pd07de98 Statement on the Resignation of Steve Grossman as National Chairman of...

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like this wonderful little girl, she adopted this baby.
    And every year since, about once a year, I see this young child. 
I've watched her grow up now, and I'm happy to tell you that 6 years 
later she's still alive and doing pretty well. She comes to the NIH for 
regular checkups, and she comes by the White House to see her friend. 
And every time I see Jimiya, I am reminded of what this whole thing is 
about.
    And I think I should tell you one other thing. When Amy was standing 
up here with me and I was telling her what a fine job she did, she said, 
``I'm so glad that Cynthia could be here and that I could say Carla's 
name in your presence.''
    This is, I think, very important for people who have not been 
touched in some personal way--who have never been at the bedside of a 
dying friend, who have never looked into the eyes of a child orphaned by 
AIDS or infected with HIV--to understand. And I believe, always, that if 
somehow we could reach to the heart of people, we would always do better 
in dealing with problems, for our mind always conjures a million excuses 
in dealing with any great difficulty.
    Let me begin, even in this traumatic moment, to say we have a lot to 
celebrate on this AIDS Day. We celebrate the example of Amy and Cynthia. 
Just think, a decade ago people really believed that AIDS was 
unstoppable; the diagnosis was a virtual death sentence; there was an 
enormous amount of ignorance and prejudice and fear about HIV 
transmission. Most of us knew people who couldn't get into apartment 
houses or were being kicked out or otherwise--their children couldn't be 
in school because of fears that people had about it. Every day, for 
people who had HIV or AIDS and their families, every day was a struggle 
a decade ago, a struggle for basic information, for treatment, for 
funding, and all too often, for simple compassion.
    For 6 years, thanks to many of you, we have worked hard to change 
this picture and so have tens of thousands of other people across our 
country and across the globe.

[[Page 2400]]

We've worked hard to draw attention to AIDS and to better direct our 
resources by creating the office of National AIDS Policy and the 
President's Council on HIV and AIDS. We had the first-ever White House 
conference on AIDS. We helped to ensure that people with HIV and AIDS 
cannot be denied health benefits for preexisting conditions. We 
accelerated the approval of more than a dozen new AIDS drugs, helping 
hundreds of thousands of people with AIDS to live longer and more 
productive lives.
    Working together with members of both parties in the Congress, we 
increased our investment in AIDS research to an historic $1.8 billion. 
This year we secured $262 million in new funding for the Ryan White CARE 
Act, providing medical treatment, medication, even transportation to 
families coping with AIDS. This October we declared that AIDS had 
reached crisis proportions in the African-American, Hispanic-American, 
and other minority communities, and fought for a $156 million initiative 
to address that. Today the Vice President is announcing $200 million in 
new grants for communities around the country to provide housing for 
people with AIDS.
    The results of these and other efforts have been remarkable. For the 
first time since the epidemic began, the number of Americans diagnosed 
with AIDS has begun to decline. For the first time, deaths due to AIDS 
in the United States have declined. For the first time, therefore, there 
is hope that we can actually defeat AIDS.
    But all around us there is, as we have heard from all the previous 
speakers, fresh evidence that the epidemic is far from over, our work is 
far from finished, that there are rising numbers of AIDS in countries 
like Zimbabwe, where 11 men, women, and children become infected every 
minute of every day. There are still too many children orphaned by AIDS, 
tens of thousands here in America, tens of millions in developing 
nations around the world.
    And when so many people are suffering and with HIV transmission 
disproportionately high, still, among our own young people here in 
America, it's all right to celebrate our progress, but we cannot rest 
until we have actually put a stop to AIDS. I believe we can do it by 
developing a vaccine, by increasing our investment in other forms of 
research, by improving our care for those who are infected and our 
support for their families.
    Last year at Morgan State University, I declared that we should 
redouble our efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine within a decade. Today I 
am pleased to announce a $200 million investment in cutting-edge 
research at the NIH to develop a vaccine. That's a 33-percent increase 
over last year. With this historic investment, we are one step closer to 
putting an end to the epidemic for all people.
    I'm also pleased to say that there will be more than $160 million 
for other new research critical to fighting AIDS around the world, from 
new strategies to prevent and treat AIDS in children to new clinical 
trials to reduce transmission.
    And as hard as we are working to stop the spread of AIDS, we cannot 
forget our profound obligation for the heartbreaking youngest victims of 
the disease: the orphaned children left in its wake. Around the world, 
as we have heard, millions of children have lost their parents. Their 
number is expected to rise to 40 million over the next 10 to 15 years. 
Some of them are free of AIDS; others are not. But sick or well, too 
many are left without parents to protect them, to teach them right from 
wrong, to guide them through life, and make them believe that they can 
live their lives to the fullest.
    We cannot restore to them all they have lost, but we can give them a 
future, a foster family, enough food to eat, medical care, a chance to 
make the most of their lives by helping them to stay in school. Today, 
through Mr. Atwood's agency, we are committing another $10 million in 
emergency relief that will, though seemingly a small amount, actually 
make a huge difference for many thousands of children in need around the 
world.
    I'm also directing Sandy Thurman to lead a fact-finding mission to 
Africa, where 90 percent of the AIDS orphans live. Following the mission 
she will report back to me with recommendations on what more we can do 
to help these children and give them something not only to live for but 
to hope for.

[[Page 2401]]

    Eleven years ago, on the first World AIDS Day, we vowed to put an 
end to the AIDS epidemic. Eleven years from now, I hope we can say that 
the steps we took today made that end come about. If it happens, it will 
be in no small measure because of people like you in this room, by your 
unfailing, passionate devotion to this cause, a cause we see most 
clearly expressed in the two people sitting right behind me.
    Thank you all, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Amy Slemmer, HIV/AIDS 
activist, who introduced the President, her adopted daughter, Cynthia, 
and Carla Edwina Barrett, Cynthia's biological mother.


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[Page 2401]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Radio Remarks Announcing Housing Grants for People With AIDS

December 1, 1998

    For too many Americans living with AIDS, poverty is nearly as much a 
threat as the disease itself. People with AIDS face enormous medical 
bills and are often too sick to hold a job. Without our help, many would 
be forced to live in unfit housing or even to become homeless. We must 
not turn our backs on these Americans when they need us most. Today I am 
announcing $221 million in grants that will help meet the housing needs 
of the 85,000 Americans who have AIDS and those who live with a family 
member with the disease. These grants, administered by the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, will mean that people fighting AIDS don't 
have to also fight to keep a roof over their heads.

Note: The President's remarks were recorded at approximately 5:47 p.m. 
on November 24 in the Oval Office at the White House for later 
broadcast. The transcript was released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on December 1.


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[Page 2401-2402]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Proclamation 7153--World AIDS Day, 1998

December 1, 1998

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    On World AIDS Day, we are heartened by the knowledge that our 
unprecedented investments in AIDS research have resulted in new 
treatments that are prolonging the lives of many people living with the 
disease. Thousands of scientists, health care professionals, and 
patients themselves have joined together to advance our understanding of 
HIV and AIDS and improve treatment options. Because of the heroic 
efforts of these people, fewer and fewer Americans are losing their 
lives to AIDS, and for that we are immensely thankful.
    But the AIDS epidemic is far from over. Within racial and ethnic 
minority communities, HIV and AIDS are a severe and ongoing crisis. 
While the number of deaths in our country attributed to AIDS has 
declined for 2 consecutive years, AIDS remains the leading killer of 
African American men aged 25-44 and the second leading killer of African 
American women in the same age group. African Americans, who comprise 
only 13 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for 43 percent of new 
AIDS cases in 1997 and 36 percent of all AIDS cases. Hispanic Americans 
represent just 10 percent of our population, but they account for more 
than 20 percent of new AIDS cases; and AIDS is also becoming a critical 
concern to Native American and Asian American communities. Young people 
of every racial and ethnic community are also disproportionately 
impacted by AIDS, both in the number of new AIDS cases and in the number 
of new HIV infections. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention estimate that approximately half of all new HIV infections in 
the United States occur in people under age 25 and that one-quarter 
occur in people under age 22.

[[Page 2402]]

    Across the world, the situation is even more grim. As with other 
epidemics before it, AIDS hits hardest in areas where knowledge about 
the disease is scarce and poverty is high. Of the nearly 6 million 
people newly infected with HIV each year, more than 90 percent live in 
the poorest nations of the world. Entire communities are threatened by 
this epidemic, and the growing number of children who will lose parents 
to AIDS will have a devastating impact on these societies. By the year 
2010, there may be as many as 40 million children who will have been 
orphaned by AIDS, and developing nations will have to struggle to deal 
with the overwhelming needs of a generation of young people left without 
parents.
    This year's World AIDS Day theme, ``Be A Force For Change,'' is a 
reminder that each of us has a role to play in bringing the AIDS 
epidemic to an end. Our response must be comprehensive and ongoing. It 
must also be a collaborative one, bringing together governments and 
communities in a shared effort to expand prevention efforts, raise 
awareness among young people of the risks of HIV infection and how to 
avoid it, increase access to lifesaving therapies, and ensure that those 
who are living with HIV and AIDS receive the care and services they 
need.
    Developing a vaccine for HIV is perhaps our best hope of eradicating 
this terrible disease and stemming the tide of pain and desolation it 
has wrought. The global community has joined together in making the 
development of an HIV vaccine a top international priority. Within the 
next decade, we hope to have the means to stop this deadly virus, but 
until we reach that day we must remain strong in our crusade to prevent 
the spread of HIV and AIDS and to care for those living with the 
disease. In this way we can best honor the memory of the many loved ones 
we have lost to AIDS.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 
1, 1998, as World AIDS Day. I invite the Governors of the States, the 
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, officials of the other territories subject 
to the jurisdiction of the United States, and the American people to 
join me in reaffirming our commitment to defeating HIV and AIDS. I 
encourage every American to participate in appropriate commemorative 
programs and ceremonies in workplaces, houses of worship, and other 
community centers and to reach out to protect and educate our children 
and to help and comfort all people who are living with HIV and AIDS.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of 
December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twenty-third.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., December 3, 
1998]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on 
December 4.


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[Page 2402-2403]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Memorandum on Pakistan and India

December 1, 1998

Presidential Determination No. 99-7

Memorandum for the Secretary of State

Subject: Pakistan and India

    Pursuant to the authority vested in me as President of the United 
States, including under section 902 of the India-Pakistan Relief Act of 
1998 (Public Law 105-277), to the extent provided in that section, I 
hereby waive until October 21, 1999, the sanctions and prohibitions 
contained in section 101 and 102 of the Arms Export Control Act, section 
620E(e) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and section 2(b)(4) of 
the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, insofar as such sanctions and 
prohibitions would otherwise apply to activities of the Export-Import 
Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and 
Development Agency with respect to Pakistan and India; assistance to 
Pakistan and India under the ``International Military Education and 
Training'' program; the making of any loan or the providing of any 
credit to the Government of India or the Government of Pakistan by any 
U.S. bank; and the extension of any loan or

[[Page 2403]]

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