Christopher Lisotta, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network

SUMMARY: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is threatening to withhold funds from the San Francisco-based Stop AIDS Project over its safe sex workshops.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is once again threatening to withhold funding from the San Francisco-based Stop AIDS Project, accusing the nonprofit of promoting sexual activity through its safe sex workshops.

In a June 13 letter sent by Sandra Manning, the director of the CDC's Procurement and Funding Office, the federal agency told the group it was violating the Public Health Services Act due to three of its workshops: "In Our Prime: Men for Hire," which discussed seven guidelines for safe and friendly relations with escorts; "Bootylicious," which discussed ways to better enjoy anal sex; and "Oral Sex=Safe Sex?" which talked about how safe oral sex was in terms of HIV transmission.

"It's pretty confounding to us," Stop AIDS Communications Director Shana Naomi Krochmal told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "We are doing the same work we were doing four months ago when the CDC said we were using current effective models of HIV prevention. We're doing the same work we were doing six months ago when a Department of Health and Human Services audit proved we weren't doing anything wrong."

Stop AIDS' struggles with the CDC began more than two years ago, when then-inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Janet Rehnquist audited the group. Stop AIDS was found to be in compliance, and Rehnquist (daughter of Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist) ended up resigning from her HHS position under a cloud of controversy that led to a congressional investigation.

In August 2002 the CDC sent a team of investigators to San Francisco to see if the Stop AIDS prevention workshops were scientifically sound and consistent with U.S. government guidelines for AIDS-related materials.

In February, CDC director Julie Gerberding wrote a letter to Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who has been a critic of Stop AIDS Project and similar programs in the past, and said the investigators found "the design and delivery of Stop AIDS prevention activities was based on current accepted behavioral science in the area of health promotion."

"We do workshops that target gay and bi men in San Francisco," Krochmal said. "They are conversational. It's not like any of these were live demonstrations."

The CDC provides about $600,000 of Stop AIDS' almost $2 million annual budget. Krochmal explained that Stop AIDS is focused on helping men build communication skills and self-esteem so they can better negotiate safer sex.

"That makes it pretty clear this isn't about public health or about effective prevention," Krochmal said. "This is about politics."

By Wambui Chege

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - A meeting between the top AIDS advisory body to the South African government and activists Saturday ended with no word on a long-awaited decision on when the state would roll out life-saving AIDS drugs.

But leading lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) claimed a small victory after the meeting with the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), saying the government's adviser had recognized the urgency of the plight of HIV/AIDS victims in the country.

South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, estimated at 4.7 million or about a tenth of the world's infected.

But AIDS groups have criticized South Africa's government for moving too slowly on the disease and refusing to provide the life-saving drugs, which it says are too dangerous and costly.

Deputy President Jacob Zuma said in a statement the government was at an advanced stage of dealing with a report by a state-appointed team examining the feasibility of providing anti-retrovirals within the public health system.

Zuma said a decision would be announced as soon as possible.

"From our point of view, this is a breaking of a log-jam and we hope that government will act very urgently," TAC Chairman Zackie Achmat said.

Thousands of AIDS activists suspended a nationwide civil disobedience campaign ahead of a meeting in May at which they hoped the government would agree to provide the drugs.

But the government has dragged its feet, despite the report by the team of health and finance ministry officials, which local media said came out in favor of a national anti-retroviral drugs program phased in over five years.

AIDS groups say about 600 South Africans die each day from the disease, which U.N. officials say will cost the country an estimated $22 billion in lost economic development by 2010.

"We really are giving the government its last opportunity. I can tell you over the next few weeks, we will move heaven and earth to make sure we have a national treatment plan," Achmat said.

Achmat, who is HIV-positive, has refused to take anti-retrovirals until the government changes its mind. The triple-therapy drug cocktails are available privately or for those with medical aid, putting them out of reach of many ordinary South Africans.

By Walter Shapiro

NEW YORK -- Finishing her two-year master's program at Oxford University, Chelsea Clinton recently invited her father to read her thesis. He has some familiarity with her topic: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Sensitive to history's verdict about his record on AIDS and everything else, Bill Clinton asked, ''How do I come out?''

Back came the answer: ''You didn't do near enough.'' Then combining the antithetical roles of scholar and dutiful daughter, the youngest Clinton added, ''But you did more than anybody else in the whole world, so you come out OK.''

The 42nd president, looking tanned and slimmed-down, told that story Monday at his office in Harlem during a small, invitation-only news briefing devoted exclusively to AIDS. At a time of frenzied book-promotion interest in all matters Clinton, it was intriguing to see the prior occupant of the Oval Office back in action, despite the one-subject ground rules. But in a curious way, the hour-long discussion of the Clinton Foundation's efforts to take a central role in the global struggle against AIDS revealed more about the former president in retirement than any of the television interviews with best-selling author Hillary Rodham Clinton.

No topic aside from terrorism is more fraught with if-onlys than the failure of the world community to do more to slow the spread of AIDS. ''In my second term,'' Clinton said with defensiveness audible in his tone, ''we tripled what we were spending overseas on AIDS, and it was not nearly enough.'' Clinton offered his excuses: ''Keep in mind, I also had a Congress that loathed foreign assistance.'' But even though he insisted ''the last two years (in office), I was really into this big time,'' he added, ''but when I left, I realized that we had more to do and I wanted to do more.''

It is hard to decipher whether Clinton is primarily motivated by guilt, restlessness or the awareness that AIDS is a problem worthy of his underutilized talents and energy. What is indisputable is that Clinton over the past year has been assembling the resources to become a major player in the global AIDS battle. With $200 million from the governments of Canada and Ireland and with the hope of attracting $750 million in governmental and private funding, Clinton talks expansively about treating 700,000 AIDS patients in Africa and the Caribbean over the next five years.

Clinton haters, of course, will snarl that their opinion of the former president would not change even if he devoted the rest of his life to washing the feet of lepers. But for the rest of us, Clinton remains the embodiment of the complexity of human character. Laudable behavior is not the exclusive province of living saints. There is no contradiction in simultaneously remembering Clinton's flaws and being roused by his praiseworthy work against AIDS.

Yes, the Bush administration recently won initial congressional approval of its goal of contributing $15 billion over five years to the global AIDS fight. And United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is struggling to raise billions in international support for the Global Fund. But rather than merely adding redundancy to these worldwide efforts, the Clinton Foundation is building on the former president's unique grasp of the complex intersection of politics and policy.

Clinton cited an early success that flowed from the foundation's work in the Bahamas. Even though the major drug companies now permit the manufacture of generic versions of anti-retrovirals to treat AIDS symptoms, the cost of this medication in the Bahamas still was $3,500 a year for each patient. A team from the Clinton Foundation discovered the reason for this inflated price: The Bahamian government was buying generics through two layers of middlemen. Arrangements were made to purchase the drugs directly from the manufacturer in India, slashing the cost to $500 a year.

Whether it is global or local, it all comes down to politics. Clinton said one of his major strengths as an advocate in the AIDS fight is his leverage with the leaders of the disease-ravaged nations ''to convince them that they should make this a priority and, if they do, they will prevail.'' Clinton offered a compelling political theory why the leaders of so many African countries heedlessly resisted acknowledging the epidemic. ''A lot of people were in denial,'' Clinton said, ''because if they got out of denial, they figured they couldn't solve it.''

This observation was delivered in the context of Clinton offering an autobiographical aside about how successful presidents pick their priorities. In Clinton's somewhat cynical view, the trick is to choose not the most pressing issue, but the most politically attainable. Harking back to the dispirited period after the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, Clinton recalled that an unnamed old Washington hand phoned to say, ''Relax, you've got that job, you've got a certain authority. Just show up and start winning again.''

These days, Clinton doesn't really have a job, but he is blessed with a certain authority, especially abroad. It is telling that he has decided to show up and to play his part in trying to win the struggle to contain the most devastating epidemic of modern times.

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Leading human rights and aid agencies called the situation in Congo one of the world's largest humanitarian tragedies and demanded urgent action to halt the sexual abuse and forced recruitment of children.

In a 36-page report, a network of agencies called on all parties in Congo's war to uphold international treaties to protect children's rights.

They urged the international community, especially the U.N. Security Council, "to work vigorously to ensure the end of abuses against Congolese children and adolescents" and ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.

"Gross atrocities are being committed against children every day in Congo," said Julia Freedson, coordinator of the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a grouping of local and international aid and human rights groups.

Before the war in Congo began in 1998, "the situation was not rosy," she said. "However, when you look at the statistics compiled in this report we can see a dramatic deterioration in areas like access to health care, like access to education."

The Watchlist also called for international donors to fund programs to improve the security and rights of Congolese children. Last year's U.N. appeal received only 40 percent of the $202 million requested for Congo and the agencies said this year's appeal for $268 million "did not appear to be faring better."

"This remains the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet right now with the smallest amount of response," said Anne Edgerton of Refugees International.

While the situation in Ituri district in northeast Congo has garnered world attention, Freedson said the report documents "the dire circumstances for children and adolescents throughout Congo."

It cites evidence of the spread of HIV and AIDS, children's forced participation in the illegal exploitation of natural resources, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and widespread violence against women and girls including rape of young girls.

A recent UNICEF report suggested that up to 20 percent of Congo's 51 million people may be infected with the HIV virus. The report noted that "many infections occur as a result of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls."

"In conflict zones, especially in eastern Congo, sexual violence against women and girls is rampant and used as a weapon of war by most forces involved in conflict," the report said.

Kathleen Hunt of Care International said the Watchlist want the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo to be expanded to protect civilians "in a more robust way," including protecting women and girls from rape. It also wants the council to deploy all 8,700 U.N. peacekeepers authorized for Congo.

According to the report, tens of thousands of child soldiers — boys and girls — are recruited and used by all parties to conflict. Ten parties to the conflict were named by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as recruiters and users of child soldiers in 2002.

The Watchlist is led by six-member steering committee: Care International, The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, International Save The Children Alliance, Norwegian Refugee Council, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and World Vision International.

BRAZZAVILLE (AFP) - Three in four young people in Congo claim to practice safe sex to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), according to official survey results.

Seventy-three percent of 13- to 24-year-olds surveyed in the central African country claimed to use a condom during sex, according to a poll of 2,423 people conducted in December 2002 by the Congolese government with United Nations support.

Some 76.8 percent of men claimed to practice safe sex, compared to 67.66 percent of women respondents.

Asked whether they used a condom in their current relationship, 87.3 percent of men answered yes, compared to 76.17 percent of women.

Asked specifically about the HIV virus and AIDS, 83.24 percent of people claimed to be aware of the epidemic and how to protect themselves from it.

More than half of respondents said they often travelled to hospital in case of a sexually-transmitted infection, while others relied on self-medication or traditional remedies.

Some 70 percent of respondents believed condoms to be the safest protection against STDs, while 16 percent believed sexual faithfulness was the key to sexual health and seven percent opted for abstinence.

Congolese health ministry figures suggest that the overall AIDS infection rate in the country is seven percent, although the figure jumps to almost 14 percent in the Atlantic port city of Pointe-Noire.

The survey was carried out in the main towns across Congo's 10 regions, representing more than half of the country's population of three million.

By VERENA VON DERSCHAU, Associated Press Writer

PARIS - France's highest court on Wednesday threw out cases against 30 medics accused of giving patients AIDS -tainted blood, a decade-old scandal that shook the public health establishment.

More than 4,000 people, mainly hemophiliacs, were infected by blood products tainted with the HIV virus. Several hundred have died.

The 30 defendants had been charged with poisoning or complicity in poisoning and involuntary homicide or injury.

In its ruling, the court determined that doctors who prescribed tainted blood products before 1985 could not be accused of poisoning because they did not have "knowledge of the necessarily deadly character" of the products, which came from the state-run National Center for Blood Transfusions.

Victims and their families immediately protested the decision.

"Cowards!" shouted the mother of Yves Bertran-Miret, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS from tainted blood products. "It's shameful. French justice is rotten."

The court also ruled that a crime can only be characterized as a poisoning if the person in question "acted with the intention to kill."

As for involuntary homicide and injury, the court ruled that the "initial contamination" occurred before U.S. and French AIDS tests were available and before the state-run National Blood Transfusion Center "to continue to distribute infected lots."

In a 1999 ruling in the scandal, a special court acquitted former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix on charges of manslaughter. Former Health Minister Edmond Herve was convicted but never punished in what was the most spectacular of three trials over the tainted blood scandal.

PORTO CARRAS, Greece (AFP) - European leaders are set to pledge one billion euros next year to a global fund to fight HIV/AIDS, turberculosis and malaria, according to a draft final summit statement.

The statement, under discussion by EU leaders meeting here until Saturday, calls on "each member state and the (European) Commission to make a substantial contribution, on a long-term basis, to the financing of the Fund so that it will receive up to one billion euros from the European Union in 2004".

The move follows a US initiative to grant 15 billion dollars over five years to the fight against AIDS, of which five billion dollars will be ploughed in to the Global Fund.

Set up in early 2002 at the initiative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria appealed earlier this month for three billion dollars (2.5 billion euros) by the end of next year.

Some six million people die every year from AIDS, TB or malaria, according to fund organisers.