th good cheer. The nation is in serious trouble, and personal dreams have been shattered. Thus the hik- eapons agent on prisoners," "When they got there, they those documents. They did- em because the documents he relevant period weren't id his commission will con- to determine if charges of arms testing - originally iled Iraqi opposition leaders or false. ngton, intelligence sources .N. inspectors had recon- leted computer files that germ war experiments at the did not provide conclusive Clinton later said the U.S. has no independent confir- Iraq is experimenting on But he told reporters at the se: "If Mr. Butler says that that he's got enough to go uld view it seriously enough t the inspections go forward. remind you that in 1995, admitted to having stocks of id biological weapons." id not speculate about what happened to the missing ds, but in the same interview TV's "Good Morning e said there is growing evi- Iraq is spying on the U.N. been very concerned at the AP PHOTO Iraqi Deputy Premier Tariq Ariz holds evidence that Iraq has no more weapons of mass destruction during a press conference in Baghdad yesterday. The Wshlington Post NASSA, Bahamas -- The tropi- cal tranquillity of this tourist par- adise, with its pristine beaches, soothing calypso and quaint gingzer- bread houses, belies the severity of a deadly scourge: AIDS. Thirteen years after the Bahamas reported its first case. the country is grappling with one of the highest AIDS rates in tne world, an epidem- ic that has become the foremost cause of death for men and women betwveen the ages of 20 and 44. "What this means is that many people are getting infected as teen- agers ... and unless we stem this dis- ease, there will be severe socioeco- nomic impacts," said M. Perrti Gomez, a physician who is director of the Bahamas' national AIDS pro- gram. "You could deplete your work force prematurely, see the ioss of bread winners in families and put an increasingly heavy burden on the state." Throughout the Caribbean, coun- tries like the Bahamas are con- fronting an AIDS epidemic that has left this region of 36 million people with the world's highest incidence rate of the disease after sub-Saharan A frica. Figures compiled by the U.N. AIDS Program show that at least 310,000 people in the Caribbean have AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes the disease. and that the prevalence rate among adults is nearly 2 percent. The numbers for sub-Saharan Africa, an area south of the Sahara Desert with a total population of 600 million people, are dramatically higher. Nearly 21 million people there have been recorded as living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV ), and 7.4 preeit ol the adult population is infected In the U nited Staics and C anada there are an estimated 900 i(1 , peo- ple living i with AIDS or IV. Overall, 0.0 percent of the adults in North America have been diagtcnoscd as carrying IIIV. What is alarmion about the Caribbeai is that while the annual number of AIDS cases has been dropping in North America during the last several years and rates in Latin America have leveled off, the figures in this region have been increasing sharply. In 1993, for example, the number of new cases jumbped 1by13.5 percent from the prexvious ear, then increased 19.2 percent in 1994 and by 22.5 percent in 1995, according to the Caribbean Epidemiology Center in Trinidad, which tracks public-health trends in 21 Caribbean nations. "Slowly but steadily, the pandern- ic is taking hold of communities rendered doubly vulnerable due to their socioeconomic d isadvtantage and lack of information,, said a report on the Caribbean prepared by three leading health organizations and presented at the XI linternational Conference on AI DS in Vancouver in I 996. "M i ration. hoth between countries and from rural to urban areas, contributes to the continued spread of HIV AIDS and creates additional challenges to preven- Health officials contend that the epidemic in the (aribbean has wors- ened as a result of political and social factors such as poverty, loW levels of education and a pervasive intolerance of homosexuality that has translated into a lack of will at the upper echelons of some govern- ments to combat A IDS vgorously. number of instances in recent times at which we've shown up at a site that we have to inspect to discover evidence that Iraq probably knew we were comiing there and maybe even what we werc going to look at," le said. "So, that of, course has raised in our miiinds the qucs- tion of whether they're Iistening to us or in some way gettinig advance informa- tion on What we do." At the U nited Nations, the Security Council issued a statement calliig oii Iraq to stop interfering with L. N. inspections. Although it did not specify a penIalty for continued defiance by Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to the United NItions Bill Richardson called it "a strong statement. adlenges ing trails at nearby Pukansan become a sort of hide-out fo businessmen. Too embarrassed the bad news, the men continue each morning dressed in work a mountains instead of their offic The human toll can also b increase in crimes such as the ping and suicide, according h By one count, business exe themselves at a rate of one accused of kidnapping and b owed him nearly S28,000. But, confronted by their wor modern times, South Koreans at S. Korean lifestyle National Park have ation and darkened prospects with a survival instinct r newly unemployed and patriotic fervor reminiscent of World War 11 to tell their families Ancrica. to leave their homes Exhorted by President-elect Kim Dae Jung, the attire but head for the long7time dissident who inherited the daunting task of es. resurrecttinc his nations economy and psyche, be measured by the Koreans are rediscoveringi. the intangibles that ft, burglary, kidnap- throughout history have enabled them to survive and o local newspapers. thrive encircled by China and Japan_- and, in the past cutives are killing three decades, to build their desperately poor country a day. A man is into the world's I th-larcest economy. eatitog a debtor Who "Koreans have a sense that there is no one else they can rely on but themIIselvesi said Luii Mee Kim, an st economic crisis in associate professor at Ewha Womans University in e facing their humili- Seoul. Iv I _______ __OEM=_ The world will always need podiatric physicians with minds that excel and hands that heal. http://scholl.edu or call 1-800-843-3059 Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine We demand the best and get the best. PATRICE GAINES 2 P.M. Monday, January 19, 1998 Michigan Union Ballroom Washington Post reporter and author Patrice Gaines (Laughing in the Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of Color - A Journey from Prison to Power) will speak at 2 p.m. Monday, January 19 in the Michigan Union Ballroom in conjunction with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Symposium. In her autobiography, she gives her account of a life of learning, living, and surviving as an African American woman who fell from the comfort of growing up in a military family to the hard life of a junkie with a prison record. Gaines will address "Why We Can't Wait" to address and solve the social problems that threaten society. 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