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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 2000)
Page 6 NEWS Wednesday, June 28,1 THE BATTALION AIDS predicted to spread in Africa Disease kills 19 million, expected to wipe out half of teen-age generation News in Brief , Lister det' for o ftf .Ch Modern mummification availabl GENEVA (AP) — AIDS has killed 19 million people worldwide, but the worst is yet to come, the United Nations predicted Tuesday: the dis ease is expected to wipe out half the teen-agers in some African nations, devastating economies and societies. “There is a whole generation which is being tak en out," said Peter Piot, head of the U.N. Joint Pro gram on HIV/AIDS. He said vulnerable countries in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean risk a similar catastrophe unless they act now to control infection rates. In its 135-page report released Tuesday, UN AIDS estimates: •The virus has killed 19 million people world wide, up from 16.3 million at the end of 1998. It has infected 34 million more, including 5.4 million last year alone. •More than 13 million children have been or phaned by AIDS. • In 16 sub-Saharan African countries, more than one-tenth of the population ages 15-49 carries the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV. • In seven of those countries, at least one-fifth of the population is infected. One of the countries where 20 percent of the pop ulation is infected is South Africa, which has 4.2 mil lion people who are HIV positive — the largest single national total. The southern African nation of Botswana has the worst rate, with more than one in three adults infected. That is the equivalent of 90 million people out of the U.S. population of 270 million. "The probability that you die from AIDS when you are 15 today is over 50 percent in these coun tries," Piot told a press conference. "We are going into societies where there are more people in their 60s and 70s than there are in their 40s and 30s,"he said. "This is unheard of." With dwindling numbers of economically active adults left to support the rest of the population, the impact on poor African nations is devastating. Agricultural production in nations like Zimbab we, where 2,000 people die each week of AIDS, is falling. Businesses are going bankrupt because of the deaths of skilled, educated staff members, ac cording to the report. Hopes of better education are also in tatters. The number of new teachers trained in Zambia is just keeping pace with the number felled by AIDS. Chil dren are leaving school because they are orphaned or forced to work to support their families. Hospitals are overwhelmed by AIDS patients. Many have inadequate supplies of even basic an- SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — If bur ial sounds boring and cremation leaves you cold, here is another idea: mummification. This is not your standard wrap, either. We are talking high- tech interment, a combination of ancient art and tomorrow's sci ence. The basic procedure can run about $63,000, according to Summum, a Salt Lake City reli gious group that says there is lit tle use in shopping around. “We’re the only ones world wide that do modern mummifi cation," said Corky Ra, Sum- mum’s founder and leader. Think of mummification as just another option for those who don't want to go out the old-fashioned way. There are already burials at sea, burials in space, chrome^ caskets for Harley-Davidsonbii and coffins customized withw puter software. The ashes oft dearly departed can be drop* from a plane, entombed inaco reef or used to grow bonsai tree “There has been a trend in; neral service over the past decs or so toward more personal and individualized funeral seoj rituals,” said Kelly Smi spokesman for the National neral Directors Association. Summum started resean mummification in 1979,pracfc on 30 cadavers contributedts local medical school. Its met is more advanced than traditic mummification, which involve: salt-like preservative called rat As student leade and yards of linen. Jeanei The AzL\£ fejAdrian ** Steal... DON T YOU THINK YOU'VE TAKEN THIS "COOL." THING A LITTLE BIT TOO rztkX?'2 " WHAT DO YOU MEANF - ~ I'm sorry, sir, but due to pending litigation, all Questions regarding that particular software must be handled by a different division... one moment and I'll transfer you C! (Click) Hello, Microsoft tech support, what's up? \* s o Vn«.\c> w ; V Vw I'm sorry, sir but due to... G^Ar T.NA/O..S K«.r «. V. >. Oh, well then...I’ll just trans- -fer you to our new customer service department. They’ II send ou where you eed to go... iw academic year, tl Iss training has bt tfamingtohelp then I'ns concerning alo ^^tet «5><fc04i| Recently, Dr. ■esident for studc (Click) Hell he,rt. t -SevVo- i'\ vijifil -sWq . 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