CAP
D'ANTIBES, France (AP) -- Bill Clinton's saxophone and Robert Pattinson's lips
have helped a star-studded charity event raise money to fight AIDS.News (Updated
May 24, 2009)
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Bill Clinton's saxophone,
Robert Pattinson's kiss raise money at Cannes AIDS charity auction
Jill Lawless, Associated
Press Writer
On Friday May 22, 2009,
3:10 pm EDT
CAP
D'ANTIBES, France (AP) -- Bill Clinton's saxophone and Robert Pattinson's lips
have helped a star-studded charity event raise money to fight AIDS.
An alto sax signed and
donated by the former U.S. president was one of the star lots at the Cinema
Against AIDS benefit on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, selling for
euro130,000 ($180,000). There was also keen bidding on two kisses from
"Twilight" star Pattinson, which raised euro20,000 ($28,000) each.
Sharon Stone hosted the
16th annual event late Thursday at the exclusive Hotel du Cap on the French
Riviera. Annie Lennox entertained about 800 guests who included Paris Hilton,
model Claudia Schiffer, director Terry Gilliam, rapper 50 Cent and scientist
James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA.
Stone urged people to give
generously despite the global economic slump.
"Looking down at the
price of my own shoes, we in this room cannot pretend that we have nothing to
give," she said.
Like the Cannes Film
Festival itself, the event was more muted than in recent years, with just a
smattering of A-list stars and some lots selling for below their estimates.
Organizers said the event raised a total of $4.5 million, compared with $10
million last year.
Proceeds from the event go
to the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), a nonprofit organization
that supports HIV/AIDS research.
Guests had to pass through
police checkpoints to get to the event, where they drank champagne in the hotel
grounds overlooking the
"Everybody knows
there is a global economic slowdown of epic proportions," said Clinton, who
supports AIDS research and treatment through his William J. Clinton Foundation.
He noted that $30 trillion
in wealth had disappeared around the world between September and March,
"and a lot of it came out of some of your bank accounts."
"I'm here with people
who tell stories for a living,"
"You don't need to
read many novels or make many movies to realize that everybody has a story. ...
Every time a child dies of AIDS somewhere in the world, the light goes out of a
story."
Items on the auction
blocks included a Fiat 500 car customized by Diesel, which sold for euro80,000
($110,000); tennis lessons from pros Monica Seles and Jelena Jankovic, which
raised euro35,000 ($50,000); and a handmade Karl Lagerfeld guitar case filled
with Dom Perignon champagne, sold for euro50,000 ($70,000).
The offer of a special
screening of Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge caper "Inglourious
Basterds" raised euro60,000 ($84,000).
Amid the auctioneering,
Stone said amfAR was
setting up a fund in
"Natasha said that
she would go on until a cure was found for AIDS," Stone said. "I
believe that she will."
Mon May 18, 7:22 pm ET
The New Mexico Office of
the Medical Investigator confirmed Monday that McFarlane died Friday in Truth or
Consequences but didn't immediately release the cause.
A statement released by
Tim Sweeney, president of the Denver-based Gill Foundation, where McFarlane once
worked, said McFarlane committed suicide. McFarlane left a note citing back and
heart problems that limited his ability to work and travel, the statement said.
"We will eternally be
in his debt as a result of his many, lasting contributions," Sweeney said.
McFarlane was executive
director of the Gill Foundation from 2004 to 2008. Founded by software
entrepreneur Tim Gill, the foundation funds programs advocating lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender civil rights.
Earlier, McFarlane helped
found
McFarlane wrote "The
Complete Bedside Companion: A No Nonsense Guide to Caring for the Seriously
Ill." Saenz said that book grew out of McFarlane's experience of caring for
friends.
By TOM ODULA, Associated
Press Writer Tom Odula, Associated Press Writer Wed May 20, 1:45 pm ET
NAIROBI,
Kenya – Health activists said Tuesday that a shortfall in promised U.S.
funding for HIV/AIDS projects would affect over 30 million people and means
President Barack Obama risks reversing the gains made by his predecessor.
"Such projects are
like planes ... they must have a forward momentum or they will stall and
crash," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, the executive director of the Global AIDS
Alliance.
He singled out a reduced
rate of funding for President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a pet
project of President George W. Bush that is credited with saving millions of
lives.
On the campaign trail,
Obama promised to expand by PEPFAR by a billion dollars a year. But Zeitz said
the budget Obama's administration submitted this month does not contain any
significant increase, maintaining funding levels at a steady US$6 billion a
year.
He said this and
lower-than-promised commitments to other anti-HIV/AIDS projects mean one million
people will not get lifesaving drugs. In total, he said, there was a US$3.3
billion shortfall in U.S support for global AIDS funding and bilateral AIDS
programs.
The White House had no
immediate comment.
But Zeitz questioned
whether funding other health initiatives had to come at the cost of HIV/AIDS
programs, pointing out spending on military projects and in other places
continue to rise.
"It is not a question
about whether we have the money ... it is a question about priorities," he
told journalists at a hotel in the Kenyan capital of
Rolake Odetoyimbo, from
the Pan African Treatment Movement in
"We are concerned
that he is setting a bad example," she said.
At the end of 2007, 33
million people were living with HIV, according to the World Health Organization.
Two-thirds of HIV infections are in sub-Saharan
20 May 2009 16:19:59 GMT
Source: IRIN
SÃO
TOMÉ, 20 May 2009 - Twenty years after the first case of HIV infection was
recorded in the archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe, off the coast of
A documentary, A Saída do
Gueto (Coming out of the Ghetto), produced by the state-run public broadcaster,
TVS, is a first for the country, where an estimated 3,000 people – 1.5 percent
of the population of 155,000 - are living with HIV, according to data from the
National Programme for the Fight Against AIDS.
Magda Soares, who
discovered her HIV-positive status during a medical check-up in 2006, decided to
appear in the film because she believes that discrimination by relatives, in the
workplace and on the streets is the biggest problem faced by HIV-positive
people.
"Nobody went to the
market to buy this sickness - all diseases kill when they're not treated, and
those who live hiding their HIV/AIDS die as well," she told IRIN/PlusNews.
Ignorance and prejudice
The film is the fruit of a
project funded by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO), which trained TVS broadcast journalists and technicians in programme
production. It premiered on TVS on 15 May, and also on RTP, the Portuguese
television network, and Canal France International.
Coming out of the Ghetto
not only challenges viewers to question their attitudes to people living with
HIV, but also asks for their help. "I call on people to do something for
us, the HIV positive and those ill with AIDS," says Celso Carvalho in his
testimony.
"This documentary
will awaken São Tomean society to become aware of the disease, because I
believe that there are people here who still don't believe that AIDS
exists," said Jacinto Godinho, the course instructor.
Rita Aleixo, programme
coordinator at the international humanitarian organisation, Médicos do Mundo
(Doctors of the World), hopes the film will educate people and contribute to
reducing the strong AIDS-related stigma in São Tomé and Príncipe. "This
documentary is a new era that is opening up in these people's lives," she
said.
Celecia Pereira, a lawyer
who assists Apoio à Vhida, the country's first association of people living
with HIV, said the documentary alone would not be enough to combat stigma.
"We don't have any
legal instrument to protect the HIV positive from the discrimination they suffer
on a daily basis," she said. "The first thing prospective employers
ask for is an HIV test; we live in a country in which everybody knows who does
and who doesn't have AIDS."