News (Updated February
4, 2007)
[Home]
[Previous
news]
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers
BEIJING - Like many homosexuals in China, 22-year-old Chen Lei enjoys the
newfound liberties of urban gay life. But he feels he can't fight his destiny:
to marry a woman for whom he feels no attraction.
For economic, social and cultural reasons, the pressure on homosexuals in
China to wed and raise families is high.
In Chen's case, his family hails from a village in Inner Mongolia, and he
dares not tell them of his private life in the big city, knowing they wouldn't
tolerate it.
"I only have an older sister. So I'm definitely going to have to marry
and have children," Chen said. His mother already has made introductions
to two young women.
Attitudes toward homosexuality in China have relaxed in the big cities,
where gay bars flourish and Web sites nurture a sense of community. Mentioning
homosexuality no longer is taboo on television newscasts and public service
announcements, and government media have stopped lumping homosexuals as
deviants along with prostitutes, gamblers and drug addicts. Gay groups have
sprung up on university campuses.
Yet China appears unique in the way that enormous family pressures are
brought to bear on gay men. Nearly three decades have passed since China began
a "one-child policy" of limiting most couples to single offspring to
curb a population that's already soared to 1.3 billion. Most young gay men are
the only sons of their families. If they don't marry and have children, their
family trees wither, a fate that most Chinese deem dreadful.
"The major difference between Chinese homosexuals and those in the
West is that many of them (here) will get married with people of the opposite
gender," said Li Yinhe, a researcher into sexual behavior with the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "No matter how hard they fight or how
long they delay, they end up getting married anyway because the pressure is so
high."
This has led to a spate of loveless - and often short - marriages designed
to placate the family and procure progeny.
"Many gays hurry to marry, then hurry to divorce," said Xiao
Dong, the head of a volunteer civic group in Beijing's Chaoyang district that
battles AIDS.
Li, who appears regularly on television as perhaps China's most widely
known sexual behaviorist, said distraught parents often contacted her.
"Many parents feel that the sky has fallen when they learn that their
children are homosexuals," Li said. "One mother wanted to commit
suicide."
Parents want their gay children to marry not only because they themselves
want grandchildren - in some cases for financial support in their old age -
but also because they think that their sons will be miserable without
children, Li said.
In rural areas attitudes toward homosexuals are palpably negative, harking
back to the era more than a decade ago when state media commonly referred to
homosexuality as a "foreign disease."
Li Yang, a 29-year-old gay masseur in Beijing, demurred when he was asked
whether he'd ever go back to live in his village in Liaoning province, in the
northeast of China. "You don't find gays there," he said. "I'd
have no way to satisfy my needs."
Xiao, the AIDS activist, said he'd recently visited rural Shandong province
and listened to accounts of how gays "must be very secretive. They live
very painful lives."
A 2004 government report recognized 5 million to 10 million gays and
lesbians in China, although unofficial estimates put the figure at 30 million.
Authorities haven't opened the door all the way to homosexuals. Last year,
China declined to let cinemas exhibit the gay-cowboy love story "Brokeback
Mountain" even as state media heaped praise on Taiwanese director Ang Lee
for winning an Oscar as best director.
Still, health issues pushed the government to the forefront in bringing
homosexuality before the public eye, as private groups and United Nations
experts warned that AIDS rates were about to skyrocket. The Ministry of Health
claims that China has around 650,000 carriers of the AIDS virus. AIDS
prevention campaigns now are shown on television screens in railway cars and
in other public venues.
In the last several years, the government has opened health clinics for
homosexuals in Shenzhen, Chongqing and Nanjing that offer tests for sexually
transmitted diseases and information on practicing safe sex. Last November,
Beijing inaugurated a clinic that offers free testing for AIDS. It also set up
an Internet chat room for gays on a district Web site, titled "Forum for
Comrades" - using the slang term for gay men.
On a recent night at the Boyfriend Bar, a gay hangout at a trendy
canal-side site in northern Beijing, two men wearing bangles and halter tops
put on a drag show, writhing as belly dancers. An emcee in a beige leisure
suit with spangles animated the crowd.
"Society is progressing. As long as we homosexuals don't commit crimes
or do illegal drugs, we are left alone," said Lu Jiahui, the bar's
manager.
When Chinese parents learn that their sons are gay, most still press for
marriage.
"Some of them say to their children, `It doesn't matter that you have
a male partner. It's OK as long as you get married (to a woman) and have a
child,'" said Zhang Beichuan, an expert on homosexuality at Qingdao
University's medical school.
Zhang said many gays remained deeply wary of disclosing their orientation
to their families. He said his own research survey found that 6 out of 10
homosexuals feared that the disclosure would lead to emotional distress
inflicted by their family members.
For his part, Chen, who works at a karaoke bar, said he wouldn't disclose
his homosexuality to his family and eventually would succumb to the pressures
to wed.
"Once I get married, I'll try to live a good family life. I won't try
to live like I live now," he said. He expects to keep his orientation
secret even from his bride.
"I'm not going to tell her," he said matter-of-factly.
McClatchy special correspondent Fan Linjun in Bejing contributed to this
report.
By Krittivas Mukherjee in Mumbai, India
February 01, 2007 04:00am
Article from: Reuters
THE Dalai Lama accused Beijing of using a new railway link to flood Tibet
with beggars, prostitutes and the unemployed, destroying its culture and
traditions.
“The railway link is a real danger,” said the spiritual leader, who
fled to India from Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in
1959.
“Beggars, handicapped people are coming. Their number is huge. Also
jobless people facing difficulty in Chinese mainland are coming to Lhasa,”
he told a religious gathering in the Indian city of Mumbai.
The 1142km rail link opened last July. The world's highest, it passes
through spectacular icy peaks on the Tibetan highlands, touching altitudes
of 5000 metres.
Beijing says the 13-hour connection from China's far-western province of
Qinghai to Tibet's capital, Lhasa, will bring economic and social
development to the long-isolated region.
But Tibetan exiles - about 80,000 of them live in India - have dubbed the
rail link to the “second invasion of Tibet”.
They say it will only increase Chinese migration, dilute Tibetan culture
and militarise the region.
The Dalai Lama said Beijing was forcing poor villagers to relocate to
Tibet and was also sending uneducated young girls from the countryside to be
“inducted as prostitutes” in Lhasa.
“Therefore, that is increasing the danger of AIDS,” he said.
The Dalai Lama said that besides destroying the cultural identity of
Tibet, the railway was an “environmental menace” because it was helping
China mine at very high altitudes.
“We are very concerned about the environmental impact of the railway
link,” he said.
Thursday February 1, 11:23 AM
NEW
DELHI (Reuters) - India will map out high-risk migration corridors and
create safe spaces in cities where migrant workers congregate to protect
them from the HIV virus, the head of its anti-AIDS agency said on Thursday.
India has the world's highest caseload with around 5.7 million people
living with the virus, according to the United Nations, and migrants are
considered a very high-risk group.
An estimated one quarter of India's 1.1-billion population, mostly the poor
from its villages and towns, move around the country in search of a
livelihood every year.
About five percent, or 12-15 million people who travel from their
villages to high HIV-prevalence cities and back over short periods, will be
a major focus in a new plan against AIDS, said Sujatha Rao, Director-General
of the state-run National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
"These migrants tend to cluster. What we will try to do is to
insulate them from the infection even if they stay in a high-prevalence
district," Rao said.
She said the government plans to track migrant concentrations in cities
and protect workers through peer education, setting up HIV-testing centres
and intensive condom distribution.
TALK ABOUT CONDOMS
Experts say the virus has spread to the countryside because many male
migrants from rural areas have sex with prostitutes and infect their wives
when they return home. More than half of HIV-positive Indians are in rural
areas.
India's third National AIDS Control Plan (NACP-III) -- a $2.6-billion
(1.3 billion pound), five-year programme that starts in April -- will also
map out "migrant corridors" where large numbers of workers leave
one region to work in another for a short time.
"We are looking for the short-migration people who go, come back,
go, come back," said Rao.
Government health workers and voluntary agencies would step up HIV
prevention campaigns at large "source areas" for migrant workers
before they leave for high-prevalence cities.
"At the source point, they will be told, 'Look, you are going there,
but there is this disease. You will be tempted, but these are the
precautions you have to take'," Rao said.
The budget for NACP-III is around $1.8 billion, of which about 75 percent
would be spent on prevention activities, including promotion of condoms
among high-risk groups such as prostitutes and migrant workers.
NACO estimates India has around two million sex workers, of whom nearly
half use condoms regularly.
In the next three to four years, NACO hopes to bring this to 80 percent
as it expands activities among high-risk groups.
"This is where the virus is," Rao said. "There is no point
in telling them about fidelity and abstinence. We have to talk to them
straight about condoms."
India also plans to step up the number of government treatment centres
that provide free AIDS drugs to 121 by March from 101.
NACO says its free treatment programme is hindered by the fact that 86
percent of Indians estimated to be infected do not even know they have the
virus.
Thursday February 1, 04:36 PM
GENEVA
(Reuters) - David Nabarro, a Briton who heads the United Nations' fight
against bird flu, is the front-runner to lead a body dedicated to combating
diseases including AIDS.
Nabarro was considered the strongest of three shortlisted candidates to
head the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Fund sources
said on Thursday. The other candidates are French AIDS envoy Michel
Kazatchkine and Alex Coutinho, head
of Uganda's AIDS Support Organisation.
Launched in 2002 with the backing of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the
independent Fund raises and distributes billions of dollars a year to prevent
and treat neglected diseases.
Its board, made up of donor and aid-receiving governments, as well as
non-governmental groups, is due to select a successor for Britain's Richard
Feachem at a meeting next Thursday.
A selection committee has evaluated the three nominees' qualifications and
ranked "Nabarro first, Kazatchkine second and Cotinho third,"
according to a Fund source.
But this did not mean that Nabarro, a medical doctor and a former senior
official at the World Health Organisation, was guaranteed the job. In
November, the board failed to agree on a candidate from among an earlier
shortlist of five people, which had also included Kazatchkine.
Aides to Nabarro confirmed he had topped the new selection committee
shortlist, but stressed he remained "fully focussed" on efforts to
fight and prevent the spread of deadly bird flu in humans. He was in Bangkok
on Thursday and will be in Indonesia on Friday to work on pandemic
preparedness, they said.
The five-year-old Global Fund has committed $7 billion (3.55 billion
pounds) in grants to 136 countries, making it the largest international
supporter of malaria and tuberculosis projects, and among the top three for
funding programmes against AIDS.
Annan appointed Nabarro in 2005 to spearhead global efforts to try to
prevent bird flu from sparking a pandemic in which millions of people could
die.
AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria kill more than six million people a year,
mainly in sub-Sahran Africa.
"If not, we will be facing a widespread epidemic," Afghan Red
Crescent president Fatima Gailani said in a statement for the opening of a new
addicts treatment centre in Kabul.
The Nawai Zwand (New Beginning) centre on the city outskirts, near the police
training academy, is a joint operation with the Italian Red Cross and the
European thinktank the Senlis Council.
Amid warnings of another record opium crop after a 60 percent jump in 2006, a
U.N. report released last year estimates almost one million Afghans -- about 4
percent of the population -- are drug users.
That report gives no figures for previous years, but drugs workers say
anecdotal evidence from the field show numbers rising, especially among refugees
returning home.
"Drug addiction is an increasingly worrying issue in Afghanistan and we
hope this new treatment centre will contribute to Afghanistan dealing with this
growing problem," said Senlis founding President Norine MacDonald, who
attended the opening.
"Many of the returnees are now injecting heroin and this poses a major
threat in terms of HIV/AIDS transmission."
Afghanistan does not have a long history of intravenous drug use and the U.N.
report, by its Office on Drugs and Crime, found most had started injecting while
in Pakistan or Iran.
Nawai Zwand is modelled on an Italian centre, Villa Maraini, that treats up
to 700 people a day and where methods include needle exchange and methadone
substitution.
UNAIDS, the United Nations HIV/AIDS group, says there are fewer than 50 known
infections in the country of 24 million, but little information has ever been
gathered in a country racked by 25 years of war and conflict and most experts
say the problem is much greater. Pakistan and Iran have thousands.
By Pongpiphat BanchanontMon Jan 29,
8:39 AM ET
Thailand's army-appointed government confirmed on Monday it approved a
cheap, copycat version of a blockbuster heart disease drug, the first time a
developing country has torn up the international patent for such a
treatment.
In addition to the "compulsory license" of Plavix, made by U.S.
and European pharmaceutical giants Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis,
Bangkok approved a generic version of Abbott Laboratories' Kaletra, an
HIV/AIDS treatment.
The move, which Thai health officials said would save the country as much
as 800 million baht ($24 million) a year, drew flak from the drug industry
but praise from AIDS activists.
"We have to do this because we don't have enough money to buy safe
and necessary drugs for the people under the government's universal health
scheme," Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla told reporters on Monday,
confirming newspaper reports that circulated last week.
"The laws have been signed and became effective on Friday,"
said Mongkol, who incensed drugs companies in November by introducing
Thailand's first such license for Merck's Efavirenz anti-retroviral AIDS
treatment.
Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a government is allowed to
declare a "national emergency" and license the production or sale
of a patented drug without the permission of the foreign patent owner.
Teera Chakajnorodom, chairman of Bangkok-based pharmaceutical industry
group PReMA, said he had been kept in the dark over the move. His only
contact with the government was a phone call on Sunday from a health
official asking for clarification of WTO rules.
Although the drug companies had not had time to coordinate a response,
Teera said they might petition the Administrative Court, which rules on the
legality of government actions, to block the license.
"If we want to be globalized, we have to respect the rules of the
world and the WTO," he said.
SLASHING COSTS
The widening of compulsory licensing is another blow to foreign investors
already reeling from capital controls imposed in December to stem a rise in
the baht and a proposed tightening of laws governing overseas firms in
Thailand.
Foreign investors said it also appeared to be another case of the
government, which assumed power after a September 19 coup against Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, acting unilaterally and appearing indifferent
to international reaction.
Thawat Suntrajarn, head of the Health Ministry's Disease Control
Department, said the copycat drugs would initially be imported from India
and would then be produced by Thailand's state-owned drug maker.
The price of Plavix would drop by more than 90 percent to 6 baht (18 US
cents) per tablet, he said.
Plavix is Bristol-Myers Squibb's biggest-selling medicine, which had
annual sales of $6 billion before a copycat Canadian-manufactured version
hit the market briefly in August.
Paul Cawthorne, local head of Doctors Without Borders, backed Mongkol's
stance, saying the government was spending 11,580 baht ($347) per patient
per month for Kaletra and could cut that bill by two thirds if it switched
to a generic make.
"That's a perfectly legal method for them to ensure access to
essential drugs for Thai people," he said.
($1=33.40 baht)
AIDS
patient Loon Gangte survives on a daily cocktail of generic pills, but fears
that if Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis wins a challenge to India's
patent laws, his cheap drugs lifeline could dry up.
"Not only my life but lives of thousands of others are at stake and
they aren't just in India but around the world," said Gante, 40, who
has lived with the disease for the past decade and is head of a local AIDS
action group.
Novartis has filed an appeal in the southern Indian city of Chennai
contesting a part of the country's patent law that. If it succeeds,
activists say, it would allow far wider granting of patents -- sharply
reducing the availability of cheap generic medicines.
Critics also say that if Novartis wins its case, millions around the
globe could be left without a supply of affordable generic cancer and other
drugs from India, a main producer of such medicines.
Novartis' challenge goes to the heart of India's Patents Act, which says
a new patent cannot be granted for an old drug unless changes make it
significantly more effective.
The drugmaker insists so-called "incremental innovations"
should be patentable and says India's refusal breaches its World Treaty
Organisation obligations.
"Indian patent law creates new hurdles for pharmaceutical innovation
and narrows down what is patentable by making additional requirements for
patentability inconsistent with international agreements," Ranjit
Shahani, vice chairman of Novartis India Ltd, told AFP.
Novartis says its court action is not about AIDS, and it is specifically
contesting the Indian patent office's rejection in January 2006 of an
application for a new, more easily absorbed version of its anti-leukemia
drug Gleevec.
"It was patented in more than 40 countries but it failed the India
test for patentability. That indicates the deficiencies in the Indian patent
system," said Shahani, also head of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical
Producers of India.
India's patent office turned down the application, saying the new drug's
efficacy did not differ significantly from the earlier version.
Indian drug firms are producing knock-off versions of Gleevec but selling
them at a fraction of the price charged by Novartis for the original.
Critics say a ruling in favour of the Swiss firm would be used as a
precedent for Indian patent applications on other drugs.
"There will be other groups that will quote a decision in favour of
Novartis and try to win on the same grounds," said Hariharan Narayanan,
a rights activist in Chennai.
A hearing on Novartis's patent appeal, which began earlier this week, is
to resume on February 15.
Medicins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said a court ruling
in favour of Novartis would have implications for the generics market
worldwide.
"It would cut off the generic drugs lifeline," said Leena
Menghaney, access campaign officer at Medecins Sans Frontieres in India.
"It would be a disaster for the Third World. The impact of the case
is going to be felt by patients in developing countries who are affected by
all kinds of illnesses, not just HIV-AIDS," she said.
The group's AIDS programmes provide treatment to 80,000 people in 30
countries and source the bulk of their generic drugs from India.
India has long been a key provider of cheap generic medicines as it did
not issue drug patents until two years ago, when it was obliged to adhere to
WTO intellectual property regulations.
Now, it allows patents for new inventions after 1995, or for an updated
drug showing much greater efficacy. But it rejects applications for minor
changes to existing drugs aimed at extending the life of original patent
monopolies from their original 20 years -- a practice critics dub "evergreening."
Novartis' Shahani argues that "if you take life in general over 40
to 50 years, there are no major breakthroughs (in drugs), most are
incremental innovations."
"You will demotivate scientists, and if there is no research on
incremental innovation, there will be no research and no generics," he
said.
"For medical research you need time, energy and money and if
investors don't get a return they will run away."
However, Medecins Sans Frontieres said drug companies were seeking
"spurious" patents on "new" drugs offering little in the
way of big advancements, such as for turning pills into capsules or making
medicines heat-resistant.
"If we lose, the drug companies will regain their monopoly over
drugs and prices will shoot up, people will suffer, we won't have these
affordable drugs," said Gante, who heads the Delhi Network of Positive
People.
"It is about the life and death of us."
Libya has proposed a plan to release the Bulgarian nurses sentenced to
death in an AIDS epidemic case in exchange for compensation, the son of
Libyan President Moamer Kadhafi told a Bulgarian newspaper.
"We have proposed a road map with solutions (satisfying) all
parties: the parents, the Libyan government, the Bulgarian side, the EU,"
Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam told Monday's edition of the daily 24 Hours,
adding that he had also discussed the plan with the foreign ministers of
Germany and France.
The plan anticipates "substantial compensation for the families of
those affected," he added.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death on
December 19 after an appeals court upheld their conviction for having
"knowingly" infected 426 children at a hospital in Benghazi with
blood tainted by the HIV virus that can cause AIDS.
At least 53 of the children have died of the infection, which the
defendants who have spent eight years behind bars blame on poor hygiene at
the hospital long before their arrival in Libya.
Al-Islam promised that Libya would not carry out the death sentences
against the six medics.
"There will be no executions... Libya is not Iraq," he said,
referring to the recent execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
and two of his top aides.
Kadhafi's son added that he was authorised to work on this plan by his
father as well as by the families of the infected children.
Al-Islam's Kadhafi Goodwill Foundation has long been involved in
negotiations concerning the medics' case.
He pointed out "the importance of establishing a dialogue between
the families and European representatives" through talks in Libya with
"European parliamentarians, foreign affairs ministers, diplomats,
experts."
Al-Islam also demanded the release of Libyan officer Abdelbaset Ali
Mohmed al-Megrahi who is serving a life sentence in Britain for the 1998
bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish village of Lockerbie that
killed 270 people.
"We believe that al-Megrahi is innocent in the same way you believe
that your nurses are innocent," he said.
"Just like you have the right to demand the return of your nurses,
we have the right to insist for the return of al-Megrahi to Libya. Our
desires are similar," al-Islam said, adding however, "It is not a
matter of an exchange.... These are two separate cases."
Al-Islam said he thought the six foreign medics had "received unfair
sentences" while at the same time maintaining that "the court took
this decision absolutely independently."
"When the judges announced their decision, we ourselves were shocked
and surprised by the result," he said.
"The case took a wrong direction from the beginning... There were
many mistakes," al-Islam admitted, blaming these on "the police
and the investigators."
The six medics, who maintain their innocence based on testimony by
international experts, testified they had been tortured by police in order
to confess.
They were condemned on the basis of confessions by two of the nurses
despite the fact they refused to confirm these in court.
The death sentences caused an international outcry that threatened to
halt slowly resuming relations between Libya and the European Union.
The Bulgarian foreign ministry said Monday it would not comment on
al-Islam's statement.