#1 Bush pledges funds to fight Aids
Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 6:59 pm
BBC
Even if you got them to practice the idea, they're still going to have a wider field of partners then your average westerner in a church has in mind when s/he says abstinence til marriage.
If I may disgress, it wasn't until I took anthropolgy that I learned just how fucking useless telling them not to screw until marriage is. Depending on the region and tribe... The average person in Africa can go/pick from through 2 or 3 different types of marriages. In a wide number of African cultures polygamy is practiced, in some parts of West Africa, a women can have a husband and wife (or more than one, depending on economic sucess, these wives are mainly business partners). "Ghost" marriages are common in the area around Sudan, where a young women is 'married' to a ghost and has sexual and nonsexual relations with a living relative of that ghost (the children of this union are believed to be fathered by the ghost). There are what you would call life phase marriages, for example males in their early 20s, late teens marry a younger male, who serves as a wife, when the male reaches his late 20s early 30s he has enough money and status to marry a women and divorices his male wife. Down in parts of central Africa, widows are suppose to engage in sexual relations with the uncle or brother of their dead husband as part of the mourning process.President George W Bush has asked the US Congress to set aside $30bn (£15bn) over five years for the global fight against HIV/Aids.
He said the sum would double the current US commitment and provide treatment for 2.5 million people.
Mr Bush said the funding would also be aimed at preventing more than 12 million new infections.
The president said his wife Laura would visit Africa next month as part of the US campaign against Aids.
"When I took office, an HIV diagnosis in Africa's poorest communities was usually a death sentence," Mr Bush said.
HIV/Aids around the world
"Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time."
In 2003, the US Government approved a $15bn package over five years to fight the spread of Aids.
The US Congress stipulated that a proportion of those funds must be spent on encouraging abstinence-until-marriage programmes.
Increases everywhere
United Nations agencies say about 40 million people worldwide are infected with Aids or HIV.
Almost three-quarters of deaths from Aids last year occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and two-thirds of those living with HIV are found there.
The number living with the virus has increased everywhere, with the most striking increases in East Asia and Central Asia/Eastern Europe.
On Wednesday the World Health Organization urged affected countries to carry out HIV tests on everyone attending health centres unless they "opt out".
It said 200 million people could benefit from the policy.
Currently 80% of people infected with HIV in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa do not know they have it.
Even if you got them to practice the idea, they're still going to have a wider field of partners then your average westerner in a church has in mind when s/he says abstinence til marriage.