World Notes SOUTH AFRICA

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.

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."

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."