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- WORLD, Page 59World NotesSOUTH AFRICAInching Closer To Talks
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- If President F.W. de Klerk is getting jittery, he doesn't
- show it. In last week's by-election in the Natal district of
- Umlazi, his ruling National Party barely retained a safe seat
- against a strong showing by the Conservative Party. Undeterred,
- the President announced another move, guaranteed to further
- rile right-wingers: he lifted the four-year-old state of
- emergency in three of the country's four provinces. The
- exception: Natal, where largely black-on-black factional
- fighting recently flared up.
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- By shelving measures that gave police sweeping powers to
- arrest and detain activists and otherwise clamp down severely
- on individual rights, De Klerk sought to remove what had been
- widely seen as a major obstacle to negotiations on the
- country's future. But his move nonetheless failed to
- immediately break the impasse with the African National
- Congress. A.N.C. spokesman Walter Sisulu called De Klerk's
- actions "half measures."
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- Nelson Mandela aroused concern for his health a few days
- after embarking on a six-week, 13-nation tour when he postponed
- a meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross in
- Geneva. Although the 71-year-old activist had recently
- undergone surgery to remove a bladder cyst, A.N.C. officials
- insisted that he was in good health, while acknowledging that
- his schedule was "tight."
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