The African National Congress in February stepped up its public war of words with an anti-corruption unit — dubbed The Scorpions — designed to ferret out abuse of power in the South African state.
The Scorpions, whom are modeled on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations, have been focusing on a large travel-related scandal in which […]
To mark UN Anti-Corruption Day in December, Transparency International released the results of its 2004 Global Corruption Barometer highlighting ongoing corruption, especially in the developing world. The survey found that worldwide, 1 in 10 people said they or a member of their household had paid a bribe in the previous year.
The survey polled more […]
At the XV International AIDS Conference in Thailand, Population Action International released a report claiming that developing nations are only receiving about 10 percent of the condoms needed to make a serious dent in the transmission of HIV.
In its 2004 update to its Condoms Count report, Population Action International estimated that the developing world needed […]
One of the long-standing arguments against the use of anti-retrovirals to treat the AIDS crisis in Africa goes like this: African countries like the health infrastructure to ensure that patients will consistently take anti-HIV drugs (which, of course, have a number of side effects). This will create a situation, the theory goes, where few patients […]
South Africa’s cabinet met in a special session in August and decided to finally distributed anti-HIV drugs . . . after it finishes a “detailed operational plan” to handle the distribution of such drugs. The decision was announced to coincide with the conclusion of an AIDS conference in South Africa.
Currently less than 30,000 South Africans […]
South Africa released its official census in July which found the population of the country managed to increase by a meager 10 percent from 1996-2001 despite the ever increasing toll that the AIDS epidemic is taking on that country. South Africa’s population rose from 40.5 million in 1996 to 44.8 million in 2001.
The census report […]
Earlier this month someone in South Africa leaked an unpublished government report on the anti-AIDS drugs. Although the South African government has refused to buy or distribute anti-AIDS drugs due to a host of objections, the leaked report estimated that making anti-AIDS drugs available could save the lives of as many as 1.7 million South […]
Reuters reports that Nelson Mandela has backpedaled on testing of AIDS drugs and is now endorsing Thabo Mbeki’s ridiculous position that further safety testing of AIDS drugs is necessary because, as Reuters paraphrases his position,
. . . conditions in Africa were different from those in the developed world, where the drugs have proven beneficial.
Mandela does […]
Given that South Africa has such a high incidence of AIDS infection, a reasonable person might conclude that the country would try to do everything in its power to reduce the risk of infection. Instead, the government continues to do all it can to prevent pregnant women from having access to a drug that can […]
Unbelievably as the 14th International AIDS Conference is getting under way, South Africa’s government is still fighting for the right keep AIDS drugs out of the hands of pregnant women.
And Thabo Mbeki had the balls to show up in Canada last month begging the West for more development aid saying,
The common thread here is the […]