South African successes in fight against AIDS
By Campaigns | July 7, 2011
Africa Focus, 5 July
South Africa’s 5th AIDS conference, held from June 7-10 this year, marked a remarkable turnaround in the country’s efforts against the AIDS pandemic. Read the rest of this entry »
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Statement of the African National Congress on its 99th Anniversary
By Mark | January 10, 2011
Statement of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress on the occasion of the 99th Anniversary of the ANC
08 January 2011, The Presidency, Republic of South Africa
Comrades and Compatriots,
Today the African National Congress is 99 years old and thus enters its 100th year of its existence.
When we celebrate our centenary in Mangaung next year, we will be celebrating the triumph of a people united in struggle, when the masses of our people united with progressive forces across the world, to fight against an oppressive regime.
As South Africans, Africans and humanity at large we celebrate this tremendous example of human solidarity. Read the rest of this entry »
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HIV/AIDS in South Africa
By Info | December 1, 2010
Mark Beacon, December 1, 2010
Today millions of people across South Africa will mark World AIDS Day with the message ‘We are responsible’. The campaign, which is focused on the role that all South Africans can play in addressing the pandemic, will run until June next year; the ambitious deadline the government has set itself for the testing of 15 million people. Read the rest of this entry »
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Swaziland: Declining customs union revenues threaten AIDS response
By Mark | November 16, 2010
IRIN PlusNews, Mbabane, 16 November 2010
An economic meltdown in Swaziland, exacerbated by a major decline in revenue from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), is unlikely to leave the national AIDS response unscathed, say local health officials. Read the rest of this entry »
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How the UK could help the Global Fund save lives
By Info | November 9, 2010
The Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria is well short of the $13 billion it needs in the next three years to maintain the disease-fighting programmes it currently supports in the developing world. Stephen Lewis argues that the decision the UK makes now could have a domino effect and change the fate of millions.
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AIDS discriminates because we discriminate
By Mark | November 2, 2010
A message from AIDS Free World
Throughout November a 520-square-foot silent video message from AIDS-Free World, is being beamed across New York’s Times Square once every hour, every day.
Watch the video here. Read the rest of this entry »
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NIH joins patent pool for AIDS drugs
By Info | October 5, 2010
Reuters, 30 September 2010
The United States National Institutes of Health said on Thursday it will share intellectual property rights on some AIDS drugs in a patent pool designed to make treatments more widely available to the poor.
The NIH is the first research institution to join an HIV medicines patent pool launched by UNITAID, a health financing system funded by a tax on airline tickets which was co-founded by Brazil, Britain, Chile, France, and Norway in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
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MDGs: Donors hold key to HIV-free generation
By Info | September 28, 2010
PlusNews Global, 23 September 2010
Top UN health officials are confident that an HIV-free generation is possible by 2015, but have warned of the need to fully fund HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes to ensure that steady progress in recent years does not fall by the wayside.
“This is an unprecedented moment [of] unprecedented momentum. I urge development partners to support the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] in their replenishment,” said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking on 21 September at an event on the sidelines of the three-day Millennium Development Goals summit at the UN headquarters in New York. Read the rest of this entry »
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Twenty-two of the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced new HIV infections by more than 25 per cent
By Info | September 23, 2010
UNAIDS, 17 September 2010
Ahead of the United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on 20-22 September 2010, UNAIDS today released data on progress towards MDG 6 and called for leveraging the AIDS response to support all MDGs.
The data shows that countries with the largest epidemics in Africa—Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe—are leading the drop in new HIV infections. Between 2001 and 2009, 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have seen a decline of more than 25% in new HIV infections. The number of new HIV infections is steadily falling or stabilising in most parts of the world. Read the rest of this entry »
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Appointment of former Chilean President Dr. Michelle Bachelet as head of new UN Women’s Agency is welcome and encouraging says ACTSA
By admin | September 17, 2010
Press Release
ACTSA, London, UK
17 September 2010
For Immediate Release
Appointment of former Chilean President Dr. Michelle Bachelet as head of new UN Women’s Agency is welcome and encouraging says ACTSA
ACTSA welcomes the news that former Chilean President Dr. Michelle Bachelet has been appointed to head UN Women, the new agency which will begin its work in January 2011. Dr Bachelet has a strong record of campaigning for women’s rights and ACTSA recognises her appointment as one which should provide the Agency with strong and dynamic leadership.
ACTSA has actively campaigned for the Agency’s establishment, which has been in planning stages since September 2009. Women in southern Africa bear the major burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, family care and from poverty itself. Women suffer through discrimination and marginalisation and in a disturbing number of cases across the region from violence. ACTSA has supported the call for a UN women’s agency in the belief and hope it will make a real difference to the lives of women in southern Africa. Michelle Bachelet’s appointment gives encouragement that the agency will be well led and strong force for positive change.
A key challenge now is to ensure the Agency is well funded. We and others believe it needs a budget of at least $1billion. Some of this can be found from existing budgets but additional funding is needed. Another key challenge is to shake up the UN and the large multilateral agencies so there is real progress on overcoming the discrimination women in southern Africa and across the world continue to suffer. ACTSA calls on the international community and governments worldwide to recognise the importance of the new Agency and to fund it accordingly.
Tony Dykes, Director of ACTSA said:
“We welcome the announcement of Michelle Bachelet as the head of the UN’s women’s agency. The Agency has the potential to make a real difference to women’s lives in southern Africa by providing top level leadership to ensure there is real and sustained improvement in their quality of life.”
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