Warren Buffett on Monday signed over much of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting the world's two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education.

The roughly $30.7 billion donation doubles the Gates Foundation's size to $60 billion, five times larger than any other U.S. charitable group and bigger than the gross domestic product of Kuwait.

Bill Gates, the world's richest person, co-founded and remains chairman of software company Microsoft Corp..

His friend and bridge partner Buffett, 75, became known as the Sage of Omaha as he built the world's second biggest personal fortune running Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an insurance and investment company.

"I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is 6 billion people having much poorer hands in life than we have," Buffett said at a signing ceremony with the Gateses at the New York Public Library.

Gates, 50, this month said he plans in July 2008 to step down from his day-to-day Microsoft role to focus on his foundation, one of the goals of which is to improve access to technology in U.S. public libraries. It also focuses on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Buffett pledged 10 million Berkshire Class B shares to the Gates Foundation. He also pledged 2.05 million Class B shares to foundations in the name of his late wife, Susan, who died in 2004, and for his three children, Susie, Howard and Peter.

The total donations of about $37.1 billion amount to 85 percent of Buffett's net worth and constitute the largest single act of U.S. charitable giving ever.

Buffett made the donations fewer than four months after he said Berkshire's board had identified a successor for him.

At a news conference, Gates said serious talks about a donation to the Gates Foundation began early this year.

Buffett's gift to that foundation will be in stages and conditioned on money being distributed the year it is donated.

The foundation gave away $1.36 billion in 2005, so Buffett's first gift of $1.5 billion, in July, may double its spending.

"This is his life's work," Gates said at the library ceremony. "Now that the money is going to be as much Warren's as the money my job helped generate, it's almost scary."

He said the extra funds will let the foundation "deepen, accelerate what we do."

Time magazine last year named the Gateses and Irish singer Bono of the band U2 its "Persons of the Year" for 2005, citing their charitable and philanthropic pursuits.

HIGHER VALUE?

Both Buffett and Gates emphasized the importance of keeping philanthropy separate from Berkshire's day-to-day operations.

Buffett's donations of Berkshire shares means the ultimate value of his gifts will be tied to the company's share price.

He downplayed speculation about the impact on Berkshire, saying he would not have acted if he thought it would hurt the company's shares or intrinsic value.

"I am having so much fun at doing what I do," he said at the news conference. "To say I'm going to spend a high percentage of my time in some other area, it's not realistic."

Berkshire shares fell as much as 2.9 percent on Monday as investors looked toward Buffett's eventual retirement and the possible sale by the foundations of Berkshire stock to fund giving.

"Those who are selling haven't thought this through," said Thomas Russo, a principal at Gardner, Russo & Gardner, which owns Berkshire stock. "Warren will no longer have to distract himself with charitable donations and can focus on the company."

Berkshire owns large stakes in such blue-chip companies as American Express Co. and Coca-Cola Co. and owns some 50 businesses, including Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear and Geico auto insurance.

While Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor 500 index over the last two years, they have far outgained the benchmark since Buffett took over Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, in 1965.

At the library ceremony, Buffett made the gifts official, first signing letters for his children's foundations.

"The first three letters are easy to sign," he said. "I just sign 'Dad."'

Although he has HIV, living with the virus that causes AIDS is not Nikk Bowden's major concern.

He is lucky enough to have the drugs that have turned HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a treatable illness, and like many in his position what now worries him most are the long-term toxic effects of the medications he takes.

Muscle pain and wasting, liver and pancreas problems, diabetes, fat redistribution and nerve damage are side effects that can occur after years of use.

"Long-term you do worry as to exactly what it is doing to your body. If you are expected to be on them for 30-40 years, as some doctors will tell you, what is going to happen further down the line," said the 34-year-old decorator from Edinburgh.

"Has enough research been done into this and is it on-going? Are we going to get the answers as the doctors get them or are they going to keep them quite quiet?" he added in an interview on Friday.

Bowden, who was infected 7 years ago through unsafe sex, is not alone in his concerns.

In a survey of nearly 2,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Britain, 69 percent said they did not feel informed enough about the long-term effects of medications.

Fear of other illnesses, or opportunistic infections, caused by HIV was second on the list of top concerns followed by the short-term side effects of the drugs. Patients were less troubled about the interaction of HIV drugs with other medications, according to the poll.

Ninety-three percent in the survey conducted by the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS said they had difficulty planning for the future.

"This survey is timely and indicates that the patients' greatest concern is long-term toxicity," said HIV researcher Professor Brian Gazzard, of London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, in a statement.

Bowden added that many of the drugs have simply not been around long enough for researchers to know what their impact would be after taking them for decades.

"It is a worry that you could be taking something that isn't fully understood over a period of time," he said. "The payment is that I get extra years of life through taking the medication. It is the best part of a bad deal, I suppose."

The first medical cases of the mysterious illness now known as HIV/AIDS were reported 25 years ago. AZT, the first therapy for AIDS, was approved for use in the United States in 1987.

Today about 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, with the majority in sub-Saharan Africa.

By the end of last year, 1.3 million people in poor countries had access to AIDS drugs.

 

India planned to verify United Nations estimates it had overtaken South Africa as the country with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, a government official said on Friday.

UNAIDS, the U.N.'s AIDS prevention agency, said last month there were about 5.7 million Indians infected at the end of 2005 against South Africa's 5.5 million cases.

The Indian government has disputed the figure, saying there were 5.2 million cases by the end of last year -- stirring a debate in local media as to whether authorities have been suppressing the reality of the disease in the country.

Sujatha Rao, director general of the National AIDS Control Organization told a news conference the discrepancy between the two estimates was due to different methodologies.

"UNAIDS has taken a different methodology, but it has to be validated because the assumptions that UNAIDS took were based on global data and not Indian data so therefore they have come up with a higher estimate," Rao said.

She said the U.N. had also taken into account all age groups, whereas Indian estimates were based on those between the ages of 15 and 49 years old.

Rao said the government had now set up an independent expert committee to try to apply and validate UNAIDS' methodology and the results would be known at the end of 2006. She said this would show the reality of the HIV/AIDS situation in India.

Rao said it was not fair to say India had the world's largest HIV-infected population as countries such as China, which says it has 650,000 infections, did not have comprehensive surveillance systems in place compared with India.

"So when UNAIDS comes up and makes a statement that India has the highest number of infections, they are not comparing apples with apples -- they are comparing apples with oranges," she said.

India plans to spend about 7 billion rupees ($152 million) in fiscal 2006/2007 on stemming rising infections -- most of which will be spent on anti-retroviral treatment, counseling, distribution of condoms and awareness campaigns.

The U.N. estimates about 400,000 deaths related to HIV/AIDS occurred in India last year -- a figure Rao said was possible, although studies by the government were still underway.

($1 = 46.13 Rupee)

Three years ago Mmameja Gafiwe was wasting away from the virus that causes AIDS in a desolate mining town in Botswana's Kalahari desert.

"It was bad. I couldn't walk. I thought I was dying," said the 39-year-old as she waited in a clinic that provides the drugs that probably saved her life.

These days Gafiwe is well. Her biggest problem now is that has no job and lacks money for food to satisfy a healthy appetite.

Botswana is widely admired for a program that supplies antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to 85 percent of those in need, on a continent where, on average, only one in six gets the life-saving therapy.

However, the success of the ARV program is in sharp contrast to the limited achievement in stopping new infections of HIV/AIDS in the arid southern African country, which was slow to launch a prevention campaign.

Botswana has barely made a dent in one of the highest adult infection rates in the world, estimated at 24.1 percent, compared with an average of 6.1 percent for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, according to the United Nations.

The country is stepping up a drive to persuade the population to change its sexual habits, worried that it will soon be overwhelmed with patients needing treatment.

"We realized that it was important to start treatment because lots of people were sick, lots of people would have died that are now alive," said TseTsele Fantan, executive director of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships in Botswana's capital, Gaborone.

"Now the challenge is to make sure people just don't forget that this is not a cure, that we can't sustain this if everybody is sick. That's really why it is so important to scale up prevention."

HARD TO CHANGE

In March, officials from government, industry and aid organizations agreed to boost the prevention campaign, especially in local communities.

Fantan says they are under no illusions that the infection rate will drop as fast as the ARV program was able to boost treatment levels.

"We can build a clinic today in a very remote area of Botswana and start treatment on Monday...it is immediate, it is measurable," she said.

"But prevention is about behavior change. It takes a very long time. It can take a generation to change behavior, particularly something as personal as sexual behavior."

The national AIDS prevention campaign seeks to cut the number of sexual partners among young people, which averaged 2.9 over the past 12 months in a recent survey.

Although overall condom use has improved, campaigners want to reverse a worrying higher trend of non-use - 43 percent in the survey - when at least one partner has consumed alcohol.

Botswana's infection rate is even higher than the 18.8 percent in neighboring South Africa, which has one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS caseloads of about 5.5 million.

Fantan say the national campaign is showing glimmers of hope. Latest figures showed HIV prevalence among young people aged 15-19 had been cut to 17.8 percent from 22.8 percent.

The country launched a widespread prevention program only in the past few years. The business sector has demonstrated that such interventions can work.

The nation's second biggest employer, diamond producer Debswana, launched a prevention drive in 1989.

At the Jwaneng mine, about 200 km (120 miles) west of Gaborone, the HIV prevalence has been slashed from 31 percent in 1999 to 17 percent in 2003.

Debswana is a 50-50 joint venture of gem giant De Beers and the government.

WATCH THE SUN

While changing behavior remains a challenge, there is no doubting that Botswana is getting it right on treatment. In the neighboring mining town, a clinic shows why other African countries are interested in Botswana's model of a successful ARV program.

The achievement is partly a result of extensive counseling and tracking of patients to ensure they stick to a strict schedule of medication.

Gafiwe went to the special Infectious Disease Care Clinic, soon after it opened three years ago at the Jawneng Mine Hospital, financed by Debswana but open to the general public.

During group and individual counseling sessions, she was questioned about details of her life that might affect taking the medication at key times.

"We have clients who don't have watches. So we check with the family to see if there's a radio so they can listen for the time. If all else fails, we tell them to watch the sun to know when to take their drugs," said nurse practitioner Meltha Bayani.

The heavy involvement of the clinic with patients does not stop when they learn how to take their drugs. A tracking system sends out a warning signal if they stumble.

"This month 99 percent of the people showed up for appointments and 96 percent had good adhesion. We're doing follow-ups on the other 4 percent," said Bayani.

One woman stopped taking her drugs after she had a vision telling her to halt.

"She's now in counseling with a social worker and we're also discussing the problem with her church," Bayani said.

Virtually none of the patients would have been able to afford private ARV treatment, including Gafiwe - who was shunned by her family when they found out she had the disease.

These days she's feeling so chipper that she gives a sly grin as she confides in a visiting reporter.

"I'm looking for a husband. You'll let me know if you have any friends that are interested, won't you?"

Hundreds of thousands of raucous parade-goers took to the streets from New York to San Francisco on Sunday for annual gay pride parades, just weeks after an attack on a popular gay singer in New York and the 25th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic.

Outrageous costumes were the norm along the parade routes.

In New York, the floats and marchers turned Fifth Avenue into a sea of rainbows.

"Everyone else has a chance to express their affection freely, and for one day in New York, you can be free and not feel ashamed or embarrassed," said Roberto Hermosilla of Miami, who was attending his ninth parade.

Thousands lined Market Street for San Francisco's 36th annual Gay Pride parade. Marching bands, dancers and floats bearing corporate logos of such companies as Delta Airlines and Wells Fargo streamed by.

"There's much greater acceptance in corporate America," said Michael Crowe, 63, who said high-profile corporate sponsorship is new to the event.

One float carried a bearded man, wearing a white lace miniskirt and fishnet stockings, who sang Madonna's "Like a Virgin" as a band backed him. A half-dozen men dressed in underwear and top hats danced behind him.

The New York parade marked the very public and triumphant return of singer Kevin Aviance, who rode atop a fake pachyderm and a circus-themed float weeks after the drag queen was viciously beaten. Police have charged four young men, ages 16 to 20, with assaulting the artist while yelling anti-gay slurs.

Wearing a top hat, jacket, red stilettos, and little else, Aviance waved to the crowds, his mouth still wired shut from a fractured jaw he suffered in the attack.

The theme of New York's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March was "The Fight for Love and Life," but there was plenty of talk about hate following the Aviance attack. The city's police department said reports of anti-gay bias crimes totaled 25 through mid-June — compared with 19 over the same period in 2005.

"A few hateful homophobes will not set us back," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is openly gay and marched in the parade.

The parades took place just weeks after the 25th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic, and city leaders used the event to call for a greater focus on combating HIV and AIDS.

In Atlanta, one of the largest parades in the country moved through the city as thunder clouds threatened_ what some saw as a metaphor for the legal storm brewing this week over gay marriage.

Georgia's Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments on whether to reinstate a constitutional ban on gay marriages.

"I have a lot of friends that are gay, and I would like to see them enjoy the same kind of equality and benefits as everyone else," said Laura Martin, 25, an Atlanta waitress dressed in black lingerie who rode on an adult novelty shop float featuring a large bed.

Thousands gathered for the 25th Stonewall Columbus parade in Ohio. Michael Eblin, marching in his first parade, followed a black Hummer pulling a float of men. A cross-dresser in a beaded white gown perched atop the vehicle, holding a sign reading "The Closet."

"For the first time, I'm going to be part of a majority," the 18-year-old Eblin said just before the parade began.

A boy along the route wearing blue tie-dye held up a sign: "2 Moms. 2 Dads. Too Cool."

The parades commemorate the Stonewall uprising of 1969, when patrons of a New York gay bar resisted a police raid.

The first attempt to test an entire city for HIV has kicked off in Washington D.C., the US capital, which has the highest HIV infection rate in the United States.

"This is the only attempt to get a whole population of a city to know their HIV status," District of Columbia spokeswoman Marcela Howell told AFP Tuesday.

The six-month effort was expected to cost some eight million dollars to test as many of Washington's 560,000 residents as possible.

The city's call to test residents aged 14-84 raised some eyebrows, especially due to the cost.

"Fourteen is the age many become sexually active," Howell said. "HIV numbers are going up 55 and up, so we're not going to make any arbitrary cutoff as to people's sexual activity."

The campaign is meant to encourage testing and to include HIV screening as part of standard medical checkups.

"We want to make it as routine as blood pressure and diabetes tests," she said.

Howell said there was no single reason the US capital has such a high HIV rate.

"It is a metropolitan city; education has not reached a lot of people about safe sex; poverty. We haven't reached people with enough information," she said, adding that the US Congress, which has direct control over the city, has banned use of local funds for needle exchange programs among drug addicts.

Chip Lewis, a spokesman for the privately funded Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, estimated that one million people in the United States are HIV positive.

"And one third don't know they are HIV positive," Lewis said.

"Once someone comes in and tests positive, their doctor's medical treatment can help them live many years," he said.

Testing HIV positive "is not the death sentence it used to be." HIV is the virus which can lead to AIDS.

The number of HIV/AIDS infections in Iran is far higher than previously thought because of a large rise in intravenous drug use, a health ministry official was quoted as saying.

"About 40,000 of the total number of intravenous drug addicts are infected with HIV," said Iran's deputy health minister, Moayed Alavian on Tuesday.

"If no action is taken against the spread of this disease as quickly as possible, the number of those infected will reach 100,000 by the end of the next Iranian year (March 2008)," he warned.

Officials have given a variety of lower estimates in the past, most recently saying that the number of HIV/AIDS cases stood at around 20,000.

Iran is believed to have at least two million regular drug users -- and possibly as many as 3.5 million -- and Alavian said addiction is growing by around eight percent a year.

Intravenous drug use is believed to be the main cause of infection at 62.3 percent, followed by unknown causes at 27.9 percent and sexual contact at 7.4 percent.

Nestled in a cradle at Moscow's Hospital Number Two, the three-week-old baby girl has no name -- or much of a future.

Born to an HIV-positive mother, she was abandoned at birth and is now destined to grow up in an orphanage.

In fact, the infant has a fair chance of perfect health, since two-thirds of children born of HIV-positive mothers are not themselves infected, although it will take doctors 18 months to make a definite diagnosis, said Yulia Vlastnaya, head of the hospital's child service.

Even so, the nameless, big-eyed baby has already been condemned to a childhood shut away from society. And "as is the case for all children kept in institutions," that in turn means slower development, Vlastnaya said.

There are 2,200 children in Moscow's hospital Number Two and Orphanage Number Seven who were abandoned by HIV-positive mothers. Of them, just 137 have been registered as HIV-positive.

But if tritherapy has made AIDS a manageable disease in rich countries, then Russia, which this year heads the G8 club of industrialised powers, continues to treat the problem as a dangerous taboo.

"The situation is relatively normal in Moscow, but in the regions it's very different. Doctors trade on the ignorance and shame of the infected women and encourage them to have abortions," explained Nina Skibnevskaya, director of Infoshare, a non-governmental organisation providing education on AIDS in Russia.

Those who avoid abortion "do not take care of themselves and abandon their children at birth, because they think they will die and so will the child," she added.

Russia acknowledges that it is far behind in fighting AIDS, with one of the world's largest increases of the epidemic, according to the United Nations organisation UNAIDS.

Igor Pshelin of Steps, another non-governmental organisation fighting AIDS, said this is the result of years of denial.

Nineteen years since the first AIDS case was registered, authorities list 335,000 HIV cases in Russia, although UNAIDS estimates the number to be at least 940,000, including 210,000 women.

For a long time, the principal victims were intravenous drug users. However, 30 to 50 percent of new cases are women, the health ministry says, adding that some 22,000 children born of HIV positive mothers have been officially registered.

The good news, experts say, is that the authorities are finally waking up to the problem.

President Vladimir Putin has put fighting infectious diseases, such as AIDS, at the top of the G8 agenda when leaders meet next month at a summit in Saint-Petersburg.

The 2006 budget includes 105 million dollars (83 million euros) for tackling AIDS, 20 times more than in 2005.

In a recent report, the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies warned that "terrible discrimination" against HIV-carriers in Russia was one of the most serious challenges.

Last month, parents of schoolchildren in a small provincial town near the city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia protested against enrolling three HIV-positive children.

Even in Moscow, where the situation is incomparably better, children of infected mothers are often treated as pariahs.

At Special Centre Number Seven, two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Kremlin, the children, of whom only a minority are contaminated, enjoy good treatment. But they are cocooned from the rest of society, almost as if they did not exist.

"The state does not know what to make of these children. No one wants them, neither adoptive families nor orphanages," Pshelin explained.

"Mentalities begin to change," the center's director Viktor Kreidich said. "Last year we managed to place four kids in an orphanage," he added. "But only after long negotiations."