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Clinton Makes Up Lost Time in Battling AIDS
RWINKWAVU, Rwanda — Bill Clinton worked the crowd of AIDS survivors, clasping the outstretched hands of children alive because of the AIDS medicines his foundation donated. Inside the rural hospital here that he recently helped renovate, where Rwandans were hunted down and killed during the genocide he regrets he didn’t try to stop as president, Mr. Clinton heard people once skeletal from AIDS tell of their resurrections to robust health. Since he left office more than five years ago at age 54, one of the youngest former presidents ever, Mr. Clinton has made a lasting mark in a cause that he came to only late in his presidency: fighting the AIDS pandemic across Africa and the world. Few public figures in America have spawned as much speculation about what motivates them as Mr. Clinton. Abroad, even fewer inspire the affectionate reception Mr. Clinton received as he raced across seven African countries in eight days in July. Crowds at roadsides and in hospitals wanted to touch him — and he obliged by shaking hands, kissing babies and hugging people with AIDS. Here on Mr. Clinton’s fourth visit to Rwanda, it was clear the efforts by his foundation had personal meaning. He said he was sorry his administration failed to intervene during the 1994 genocide. “The United States just blew it in Rwanda,” he said flatly. Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, said he had accepted Mr. Clinton’s repeated apologies. But on this trip, Mr. Clinton seemed anything but a man tormented by guilt. Rather, he reveled in his role as a private citizen championing people with AIDS. “The reason I do this work I do is that I really care about politics and people and public policy,” he said in one of several interviews, scornfully dismissing questions about whether his global AIDS work is a form of redemption for what he failed to accomplish on the issue as president, or for the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “I’m 60 years old now, and I’m not running for anything, so I don’t have to be polite anymore,” he said. “I think it’s all a bunch of hokum,” he added, calling such speculation psychobabble. “I have never met anybody who spent all their time talking about everybody’s motives who at the end of their life could talk about very many lives they had saved,” he said. Mr. Clinton was adamant that he had done all he could about global AIDS with a Congress hostile to foreign aid, though he conceded that his administration fought too long to protect the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies against countries trying to make or import cheaper AIDS medicines. ‘Everyone Was Worried’ After he left office, Mr. Clinton faced some skepticism as he took up the cause of people with AIDS dying faraway deaths in poor countries. His administration, which sought more resources to combat AIDS domestically, had a far weaker claim to leadership on AIDS worldwide. When doctors specializing in public health met him at the William J. Clinton Foundation in Harlem in the fall of 2002, Howard Hiatt, the former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, bluntly asked Mr. Clinton why those present should expect that “you’ll be able to accomplish now what you didn’t undertake in your presidency — an attack on this plague?” “Everyone was worried,” said Richard Marlink, who headed Harvard’s AIDS Institute. “Is this a campaign with photo ops and press releases or a long-term commitment?” In the years since, doctors at the forefront of AIDS treatment have worked with Mr. Clinton. Dr. Marlink volunteered to help Mr. Clinton’s foundation in South Africa. Dr. Hiatt, who serves on the board of Partners in Health, a nonprofit group that works with Mr. Clinton in Rwanda, said the former president “has really perceived the seriousness of the problem.” Mr. Clinton and his foundation have undertaken projects with two dozen developing countries, raising money to post nurses in rural clinics in Kenya, mustering experts to train hospital managers in Ethiopia and buying drugs for thousands of sick children, among other things. His foundation also has negotiated steep cuts in the price of AIDS medicines through deals with drug companies that cover more than 400,000 patients in dozens of countries, helping propel momentum for treatment of the destitute. Dr. Bernard Pécoul, who led a campaign for access to medicines for Doctors Without Borders from 1998 to 2003, credited Mr. Clinton and his foundation for showing independence from the politically powerful drug industry and helping to accelerate the decline in prices for generic AIDS medicines in developing countries. “They have been very clever in supporting generic policy in the United States, a country where it’s not easy,” he said. “And sometimes they’ve been even more courageous than the United Nations system, which is under pressure from member states.” The Clinton foundation’s budget last year was $30 million, raised from private donors. Mr. Clinton, who oversees its operations full time, has plunged into many causes, from childhood obesity to tsunami relief to global warming, but he has made his most substantive contribution on AIDS. He said Rwanda was one of the first countries he chose to work in because “they had a really good chance to dig out of the hole and I wanted to help them do it.” For years, he tried to coax Dr. Paul Farmer, known for his work caring for the poor in remote, rural Haiti, to recreate his model of AIDS treatment in Africa, the heart of the epidemic. Last year, Dr. Farmer and the group he co-founded, Partners in Health, arrived in Rwinkwavu. With support from the Clinton Foundation and others, he has transformed a dilapidated facility that lacked even a doctor into a thriving rural hospital. More than 1,500 people have been put on AIDS medicines here. Reproducing the pioneering model used in Haiti, Dr. Farmer has community workers, many of them peasants, deliver antiretroviral medicines to people with AIDS every day, minimizing reliance on scarce doctors and nurses. Like most international leaders and American advocates for people with AIDS in the 1990’s, critics say, Mr. Clinton’s efforts on global AIDS did not match the epic scale of the human tragedy as it unfolded across Africa and millions died and were orphaned. In recent years, the fight against AIDS has leapt onto the world stage, claimed by Mr. Clinton and his Republican successor, George W. Bush. There is a measure of irony in this. Since 2003, Mr. Bush has marshaled billions of dollars in American assistance for a global assault on the disease, financing lifesaving treatment for hundreds of thousands of people with AIDS. Yet because of his foreign policies, notably the war in Iraq, he is often met by protests when he travels abroad, while Mr. Clinton is warmly embraced across the developing world. “George Bush has actually delivered more resources, but Clinton is ten times more popular in Africa,” said Princeton Lyman, who was American ambassador to South Africa under Mr. Clinton. “That’s because, just like he does everywhere, he portrays that sense that he cares.” On his recent tour of Africa — his fifth since 2001 — Mr. Clinton showed a remarkable ability to establish a human connection with people he met. In Johannesburg, Mr. Clinton and a frail Nelson Mandela, about to turn 88, clutched each other’s hands like a long-lost son and his beloved father. En route to the airport in Lilongwe, Malawi, where crowds of people strained to catch a glimpse of him, Mr. Clinton suddenly halted the motorcade, conducted an impromptu interview in the middle of the road, then plunged into a throng of young men reaching out to touch him. At a hospital in Mafeteng, Lesotho, Mr. Clinton strolled into a sunny courtyard with 6-year-old Arriet Moeketsi, a little girl in a polka-dot dress. Arriet, who takes AIDS medicines donated by Mr. Clinton’s foundation, trustingly leaned her face against the former president and never let go of his hands during a prolonged news conference. Bill and Melinda Gates, the billionaire philanthropists, watched. Mr. Clinton had visited an AIDS project of theirs in Durban, South Africa, and they had come to Lesotho to see his work. When Mr. Clinton left the hospital with Arriet, a Clinton volunteer asked the Gateses to stay back so photographers could follow him. The world’s wealthiest couple seemed to take no offense. The two Bills, as they have been dubbed, have taken to doing high-profile AIDS advocacy events together, with Mr. Clinton bringing star power and Mr. Gates his deep pockets. “He plays a unique role in shining a light on the problem,” said Mr. Gates, after he made it into the courtyard. Mr. Clinton has come a long way on global AIDS. For most of his presidency, his trade office fought to protect the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies against attempts by developing countries to make or import cheaper generic medicines. “I think it was wrong,” he now says of that approach. During the first six years of his presidency, federal spending to fight AIDS worldwide stagnated at paltry levels, never topping $141 million. But by his last budget, spending more than tripled to $540 million, but Mr. Clinton says that was far from enough. Even so, he contends that no one could have done better. The Role of Congress The Democrats controlled Congress for only his first two years in office, he pointed out, when “everybody’s obsession” was the AIDS problem in America. After that, the Republican-dominated Congress that later supported Mr. Bush’s $15 billion, five-year global AIDS plan fiercely resisted spending on foreign assistance. “Have you forgotten what I had in the Congress?” he asked. “That the Republican Congress spent all their time trying to trash me? “And the only reason they gave money to George Bush for AIDS is they wanted to have something they looked progressive on since they were cutting taxes for rich people like me,” he said. Michael Gerson, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Bush on global health issues, noted that the Republican Congress was, in fact, open to persuasion that global AIDS was a spending priority. But he also said the issue had ripened by the time Mr. Bush was president. The price of antiretroviral drugs fell after Mr. Clinton left office, helping change the view that it was too costly and difficult to treat people in poor countries. But Mr. Gerson also said of the Clinton record: “I don’t believe they were visionary or pushed the system. I don’t think they were thinking big.” The debate over whether Mr. Clinton missed a political opportunity to lead the charge on global AIDS years before Mr. Bush seized it is far from over. Greg Behrman, the author of “The Invisible People: How the U.S. Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic, the Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time,” offers a split verdict. “There are two acts here,” he said. “Clinton’s post-presidential leadership has been extraordinary. As president, though, the record is clear. Clinton was not a leader on global AIDS and the consequences have been devastating.” After he left office, Mr. Clinton considered his future with a keen eye on history, analyzing what former presidents had done. He concluded that another former Southern governor, Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is now recognized for his work on human rights, democracy and neglected diseases, was “the only person who’d done anything that remotely resembled what I thought I could do.” From the start, Mr. Clinton had a host of issues on his agenda, but quickly found himself drawn into AIDS. He turned to his old friend Ira Magaziner, a fellow Rhodes scholar and corporate consultant who had managed the Clintons’ failed health care reform effort. Mr. Magaziner has since led the foundation’s AIDS program. The two men discovered in 2002 that the Bahamas was paying $3,500 per person a year for generic AIDS drugs. “I said, ‘Ira, please find out why in the hell these people are paying $3,500 for $500 drugs,’ ” Mr. Clinton said. They learned the Bahamas was buying through middlemen, so the foundation helped the country purchase directly from Cipla, the Indian generic-drug manufacturer. “So our first victory was a lay-down,” Mr. Clinton said. “All of a sudden, they could treat six times as many people for the same amount of money.” Opportunities proliferated, and Mr. Clinton’s enthusiasm grew. His name opened doors with generic drug makers. With growing demand for AIDS drugs already on the horizon, as well as the economies of scale that come with that, Mr. Magaziner took a team of volunteer consultants to India in 2003 to negotiate for lower prices. Companies opened their books. “The name Clinton in India holds more charisma and credibility than any other American name,” said Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, Cipla’s chairman. Through cost cutting, spurred by breakthrough talks with companies that supplied ingredients to the drug makers, the team got deals. Cipla, for example, halved the price of the most common AIDS triple-drug therapy, already declining due to competition, to $140 a person per year. Similarly, Mr. Clinton was able to use his relationships with political leaders, like President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who had questioned whether H.I.V. caused AIDS. The country had not begun treating its people for the disease, though almost five million had been infected. “He was getting killed in the global press about it,” Mr. Clinton recalled. Mr. Clinton, who knew him from his own time as president, met with Mr. Mbeki in 2003 as one politician to another. “I said, ‘You know, I really want to help you, and as you know, I may be the only one of those involved in this work who’s never been publicly critical of you,’ ” Mr. Clinton said he told Mr. Mbeki. “ ‘But this is something you have to do.’ ” Mr. Mbeki soon invited Mr. Clinton’s foundation to help the country write a comprehensive treatment plan. South Africa now has more than 130,000 people on antiretroviral drugs, still far short of what critics say is needed. Since 2004, Mr. Clinton has campaigned to raise the profile of children with AIDS. A scant 20,000 children in the developing world were then getting drug treatment, while more than 500,000 a year were dying. The Clinton foundation has raised $4.4 million to buy drugs for 13,000 children, train health workers, renovate pediatric wings and pay for lab tests. “Children are alive in numbers we couldn’t have imagined a couple of years ago because of what he’s done,” said Peter McDermott, chief of H.I.V. and AIDS programs at Unicef. Mr. Clinton’s ambitions seem to grow daily, and his foundation is now branching out in Africa from AIDS into poverty. As he relaxed one recent evening in a sumptuous, $2,260-a-night suite in Johannesburg, with zebra skin rugs underfoot (the lodgings provided to him gratis by a rich South African businessman who owned the hotel), he got excited just thinking about fertilizer. Mr. Magaziner has people riding trains and trucks that carry fertilizer to figure out why a commodity that should enable farmers to grow more food and avoid hunger costs so much in Africa. “You follow the trail!” Mr. Clinton said. Mr. Clinton was joined on his trip by Sir Tom Hunter, a Scottish entrepreneur who has promised to spend $100 million of his fortune in collaboration with the foundation, much of it on economic development. “Tom, where’s Tom?” Mr. Clinton called out excitedly as he chatted with representatives of a nonprofit group that promotes solar-powered lights during an event here in Rwinkwavu. What if Rwanda could manufacture such lights locally? Mr. Clinton mused. Why not electrify villages so children can study at night? “It might be possible to get a factory here that would serve all of central Africa!” - The End - © 2006 The New York Time. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Impact of AIDS in Africa: The Red Line Crossed. A Global Reactions by Hugues-Denver Akassy One conflict in Africa that has taken a long time to get appropriate media attention, with regards to its severity, is that of the conflict of ordinary African people against HIV and AIDS. Between 1999 and 2000 more people died of AIDS in Africa than in all the wars on the continent, as mentioned by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan1. The death toll is expected to have a severe impact on many economies in the region. In some nations, it is already being felt. Life expectencies in some nations is already decreasing rapidly, while mortality rates are increasing. [2000] began with 24 million Africans infected with the virus. In the absence of a medical miracle, nearly all will die before 2010. Each day, 6,000 Africans die from AIDS. Each day, an additional 11,000 are infected. — Lester R. Brown, HIV Epidemic Restructuring Africa’s Population2, World Watch Issue Alert, 31 October 2000 Into 2005, UNAIDS estimates3 suggests that the situation does not look much better. In Sub-Saharan Africa, there were * 25.8 million (out of 40 million worldwide) living with HIV Western Media Attention to AIDS in Africa And what is also disturbing is how the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa has only become real western mainstream media news headlines around the time HIV and AIDS was declared a national security threat to the United States. As if it is now an important issue, whereas before it wasn’t. Sure, it is more worrying to people of a particular nation if it is a real threat to them as well, but it is another example of the mainstream coverage and their priorities, especially when there is a lot to report in terms of western economic policies seen through the various international institutions that have increased poverty, an important factor in the spread of AIDS. Western politicians were concerned about the plight of Kosovars leading up to the Kosovo crisis, but there was not a similar concern for people on the continent of Africa, where far more have died from AIDS (already in the millions—approximately 11 million people around the beginning of 1999—by the time concern for Kosovo was raised. This is not to belittle the situation in Kosovo, but to help put it in perspective). Now that it is a direct concern for some western countries as well, there is increased reporting on the situation in Africa as well. Could the same interest in African affairs earlier helped raise awareness and the urgency for help earlier? How many lives could have been saved as a result? When Brown and Hall first proposed to study the phenomenon in 1987, they could not obtain CIA approval for use of personnel and computer modeling resources. Internal critics declared global AIDS an unfit subject of intelligence, or said the impact on U.S. interests would be benign. Speaking of one military colleague at the National Intelligence Council, Brown said, “His penetrating analysis was, ‘Oh, it will be good, because Africa is overpopulated anyway.’ Others were saying, ‘It may be big, but what are you going to do about it?’” Still others, Brown recalled, discounted the likelihood of damage to allied militaries. If officers began dying of the disease, they said, “That boosts morale, because there’s more room for advancement.” Another security official, recalling those debates, said critics reasoned that Africa’s limitless pool of unemployed men left armies with plenty of reinforcements. “If you have one 18-year-old with a Kalashnikov [rifle] and he dies, you find another 18-year-old,” he said. “The cold truth was that the impact on military stability was minimal.” — Barton Gellman, The Belated Global Response to AIDS in Africa4, Washington Post, July 5, 2000 Western Corporate Reaction to AIDS in Africa AIDS policy is now a key world commodity—right up there with shiploads of computers, crude oil and wheat. — Patricia Nell Warren, AIDS and the World Bank: Global Blackmail?5, A&U Magazine, June 27, 2000 Actually, if the American pharmaceutical industry and some of the politicians’ support of their reaction is something to go by, they are more worried for their profits6 that would be hurt by African nations, such as South Africa, who were trying to do something about it to help their own people. Currently, treatments, which Medicines Sans Frontiers describe as having “transformed HIV/AIDS from a death sentence to a chronic disease in developed countries”, are expensive and affordable by mainly the wealthier people in western countries. However, poor people—including those in industrialized nations—are the major victims of HIV and AIDS. By 1990, the sense of urgency about AIDS in wealthy nations had also started to dissipate. “In the '90s it became clear we were not going to have a major heterosexual epidemic in the States,” said Michael Merson, who would succeed Mann at the WHO program. AIDS “was no longer a threat to the West.” Foege, the former [US federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] CDC director, now teaches at Emory University. He has a maxim for his public health students: “Tie the needs of the poor with the fears of the rich. When the rich lose their fear, they are not willing to invest in the problems of the poor.” — Barton Gellman, The Belated Global Response to AIDS in Africa7, Washington Post, July 5, 2000 On July 19, 2000, the Export-Import Bank of the United States offered $1 billion per year for five years in loans8 to Sub-Saharan Africa to finance the purchase of U.S. HIV/AIDS medications and related equipment and services from U.S. pharmaceutical firms. However, three southern African countries, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe rejected the offer because the loans would further the dependency and debt of African countries 9, while American pharmaceutical corporations would benefit. Another criticism such motions have received is that this ends up benefitting those companies who, in effect, get a free subsidy. In this way, U.S. corporate interests are advanced. Oxfam has gone as far as accusing some corporations of contributing to human rights violations by trying to prevent access to the needed drugs: Oxfam believes that 39 of the world’s biggest drug companies are contributing to a gross breach of human rights in South Africa and has today called on the United Nations to investigate. — Drug giants set to cause violation of human rights10, Oxfam Press Release, April 11, 2001 Numerous pharmaceutical companies took South Africa to court11 at the beginning of March 2001, over language in the Medicines Act which would allow for generic production and parallel importing of affordable AIDS drugs. However, the public outrage around the world that resulted from these companies trying to do such a thing while people were dying led to them drop their case12 in April, 2001. However, that is only part of the battle that South Africa has won, and at some cost: People concerned by globalisation frequently invoke the spectre of the growing might of corporations, which are seen as claiming ever greater chunks of influence in global policy setting. Rarely has this picture been drawn as clearly as in a recent court case in South Africa, in which the government of the country with more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other was locked into a fierce struggle with an industry doing everything possible to preserve its profits. Happily, this David-and-Goliath story ended well when the 39 pharmaceutical companies suing the government decided to unconditionally drop their case against the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, No. 90 of 1997, albeit after having tied it up in court for more than three years. Thus the final victory must be tempered by its high costs: during these three years, more than 400,000 South Africans have died of HIV/AIDS. Additionally, it is important to recognize that the legal victory alone will not automatically translate into improved care for people with HIV/AIDS; further steps are necessary before the hopes raised by this case—particularly for access to life-saving anti-retroviral medications—can be realized. — Toby Kasper, Developing Countries Must Stand Firm on People Over Patents13, South Centre Bulletin 11, 30 April 2001 (Emphasis Added) Furthermore, while pharmaceutical companies research on cures, and the way that they are doing it is raising appropriate criticisms and concerns, this attention also diverts the much needed emphasis on prevention as summarized by the following: What might be overlooked, however, as life-sustaining drugs become available, is the fact that prevention is still by far the more compassionate and more cost-effective answer. Prevention does not replace treatment, but it does reduce the number of people whose lives will depend on expensive drugs with significant side effects. ... Attending to broader health concerns is not as expensive, or as hopeless, as it might seem. There are also serious weaknesses in a prevention plan that relies exclusively on provision of condoms, even with health education. It does not address women’s lack of power in sexual relationships, nor the irrelevance of condoms to most people after a few beers. Strengthening immune systems will help to protect people from some of the consequences of unsafe sex and from other infectious diseases as well. What it will take to prevent HIV transmission and to treat people with HIV/AIDS is no less, but no more, than what has been needed all along in sub-Saharan Africa and other poor regions. It would have been cheaper to provide the infrastructure, the nutrition, the education and the medicines before HIV/AIDS, but it is still a bargain calculated in both compassionate and cost-effective terms. — Eileen Stillwaggon, AIDS and the Poverty in Africa14, The Nation Magazine, May 21 2001 Impact of Poverty on AIDS in Africa The following quote reveals a lot: Although there are numerous factors in the spread of HIV/AIDS, it is largely recognised as a disease of poverty, hitting hardest where people are marginalised and suffering economic hardship. IMF designed Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), adopted by debtor countries as a condition of debt relief, are hurting, not working. By pushing poor people even deeper into poverty, SAPs may be increasing their vulnerability to HIV infection, and reinforcing conditions where the scourge of HIV/AIDS can flourish. — Deadly Conditions? Examining the relationship between debt relief policies and HIV/AIDS15, Medact and the World Development Movement, September 1999 Africa Action, an organization looking into political, economic and social justice for Africa has an article on the impacts of IMF and World Bank structural adjustments and its impacts on health in Africa, and is worth quoting at length: Health status is influenced by socioeconomic factors as well as by the state of health care delivery systems. The policies prescribed by the World Bank and IMF have increased poverty in African countries and mandated cutbacks in the health sector. Combined, this has caused a massive deterioration in the continent’s health status. The health care systems inherited by most African states after the colonial era were unevenly weighted toward privileged elites and urban centers. In the 1960s and 1970s, substantial progress was made in improving the reach of health care services in many African countries. Most African governments increased spending on the health sector during this period. They endeavored to extend primary health care and to emphasize the development of a public health system to redress the inequalities of the colonial era. The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized the importance of primary healthcare at the historic Alma Ata Conference in 1978. The Declaration of Alma Ata focused on a community-based approach to health care and resolved that comprehensive health care was a basic right and a responsibility of government. These efforts undertaken by African governments after independence were quite successful.... While the progress across the African continent was uneven, it was significant, not only because of its positive effects on the health of African populations. It also illustrated a commitment by African leaders to the principle of building and developing their health care systems. With the economic crisis of the 1980s, much of Africa’s economic and social progress over the previous two decades began to come undone. As African governments became clients of the World Bank and IMF, they forfeited control over their domestic spending priorities. The loan conditions of these institutions forced contraction in government spending on health and other social services.... The relationship between poverty and ill-health is well established. The economic austerity policies attached to World Bank and IMF loans led to intensified poverty in many African countries in the 1980s and 1990s. This increased the vulnerability of African populations to the spread of diseases and to other health problems.... The deepening poverty across the continent has created fertile ground for the spread of infectious diseases. Declining living conditions and reduced access to basic services have led to decreased health status. In Africa today, almost half of the population lacks access to safe water and adequate sanitation services. As immune systems have become weakened, the susceptibility of Africa’s people to infectious diseases has greatly increased.... Even as government spending on health was cut back, the amounts being paid by African governments to foreign creditors continued to increase. By the 1990s, most African countries were spending more repaying foreign debts than on health or education for their people. Health care services in African countries disintegrated, while desperately needed resources were siphoned off by foreign creditors. It was estimated in 1997 that sub-Saharan African governments were transferring to Northern creditors four times what they were spending on the health of their people. In 1998, Senegal spent five times as much repaying foreign debts as on health. Across Africa, debt repayments compete directly with spending on Africa’s health care services. The erosion of Africa’s health care infrastructure has left many countries unable to cope with the impact of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Efforts to address the health crisis have been undermined by the lack of available resources and the breakdown in health care delivery systems. The privatization of basic health care has further impeded the response to the health crisis.... The World Bank has recommended several forms of privatization in the health sector.... Throughout Africa, the privatization of health care has reduced access to necessary services. The introduction of market principles into health care delivery has transformed health care from a public service to a private commodity. The outcome has been the denial of access to the poor, who cannot afford to pay for private care.... For example ... user fees have actually succeeded in driving the poor away from health care [while] the promotion of insurance schemes as a means to defray the costs of private health care ... is inherently flawed in the African context. Less than 10% of Africa’s labor force is employed in the formal job sector. Beyond the issue of affordability, private health care is also inappropriate in responding to Africa’s particular health needs. When infectious diseases constitute the greatest challenge to health in Africa, public health services are essential. Private health care cannot make the necessary interventions at the community level. Private care is less effective at prevention, and is less able to cope with epidemic situations. Successfully responding to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases in Africa requires strong public health care services. The privatization of health care in Africa has created a two-tier system which reinforces economic and social inequalities. As health care has become an expensive privilege, the poor have been unable to pay for essential services. The result has been reduced access and increased rates of illness and mortality. Despite these devastating consequences, the World Bank and IMF have continued to push for the privatization of public health services. — Ann-Louise Colgan, Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa16, Africa Action, April 18, 2002 The article also comments on recent increases in funds to tackle HIV/AIDS and other problems and concludes that because some underlying causes and issues are not addressed, these steps may not have much effective impact: The World Bank has also increased its funding for health, and for HIV/AIDS programs in particular. While the shift in focus towards prioritizing social development and poverty eradication is welcome, fundamental problems remain. New lending for health and education can achieve little when the debt burden of most African countries is already unsustainable. Debt cancellation should be the first step in enabling African countries to tackle their social development challenges. Additional resources to support health and education programs should be conceived as public investment, not new loans. The new spin on the World Bank and IMF priorities fails to change the basic agenda and operations of these institutions. Indeed, it appears to be largely an exercise in public relations. The conditions attached to World Bank and IMF loans still reflect the same orientation prescribed over the past two decades. The recent moves towards promoting poverty reduction have actually permitted these institutions to increase the scope of their loan conditions to include social sector reforms and governance aspects. This allows an even greater intrusion into the domestic policies of African countries. It is highly inappropriate that external creditors should have such control over the priorities of African governments. And it is disingenuous for such creditors to proclaim concern with poverty reduction when they continue to drain desperately needed resources from the poorest countries.... The free market fundamentalism of the World Bank and IMF has had a disastrous impact on Africa’s health. The all-out pursuit of market-led growth has undermined health and health care in African countries. It has forced governments to sacrifice social needs to meet macroeconomic goals. This approach to development is fundamentally flawed. The failure to prioritize public health denies its significance in promoting long-term economic growth. As the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health recently concluded, health is more than an outcome of development, it is a crucial means to achieving development. — Ann-Louise Colgan, Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa17, Africa Action, April 18, 2002 There is also the phenomenon of “brain drain18” whereby the poor countries educate some of their population to key jobs such as medical areas and other professions only to find that some rich countries try to attract them away. The prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) sums this up in the title of an article: “Developed world is robbing African countries of health staff” (Rebecca Coombes, BMJ, Volume 230, p.923, April 23, 2005.) Some countries are left with just 500 doctors each with large areas without any health workers of any kind. One third of practicing doctors in UK are from overseas19 as the BBC notes. While there are many faults attributable to western actions and inactions, there has also been difficulty to get the issue off the ground in some parts of Africa. Either constraints such as social norms and taboos, or lack of decisive or effective institutions20 have all contributed to the situation getting worse. (The previous example shows the situation in South Africa as an example—it only looks at the South African governments actions, and not the other issues such as the causes of poverty and corporate interests, but nevertheless provides some decent insights.) To be fair, the reduced health and emergency budgets in all African nations play an important part. The reduced bugdets are due to a combination of poverty and debt, where some African nations are paying more in debt reservicing to western institutions, than on health, education and other services (these are the austerity measures as prescribed by the IMF and World Bank, to structurally “adjust21” their economies). Some nations in Africa have shown a more proactive response to the crisis. Though it is one of the world’s poorest countries, Senegal has been a success story when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS22. Reasons are many, including that * Problems were recognized early; UNAIDS, reporting years earlier on Senegal’s success did, however, admit that there was much in the social structure of Senegal as well as in the structure of its health services even before the advent of AIDS that favored a response once the threat of an HIV epidemic became clear. But it was the determined use of those existing advantages to generate a national response early on that can be credited with the fact that, at the end of the 1990s, Senegal has one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. — Acting early to prevent AIDS: The case of Senegal24, UNAIDS, June 1999, p.23 Uganda has also been another success story in fighting AIDS. UNAIDS warns that even when there are successes, complacency must not seep in, as there are signs that in Uganda young people today may be less knowledgeable about AIDS than their counterparts in the 1990s25. A variety of additional approaches observed include * Governments working with NGOs and their own people to deal with gender issues; Botswana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal, and Zambia, have also tried to provide free HIV treatment as user fees have prevented people from receiving health services26. Some of these free treatments are funded by a combination of government resources and donor contributions, showing partnerships at work. There is still a long way to go, as prevention programs reach fewer than 1 in 5 in Africa, for example, as the UNAIDS World Report 2004 mentioned above notes (p.70). Despite the incredibly difficult challenge still facing most countries, there are important reasons to be optimistic. The Center for Global Development think tank notes a number of conclusions in Saving Millions27: 1. Major health interventions have worked even in the poorest of countries; This has required a number of elements: * Predictable, adequate funding from both international and local sources; UNAIDS’s strategy is a three-pronged approach: 1. Decreasing the risk of infection to slow down the spread; Furthermore, This is a problem with a solution. As our report indicates, we know what works—successful approaches are evolving locally, nationally and globally. They are being helped by the growing momentum of international political leadership, by business workplace programs, and by the dynamic mobilization of affected communities themselves—a key element that remains at the heart of our global response. — UNAIDS 2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic28, p.8 - The End - © 2006 Orbite Television, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Bono, Bobby Shriver hope Americans see red. Latest effort to help AIDS victims in Africa leverages our buying power. By Brian Williams, Anchor & “Nightly News” managing editor of NBC News
They have combined to try to make red the new hot color, launching a huge marketing campaign across the country. "Red is the color of emergency," says Bono. "I suppose that's why we chose it. But, Red — Product Red — is a way of making it easy for people in the shopping malls and main streets all over this great country to get AIDS drugs to Africans who can't afford them, you see?" Why isn't this charity?
"Sustainability is the key word here," says Bono. "The reason why we're not calling it charity and we're describing it as a new business model is that Red companies will make some profit. Not as much as they would usually. But, we want them to prosper because it's a long term fight with this illness. We don't want to just put out some T-shirts and jeans and Motorola phones and Apple iPods for a year, get people on the drugs and then not continue with their treatment. Great brands always have an emotional component. We think we bring that with our brand to theirs." "This is in the newspapers all over the country today," says Bobby Shriver. "So these people are courageous to have done this because it's their main-line brand. People don't mess with, as we all know, their main-line brand. But they're messing with their brands here because they believe that their customers will see the consciousness of that and respond to it." "This is using the force of consumerism," says Bono, "this tidal wave that's pouring on over our head, and it's just using it to defend the world's most vulnerable. That's it. That simple." Bono has helped to change the business of giving. He'll go back to U2 and record new music shortly, but for now it's one memory from his first trip to Africa that keeps him going. "It's a man, [who] offers me his young son and he says, 'Please, you must take this boy and you must take him with you to wherever you live. Because if he stays here, he will surely die. But, if he goes with you, he will live.'" "And you have to walk away from that moment," Bono continues, "and know he's probably right. But you know even at a deeper level that he shouldn't be right." By the way, we all learned a lesson today, when Bono came to the newsroom to greet the Nightly News staff. Never let him borrow your camera. "Even better than the real thing," said Bono as he spun around the room, shooting video of us all. © 2006 MSNBC Interactive All rights reserved.
Warren E. Buffett We were sitting in a Manhattan living room on a spring afternoon, and Warren Buffett had a Cherry Coke in his hand as usual. But this unremarkable scene was about to take a surprising turn. "Brace yourself," Buffett warned with a grin. He then described a momentous change in his thinking. Within months, he said, he would begin to give away his Berkshire Hathaway fortune, then and now worth well over $40 billion. This news was indeed stunning. Buffett, 75, has for decades said his wealth would go to philanthropy but has just as steadily indicated the handoff would be made at his death. Now he was revising the timetable. "I know what I want to do," he said, "and it makes sense to get going." On that spring day his plan was uncertain in some of its details; today it is essentially complete. And it is typical Buffett: rational, original, breaking the mold of how extremely rich people donate money. Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world's largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett's (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates). The Gateses credit Buffett, says Bill, with having "inspired" their thinking about giving money back to society. Their foundation's activities, internationally famous, are focused on world health -- fighting such diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis -- and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools. Up to now, the two Gateses have been the only trustees of their foundation. But as his plan gets underway, Buffett will be joining them. Bill Gates says he and his wife are "thrilled" by that and by knowing that Buffett's money will allow the foundation to "both deepen and accelerate" its work. "The generosity and trust Warren has shown," Gates adds, "is incredible." Beginning in July and continuing every year, Buffett will give a set, annually declining number of Berkshire B shares - starting with 602,500 in 2006 and then decreasing by 5% per year - to the five foundations. The gifts to the Gates foundation will be made either by Buffett or through his estate as long as at least one of the pair -- Bill, now 50, or Melinda, 41 -- is active in it. Berkshire's price on the date of each gift will determine its dollar value. Were B shares, for example, to be $3,071 in July - that was their close on June 23 - Buffett's 2006 gift to the foundation, 500,000 shares, would be worth about $1.5 billion. With so much new money to handle, the foundation will be given two years to resize its operations. But it will then be required by the terms of Buffett's gift to annually spend the dollar amount of his contributions as well as those it is already making from its existing assets. At the moment, $1.5 billion would roughly double the foundation's yearly benefactions. But the $1.5 billion has little relevance to the value of Buffett's future gifts, since their amount will depend on the price of Berkshire's stock when they are made. If the stock rises yearly, on average, by even a modest amount - say, 6% - the gain will more than offset the annual 5% decline in the number of shares given. Under those circumstances, the value of Buffett's contributions will rise. Buffett himself thinks that will happen. Or to state that proposition more directly: He believes the price of Berkshire, and with it the dollar size of the contributions, will trend upward - perhaps over time increasing substantially. The other foundation gifts that Buffett is making will also occur annually and start in July. At Berkshire's current price, the combined 2006 total of these gifts will be $315 million. The contributions will go to foundations headed by Buffett's three children, Susan, Howard, and Peter, and to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. This last foundation was for 40 years known simply as the Buffett Foundation and was recently renamed in honor of Buffett's late wife, Susie, who died in 2004, at 72, after a stroke. Her will bestows about $2.5 billion on the foundation, to which her husband's gifts will be added. The foundation has mainly focused on reproductive health, family planning, and pro-choice causes, and on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Counting the gifts to all five foundations, Buffett will gradually but sharply reduce his holdings of Berkshire (Charts) stock. He now owns close to 31% of the company-worth nearly $44 billion in late June - and that proportion will ultimately be cut to around 5%. Sticking to his long-term intentions, Buffett says the residual 5%, worth about $6.8 billion today, will in time go for philanthropy also, perhaps in his lifetime and, if not, at his death. Because the value of Buffett's gifts are tied to a future, unknowable price of Berkshire, there is no way to put a total dollar value on them. But the number of shares earmarked to be given have a huge value today: $37 billion. That alone would be the largest philanthropic gift in history. And if Buffett is right in thinking that Berkshire's price will trend upward, the eventual amount given could far exceed that figure. So that's the plan. What follows is a conversation in which Buffett explains how he moved away from his original thinking and decided to begin giving now. The questioner is yours truly, FORTUNE editor-at-large Carol Loomis. I am a longtime friend of Buffett's, a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, and a director of the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. A conversation with Warren Buffett by Fortune Magazine Orbite: Coming from you, this plan is pretty startling. Up to now you haven't been famous for giving away money. In fact, you've been roundly criticized now and then for not giving it away. So let's cut to the obvious question: Are you ill? Warren Buffet: No, absolutely not. I feel terrific, and when I had my last physical, in October, my doctor gave me a clean bill of health. Then what's going on here? Does your change in plans have something to do with Susie's death? Yes, it does. Susie was two years younger than I, and women usually live longer than men. She and I always assumed that she would inherit my Berkshire stock and be the one who oversaw the distribution of our wealth to society, where both of us had always said it would go. And Susie would have enjoyed overseeing the process. She was a little afraid of it, in terms of scaling up. But she would have liked doing it, and would have been very good at it. And she would really have stepped on the gas. By that you mean that she always wanted to give away more money, faster, than you did? Yes, she said that many times. As for me, I always had the idea that philanthropy was important today, but would be equally important in one year, ten years, 20 years, and the future generally. And someone who was compounding money at a high rate, I thought, was the better party to be taking care of the philanthropy that was to be done 20 years out, while the people compounding at a lower rate should logically take care of the current philanthropy. But that theory also happened to fit what you wanted to do, right? (He laughs, hard.) And how! No question about that. I was having fun - and still am having fun - doing what I do. And for a while I also thought in terms of control of Berkshire. I had bought effective control of Berkshire in the early 1970s, using $15 million I got when I disbanded Buffett Partnership. And I had very little money - considerably less than $1 million - outside of Berkshire. My salary was $50,000 a year. So if I had engaged in significant philanthropy back then, I would have had to give away shares of Berkshire. I hadn't bought those to immediately give them away. Even so, you and Susie set up the Buffett Foundation way back in the 1960s, which means you obviously expected to be giving away money sometime. What was your thinking back then? Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time. I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that. In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society. In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century. Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money. In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level. From the fact that you've given your kids money before to set up foundations and are planning to give them more now, I gather you don't think that kind of flooding them with money is wrong. No, I don't. What they're doing with their foundations is giving money back to society - just where Susie and I thought it should go. And they aren't just writing checks: They've put enormous thought and effort into the process. I'm very proud of them for the way they've handled it all, and I have no doubt they're going to keep on the right track. So what about the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and what all this means for it? As you know, because as a director you've seen it close up, Allen Greenberg, the foundation's president, has done an excellent and thoughtful job of running it. His results-to-cost ratio is as good as I've ever seen. And he'll keep on that same path now, not just with Susie's money, but with mine too. Actually, if I had died before Susie and she had begun to distribute our wealth, this is the foundation that would have scaled up to a much bigger size - right now it has only five employees - and become her main vehicle for giving. And the foundation anchored my plans too. Until I changed my thoughts about when to give, this was to be where my fortune would go also. And what changed your mind? The short answer is that I came to realize that there was a terrific foundation that was already scaled-up - that wouldn't have to go through the real grind of getting to a megasize like the Buffett Foundation would - and that could productively use my money now. The longer answer is that over the years I had gotten to know Bill and Melinda Gates well, spent a lot of time with them having fun and, way beyond that, had grown to admire what they were doing with their foundation. I've seen them give presentations about its programs, and I'm always amazed at the enthusiasm and passion and energy they're pouring into their work. They've gone at it, you might say, with both head and heart. Bill reads many thousands of pages annually keeping up with medical advances and means of delivering help. Melinda, often with Bill along, travels the world looking at how well good intentions are being converted into good results. Life has dealt a terrible hand to literally billions of people around the world, and Bill and Melinda are bent on reducing that inequity to the extent they possibly can. If you think about it - if your goal is to return the money to society by attacking truly major problems that don't have a commensurate funding base - what could you find that's better than turning to a couple of people who are young, who are ungodly bright, whose ideas have been proven, who already have shown an ability to scale it up and do it right? You don't get an opportunity like that ordinarily. I'm getting two people enormously successful at something, where I've had a chance to see what they've done, where I know they will keep doing it - where they've done it with their own money, so they're not living in some fantasy world - and where in general I agree with their reasoning. If I've found the right vehicle for my goal, there's no reason to wait. Compare what I'm doing with them to my situation at Berkshire, where I have talented and proven people in charge of our businesses. They do a much better job than I could in running their operations. What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it? Who wouldn't select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That's how I feel about this decision about my money. People will be very curious, I think, as to how much your decision - and its announcement at this particular time - is connected to Bill Gates' announcement in mid-June that he would phase out of his operating responsibilities at Microsoft and begin to devote most of his time to the foundation. What's the story here? I realize that the close timing of the two announcements will suggest they're related. But they aren't in the least. The timing is just happenstance. I would be disclosing my plans right now whether or not he had announced his move - and even, in fact, if he were indefinitely keeping on with all of his work at Microsoft. On the other hand, I'm pleased that he's going to be devoting more time to the foundation. And I think he and Melinda are pleased to know they're going to be working with more resources. Does it occur to you that it's somewhat ironic for the second-richest man in the world to be giving untold billions to the first-richest man? When you put it that way, it sounds pretty funny. But in truth, I'm giving it through him - and, importantly, Melinda as well - not to him. Some people say the Gates foundation is bureaucratic, and bureaucracy is just about your No. 1 dislike. So how do you react to that charge? I would say that most large organizations - though Berkshire is a shining exception - are bureaucratic to some degree. Anyway, what some people really mean when they claim that the Gates foundation is bureaucratic is that big decisions don't get made by anybody except Bill and Melinda. That suits me fine. I want the two of them to make the big calls. What is the significance of your going on the board of the Gates foundation? Not much. The biggest reason for my doing that is if they were ever to go down on an airplane together. Beyond that, I hope to have a constructive thought now and then. But I don't think I'm as well cut out to be a philanthropist as Bill and Melinda are. The feedback on philanthropy is very slow, and that would bother me. I'd have to be too involved with a lot of people I wouldn't want to be involved with and have to listen to more opinions than I would enjoy. In philanthropy also, you have to make some big mistakes. I know that. But it would bother me more to make the mistakes myself, rather than having someone else make them whom I trust overall to do a good job. In general, Bill and Melinda will have a better batting average than I would. Did you talk this huge decision over with other people before deciding to go ahead with the plan? Yes, I talked to my children and Allen Greenberg, and to four Berkshire directors, including my son Howard and Charlie Munger. I got lots of questions, and some people had qualms about the plan initially because it was such an abrupt change from what they had been anticipating. But I'd say everybody, and that certainly includes Allen - who knows what a bear it would have been to scale up the Buffett Foundation - came around to seeing the logic of what I was proposing to do. Now all concerned can't wait to get started - particularly me. And frankly, I have some small hopes that what I'm doing might encourage other very rich people thinking about philanthropy to decide they didn't necessarily have to set up their own foundations but could look around for the best of those that were up and running and available to handle their money. People do that all the time with their investments. They put their money with people they think are going to do a better job than they could. There's some real merit to extending that thought to your wealth, rather than setting up something to be run after your death by a bunch of old business cronies or a staff that eventually comes to dictate the agenda. Some version of this plan I've got is not a crazy thing for some of the next 20 people who are going to die with $1 billion or more to adopt themselves. One problem most rich people have is that they're old, with contemporaries who are not at their peak years and who don't have much time ahead of them. I'm lucky in that respect in that I can turn to younger people. Okay, now what does that mean for Berkshire? I'd say virtually nothing. Anybody who knows me also knows how I feel about making Berkshire as good as it can be, and that goal is still going to be there. I won't do anything differently, because I'm not capable of doing things differently. The name on the stock certificates will change, but nothing else will. I've always made it clear to Berkshire's shareholders that my wealth from the company would go to philanthropy, so the fact that I'm starting the process is basically a nonevent for them. And, you know, though this may surprise some people, it's a nonevent for me too in some ways. Ted Turner, whose philanthropic activities I admire enormously, once told me that his hands shook when he signed a $1 billion pledge. Well, I have zero of that. To me, there's just no emotional downside to this at all. Won't the foundations that are getting your stock need to sell it? Yes, in some cases. The Buffett Foundation and the kids' foundations will have to sell their stock relatively soon after they get it, because it will be their only asset - and they'll need to raise cash to give away. The Gates foundation will have more options because it has lots of other assets, so it will have some flexibility to choose which it should turn into cash. Bill and Melinda will make the decisions about that. I'm going to totally insulate myself from any investment decisions their foundation makes, which leaves them free to do whatever they think makes sense. Perhaps they will decide to sell bigger portions of other assets and hang on to some Berkshire. It's a great mix of businesses and wouldn't be an inappropriate asset for a foundation to own. But I won't tie the foundation up in any shape or form. So it could be that all the shares you give annually will be sold in the market? Yes, that may well happen. And naturally people are going to be interested in whether that selling could weigh down Berkshire's price. I don't think so in the least - and that's true even though the annual turnover ratio for Berkshire has been running only about 15% a year, which is extremely low for large-cap stocks. Let's say the five foundations sell all the stock they get this year. If trading volume continues as it has, their selling will raise turnover to less than 17%. It would be ridiculous to think that much new selling could affect the price of the stock. In fact, the added supply could even be beneficial in increasing the stock's liquidity and should make it more likely that Berkshire would eventually be included in the S&P 500. I'd say this: I would not be making the gifts if they would in any way harm Berkshire's shareholders. And they won't. This plan seems to settle the fate, over the long term, of all your Berkshire shares. Does that mean you're giving nothing to your family in straight-out gifts? No, what I've always said is that my family won't receive huge amounts of my net worth. That doesn't mean they'll get nothing. My children have already received some money from me and Susie and will receive more. I still believe in the philosophy - FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago - that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. [The FORTUNE article was "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" Sept. 29, 1986.] Remember I said that way back when I was buying Berkshire, I had less than $1 million in outside cash? Well, I've made a few decent investments with that money in the years since - taking positions that were too small for Berkshire, doing some fixed-income arbitrage, and selling my interest in a bank that was split off from Berkshire. So I'm glad to say I've got quite a bit of cash now. Overall I can - and will - use all my Berkshire shares for philanthropic purposes and will have plenty left over to provide well for all those close to me. - The End -©2006 Orbite Television, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Bill Gates and wife Melinda Gateses Give $47 Million to Bolster Coordinated Assaults on Diseases By Hugues-Denver Akassy The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $47 million in grants for the control of neglected tropical diseases, now almost forgotten in wealthy nations, that still cause excruciating pain, disfigurement and disability for millions of the world’s poorest people, the recipients announced. The grants are unusual in that they do not single out individual diseases. Instead, they aim to test the idea that diseases such as trachoma, river blindness, lymphatic filariasis and hookworm, which largely afflict the rural poor, can be tackled together more effectively and cheaply than one at a time. Pharmaceutical companies donate a number of the drugs needed for such an assault on disease, helping to reduce the price tag. Attempts to break the habit of building international efforts around individual diseases are gaining popularity in Africa. For example, campaigns to immunize children for measles are now also distributing mosquito nets to prevent malaria. The Gates Foundation is hoping to encourage similar efficiencies for tropical diseases that infect more than two billion people globally, but that have had trouble competing for money with the big infectious-disease killers like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Dr. Rabinovich said she hoped the groups could develop new strategies for taking on these hidden, overlooked scourges. “These are diseases of Biblical proportions,” she said, “and should remain in the Bible.” - The End - © 2006 Orbite Television, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BONO & BRIAN WILLIAMS OF NBC's NIGHTLY NEWS IN AFRICA - Bono: "We have written off’ Africa".
Rock star-humanitarian says unless world acts, history will judge harshly. By Brian Williams,
Anchor & “Nightly News” managing editor
The man from Ireland, who is greeted as if he were a visiting head of government, met with John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor, the president of Ghana. Bono considers the high-level meetings a necessity. But he prefers to approach the problem at the ground level. “Who here is going to school?” Bono asked Nigerian kids during the trip. As their hands rise, the rock star has made a connection with them. It's important to remember, in this land of old and new, where we saw a village elder — a member of the local school PTA — who brought his electronic PDA to a meeting in Nigeria, most Africans don't know who Bono is. They just know that he's out to help them by raising billions, along with awareness. “Look at these kids,” Bono insists to NBC’s camera crews. “Come on over here! Look how royal they are — the most beautiful kids on earth!” Bono says, over and over, “This is what it's all about, in microcosm, right here.” The people who are already part of the struggle — part of the daily effort in Africa — have instantly allied themselves with Bono. "It's not charity, it's just an investment in the future of the developing world,” says Richard Feachem, the executive director of Global Fund, an organization dedicated to fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. “It's a kind of tough love." “It will give us hope,” says village nurse Hannah Ndabi, “as well as people in the community, that somebody is coming to see our needs and maybe support us in the near future.” “The story we need to communicate is what Africa is doing for itself. And because Africa is sick of aid, they don't want aid,” Bono says. “They need aid in this moment of their development, but actually what they really want to do is trade.” Because a life in rock music has been very good to this man who grew up in lower middle-class Ireland, he says now it is his turn to go after TB, malaria, HIV and poverty — while there is time. “We have written off the continent of Africa, and history will not be kind to us for that,” he says. “God will not let us do that. These people — their lives — before God, are as valuable as yours and my children.” "very cool things are happening in Africa, actually. It's a whole new mood on this continent that really fight backs. So for those people in the heart of America and the coasts of America who got us up and running, this is a message from the heart of Africa: since debt cancellation started, we have an astonshing statistic. There are 15 million more kids going to school since the "drop of the debt" campaign. Since we got busy on HIV-AIDS, since President Bush's historic AIDS initiative, 800,000 Africans are on these drugs..." said Bono. - The End - © 2006 MSNBC. All rights reserved.
Why 10 Years later, Princess Diana Still In Our Minds
Diana, Princess of Wales 1961 - 1997
A TRIBUTE BY Hugues-Denver Akassy Paris, France (Orbite) — 10 years ago, I was walking back into the newsroom when a colleague rushed past me and, over his shoulder, turned and said: “She’s dead.” And I said: “Don’t joke. She can't be.” It took a while for me to grasp what had happened. It was too big, too unthinkable. At that moment, and in the hours and days that followed, my own reaction was multiplied many millions of times, as the news sank in around the world. Princess Diana was young, beautiful and brimming with life. She was a princess. She was the devoted mother of a future king, and was once destined herself to be queen of England. Surely my friend was mistaken? The next days were long and largely sleepless, as the tragedy of that crazed, deadly dash into my hometown’s tunnel in Paris unfolded piece by piece, and the world’s media reported around the clock each and every development in the unfolding drama. Ten years on, it seems not much has changed. We are still reporting it. Still talking about it. Still fascinated In those strange days and months that followed, there began an outpouring of public grief that my country has seldom, if ever, seen. Though we have lived through many disasters, both natural and manmade, it was unparalleled. It was as if we'd been cheated of something. There are, of course, those who say: “Move on. Too much fuss. We Don’t care.” There are many who are embarrassed by the outburst of sentimentality that followed and persists to this day. Others, a far fewer number, say: “We never cared.” But many — here in Paris, in England and around the world — are still fascinated, still moved, some perhaps even still grieving, for the woman Prime Minister Tony Blair memorably described on the morning of her death as “the people’s princess.” I remember his words at the time, and the effect they had. It was as if he was validating England’s immediate — and continuing — emotional involvement. In three words, he put a title on the legend that Diana had become. Royals — aloof, distant figures There is in England, without doubt, a widespread respect for the institution and what it represents. But to my hard-working parents and to me, they were distant and detached, living behind the high walls of their palaces and country estates, while the rest of Britons muddled through as best they could. Other than having to stand up whenever the national anthem was played in public when I'm in London, the royals didn’t much impact my life. They were figures in the landscape. The newspapers largely used to keep their distance, too. The royal family was protected, respected, their lives lived mostly on a pedestal. No paparazzi then. Not much reporting of their private lives. It simply wasn’t done. That’s not to say the public wasn’t fascinated by them, or that they were perfect. Queen Mother Elizabeth was known to have a taste for gin and a love for the horses. The queen’s sister — the late Princess Margaret — was famously flirtatious. (And she, too, liked a drink.) At 43, married and a mother, she fell in love with a garden designer 18 years her junior. Their affair scandalized her family and much of the country. Five years later she became the first member of the immediate royal family to divorce since King Henry VIII. For the most part, however, the royals remained aloof, cocooned from their subjects. Suddenly, something different But they fell in love (“Whatever 'in love' means,” as Prince Charles revealingly told a TV interviewer on his engagement to Diana) and England fell in love with them. Their wedding in 1981 was a giant street party across the United Kingdom. Never were the words “fairy-tale romance" so overused — or undeserved. Charles was already committed to Camilla, and never wavered. As Diana famously later said: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” What made this truly different was the media’s — and thence the public’s —obsession with the royal couple. Was there ever a woman more photographed than Diana, or ever so much interest in a marriage? And was there ever a breakup played out so much in public? It was unprecedented and bloody. In 1994, after years of unhappiness, Charles went on TV and confessed his adultery. A year later the princess gave her own interview and admitted to hers. It was astonishing, tit-for-tat, toe-curling stuff. A doe-eyed princess talked of her husband, his affair, her own misjudged extramarital relations, her depression, her bulimia, her in-laws. We’d never heard a royal talk this way: “Friends of my husband's were indicating that I was unstable, sick and should be put in a home of some sort to get better so I wouldn't be an embarrassment." And, tellingly, this: “The most daunting aspect was the media attention, because my husband and I, we were told when we got engaged that the media would go quietly, and it didn't; and then when we were married they said it would go quietly and it didn't; and then it started to focus very much on me, and I seemed to be on the front of a newspaper every single day … and the higher the media put you, place you, is the bigger the drop.” She didn’t know how right she was. As she dined at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on Aug. 30, 1997, she was surrounded yet again by the press. The role photographers played in her ensuing death in the early hours of the next morning is still disputed. But what seems certain is that she was trying to get away from them when her car drove at high speed into the narrow Alma tunnel by the Seine. As the world now knows, her driver, Henri Paul, lost control, smashed into a concrete pillar and bounced into the wall at close to 80 mph. Ten years on, the fascination seems barely to have diminished. Legacy continues
Princess Diana visits the Nemazura feeding center for refugees in Zimbabwe, Africa in July 1993. Some weeks ago I watched on TV the Concert for Diana at London’s Wembley Stadium and watched as two young men spoke nervously to a crowd of thousands and a TV audience of millions. Prince William and Prince Harry have grown up since we saw those two young boys walking with great dignity behind the gun carriage carrying their mother’s casket. On the stage at Wembley they spoke proudly and warmly of their mother — and the crowd embraced them for it. The cheers that greeted their every appearance seemed to me to speak as much about Diana as of them. They truly are her boys. The concert was punctuated with video of the princess of Wales doing what she wanted to be best known for — meeting people during her work for charities. What struck you was her genuine compassion. In one scene she allows a blind man to move his fingers over her face. In another she hugs an AIDS patient — in one simple action cutting through the ignorance and prejudice that surrounds this condition. Here, for the first time, was a royal who truly was in touch with ordinary people. The contrast was never more stark when, in the first days after Diana’s death, the queen seemed not to understand what was happening among her subjects. When she did emerge from behind the palace gates, and saw for herself what was going on right outside her windows, she responded by addressing the nation on TV. Not just as their queen — but as a “grandmother.” The use of that simple word, identifying herself as an ordinary person as much as a monarch, marked in my view a turning point in the public’s perception. You could almost feel their anger beginning to recede. Legacy lives on in her sons
They have a strong and affectionate bond with their father, who rose to the challenge of raising them after Diana’s death. Their generous acceptance of their stepmother, Camilla, has made it easier for the public to accept her too. Like their mother, they continue to attract the unrelenting attention of the media, sometimes for what the tabloids love to portray as their occasional wild behavior, but what most parents will tell you is pretty normal in men of their age. And “normal” is not a word long associated with royalty. As for Diana’s epitaph, she effectively spoke her own in that remarkable TV interview three years before her death when she said: “I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts, but I don't see myself being queen of this country…” She was right. Never queen of England. But, although to some she had become more flawed celebrity than royalty, she is still most people's queen of hearts. Peace be with you, Diana. ORBITE SPECIAL REPORT HIGHLIGHTS • Diana, Princess of Wales, was born Diana Spencer in 1961 in Norfolk, England. In 1981, she married Prince Charles of Wales, heir to the throne of England, and became Her Royal Highness Princess Diana. She won the hearts of the people immediately with her innocent "English rose" appearance and her ability to give to others • In 1986, the fairytale began to turn into a nightmare as the royal couple began having marital problems. There were rumors of an affair between Prince Charles and his old girlfriend, Camille Parker Bowles. Diana suffered from an eating disorder and depression. On Aug 28, 1996, her divorce from Prince Charles was final. Her Royal Highness Princess Diana became Diana Princess of Wales • She was especially "passionate about children and AIDS charities. The image of her holding hands with someone with HIV/AIDS shattered the stigma, prejudice and fear that surrounded HIV/AIDS in the early days. • At perhaps the height of her philanthropic work in Africa and around the world, on Sunday, August 31, 1997, Diana, was killed in a car accident in Paris following a high-speed auto race with paparazzi photographers. • Friday, August 31, 2007 marks the 10 years anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. - The End -© 2006 Orbite Television, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  
LIVE 8 Rocks, Rolls Its Way Around Globe 20 Years After Live Aid, Rockers Return to Help Africa By Hugues-Denver Akassy, LONDON, July 2, 2005 - Bono effortlessly worked the crowd. Bjork strutted the stage. Celine Dion was beamed via satellite. And Bill Gates was treated like a rock star. Live 8's long, winding road around the globe that Saturday was an eclectic, unprecedented extravaganza. From Johannesburg to Philadelphia, Paris to Berlin, Rome to Moscow, Toronto to Tokyo, hundreds of thousands gathered for a global music marathon to pressure the world's most powerful leaders to alleviate African poverty at the Group of Eight summit next week. Organizer Bob Geldof promised to deliver ''the greatest concert ever.'' On Independence Day weekend in the United States, Will Smith, host of the Philadelphia show, said people had united for a ''declaration of interdependence.'' ''Today we hold this truth to be self-evident: We are all in this together,'' Smith said. Paul McCartney and U2 opened the flagship show of the free 10-concert festival in London's Hyde Park with a rousing performance of ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'' A thunderous roar erupted from the crowd of about 150,000 as the two iconic rock stars belted out the first line: ''It was 20 years ago today...'' - a nod to the mammoth Live Aid concerts that raised millions for African famine relief in 1985. Bono, dressed in black and wearing his trademark wraparound shades, wrapped the crowd around his finger, enticing tens of thousands to sing along to the anthemic ''One'' and ''Beautiful Day.'' The crowd cheered when a flock of white doves was released overhead. ''So this is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance to stand up for what's right,'' Bono said. ''We're not looking for charity, we're looking for justice. We cannot fix every problem, but the ones we can, we must.'' After a brief delay - testament to the complexities of the eight-hour London extravaganza - Coldplay soothed the crowd with their hit ''In My Place.'' Geldof appeared onstage to introduce Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Gates, whom the crowd greeted with a rock star's roar. ''We can do this, and when we do it will be the best thing that humanity has ever done,'' Gates said. The crowd joined in as REM sang ''Man on the Moon,'' then heard U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declare: ''This is really the United Nations.'' ''The whole world has come together in solidarity with the poor,'' Annan said. Later in the day, the London crowd was promised Madonna, The Who and the reunited Pink Floyd, giving their first public performance since 1981. Geldof, who announced the Live 8 gigs just over a month ago, claimed 3 billion people were watching on television and the Internet around the world. ''There's nothing more to do now,'' he said backstage. ''It's either crap or it's great. And so far it's great.'' The day's first concert kicked off in Japan, where Bjork and Good Charlotte joined local bands for a show that failed to generate much interest in Asia's only G-8 nation. Iceland's Bjork made her first live performance in two years. - The End -© 2006 Orbite Television, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
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