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Seeking to hasten the departure of General Raoul Cedras and his henchmen, the Haitian Parliament approved an amnesty law that seems to allow returning President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to grant as broad a pardon as he wishes. Meanwhile, U.S. troops continued to search for weapons as pro-Aristide demonstrators grew increasingly boisterous. Earlier in the week one coup leader, Port-au-Prince police chief Michel Francois, slipped across the border into exile in the Dominican Republic.
More Death in Bosnia
Sixteen Bosnian Serb soldiers and four nurses were killed on a mountainside southwest of Sarajevo in what U.N. officials said was a commando raid by largely Muslim government forces. In an apparent revenge attack on Saturday, Serb snipers fired on Sarajevo trams, killing one man and seriously wounding 11 others, including five children. In an effort to prevent renewed fighting from endangering aid flights, U.N. troops forced some 500 Bosnian government soldiers out of a demilitarized zone near Sarajevo's airport.
Mexico: An Inside Job?
There are now 12 suspects in the killing of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a top official in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Among them: a Congressman and a former federal official. Mexico's deputy attorney general, Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the slain politician, theorized that the killing was "a political affair with aid or financing from drug traffickers."
New President for Brazil
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 63, former Finance Minister and sociologist, was elected President of Brazil. In his first press conference since the vote, Cardoso vowed to open the world's 10th largest economy to foreign investment and said his country would "assume a much more active role" in international affairs.
Remembering Nicholas
The killing of seven-year-old Nicholas Green two weeks ago has unleashed a wave of soul searching among Italians. The child, an American who had accompanied his parents on a vacation to Italy, was shot during a botched highway-robbery attempt in the southern region of Calabria. The Greens' subsequent decision to offer their son's liver, kidneys, heart and pancreas for organ transplants was met with an outpouring of compassion and admiration. Inquiries from families of potential organ donors to the Milan-based Italian Organ Donor Association increased fivefold.
BUSINESS
A New Health-Care Giant
The health-care business continues to consolidate at a blinding rate. Last week Rick Scott, founder and CEO of Louisville, Kentucky-based Columbia/HCA, the largest U.S. hospital chain, announced plans to purchase HealthTrust, the second largest for-profit chain. The price: some $3.6 billion in stock. With 311 hospitals and 170,000 employees, the new medical-care behemoth will tower over its rivals, ringing up $15 billion worth of surgery, X rays and Band-Aids yearly.
THE ARTS & MEDIA
Degas Out of Hiding