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US-Clinton: Clinton predicts future threats, economic greatness in populated areas

Agence France-Presse - December 28, 1999

NEW YORK, Dec 28 (AFP) - US President Bill Clinton sees the future with both trepidation and excitement, expecting cures for AIDS and cancer, but also biological warfare, he said in an interview with CBS news to be aired Tuesday.

"People carry these little pads around now, you've got these gadgets ... you can use as a telephone or a typewriter, and do e-mail and all that," he said in the pre-recorded interview for 60 minutes II. "The same miniaturization will apply to biological and chemical weapons."

"We've just got to be ready. There will always be bad guys out there who will try to take advantage of people's vulnerabilities," he said in part of the transcript released by CBS.

Clinton also said that although the United States is enjoying economic prosperity, the economies of the world's most populated countries will be even bigger.

"China, and sometime after that India, will have economies that look bigger than ours because they've got so many more people than we do, four times as many people. In the case of China, even more," the president said.

Despite his dire predictions, Clinton also said he looks forward to advances in technology and medicine, that will improve and lengthen human life.

Predicting that the near future would be "more exciting than any period in history," Clinton said that developments in the medicine and improvements in the quality of life will allow people to live to 120.

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