Which provides the best health service, the 'American' model or the 'European' model? According to a report by the UK Institute of Development Studies, neither example is useful for countries undergoing rapid social change. For countries like China and South Africa, these dominant models are too static and fail to take into account constantly changing social and
political realities.

In the second installment of a four-part series on AIDS in Africa, "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" reporter Elizabeth Farnsworth examines the AIDS crisis in Botswana, where nearly 36% of sexually active adults are HIV-positive and some estimate that the country's overall life expectancy has been reduced by 20 to 40 years.

The postgraduate Masters Programme is a flexible modular degree programme for full-time or part-time study, consisting of an introductory core course, specialised optional modules in different tracks and a research project submitted as a thesis. The programme is organised within the TropEd European Network for Education in Interna-
tional Health, an association of 26 universities in 13 European countries and collaborating institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The core course and two optional modules are presently offered at Humboldt University. Further optional modules can be selected from a list of more than 100 courses offered by the TropEd partner institutions. Winter Semester: 10th September 2001 (Introductory week: 2nd September 2001)

Call for Letters of Intent. Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research Second Round 2001-2002 Deadline: 29 June 2001. Two types of grants will be awarded. Applicants must be enrolled in a Masters or Doctorate programme.

A growing number of civil society groups Saturday urged detained students of the University of Niamey to end their two-week hunger strike. In a press briefing, the groups called on political parties, trade unions and associations to mobilise and join a protest march planned for Sunday in Niamey. The march is meant to urge the government to settle the crisis at the university, which began after a confrontation between the security forces and the students on 21 February.

Prof. Mesfin Wolde-Mariam and Dr. Berhanu Nega who have been detained by police since Tuesday (May 8, 2001) appeared before court on Wednesday (May 9, 2001) as the 5th Criminal Bench of the Federal High Court ordered the two academics to remain under police custody until May 18, 2001.

Africa Action today denounced the Bush Administration's proposal to contribute a meager $200 million to a global fund for HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases now being established through the United Nations. Responding to the White House's announcement that it would contribute only $200 million dollars for the proposed $10 billion U.N. fund, Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action, said "In the face of what will soon be the worst plague in human history, it's tragic that the richest country in human history is unwilling to contribute its fair share to finance the solution!"

Yesterday's public announcement by an ANC MP that her daughter is HIV positive has been welcomed by many as the first step towards breaking the silence and denial surrounding the disease in South Africa. Ruth Bhengu told a hushed National Assembly that her daughter is HIV positive and appealed to parliamentarians to stop politicising the problem.

Harare Central Hospital had run out of essential drugs, resulting in patient deaths, especially among infants, the hospital's superintendent, Dr Chris Tapfumaneyi, was quoted as saying in the 'Daily News' on Friday. The hospital serves the majority of patients from poor and working class families. Children under five are treated free of charge at the hospital.

More than five children are dying each day from malnutrition in the city of Camapuca in Angola's central Bie province. "We are really shocked by the level of malnutrition that we are discovering in Camacupa. We are doing as much as we can to reduce mortality through our feeding centres, but this is not enough. People need urgently a general food distribution," Erwin Van der Borght, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) head of mission in Angola, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Giving iron supplements and doses of anti-malarial drugs to children under a year old in Tanzania has more than halved the number of cases of severe malaria. That is the finding of research published in the medical journal The Lancet which studied a World Health Organisation (WHO) immunisation programme distributing the medication.

South Africa is now committed to a constitutional democracy whose labour laws exceed ILO conventions, yet little improvement has been made in the quality of life of farm workers. Given that relationships between producers and workers are traditionally exploitative and paternalistic, where public regulation internationally and nationally has failed to shift this power imbalance, how can private regulation benefit farm workers? How can ethical trade in agricultural goods improve employment conditions?

The Prime Minister's Cabinet Office in the UK is working on a project to develop a more effective approach to reducing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria in developing countries, identify which policy measures might best deliver solutions at an affordable price to developing countries and produce a framework for a more effective partnership between governments and the private sector, including the pharmaceutical industry and the voluntary sector, to combat these diseases in developing countries.

A crisis in the availability of reproductive health supplies, in particular contraceptives and condoms for HIV/AIDS prevention, is threatening human rights and the realization of the goals of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, delegates at "Meeting the Reproductive Health Challenge: Securing Contraceptives and Condoms for HIV/AIDS Prevention," conference in Istanbul heard (3-5 May 2001).

Powell Announces Trip to Africa to 'Highlight U.S. Concern' over HIV/AIDS; NIAID Announces Plan to Combat 'Deadly Troika' of HIV, Malaria, TB; Botswana Goes from 'Hopeless to Hopeful' with Arrival of Free AIDS Drugs; Annan Meets With U.S. Officials to Discuss AIDS Trust Fund; Actress Elizabeth Taylor Discusses AIDS Activism in AOL Chat.

More than 80 percent of blood donated by students and teachers in Kenya's Nyanza Province schools has the HIV virus that causes AIDS, according to health officials. Nyanza Provincial Commissioner, Peter Raburu, said that despite extensive sensitisation campaigns in the region, the rate at which pupils were contracting the disease was worrying.

One of the world's major pharmaceutical companies, which stopped making the only safe medicine for the late, fatal, stage of sleeping sickness because it could not make a profit from it, has agreed to donate the drug, following a public outcry over shortages of medicines in Africa.

Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and Thabo Mbeki - all three helped to find a dignified way out for the pharmaceutical giants. The finale on 19 April 2001 was described as an "amicable settlement." For some of those following the case closely, the end was a sort of anti-climax. It took the pharmaceutical industry three years to withdraw a case it had filed in the first place. There was no judgement. But had there been a judgement, which many expected to be in favour of the government, the world would have had an opportunity to examine what exactly the government had to say in defence of its TRIPS-compliant public health action and the arguments that industry advanced to protect its patents, an international right conferred by the WTO's Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement.

Ben Skosana, the Correctional Services Minister, is to visit the Durban Westville Prison in Kwazulu-Natal today where some 2 800 prisoners have been placed under quarantine. The quarantine measure follows the treatment of about 600 prisoners for cholera-related symptoms within the maximum security section since April 28.

COSATU welcomes the move by the South African Chamber of Business and Anglo American to provide cheap anti-Aids drugs to suffering employees. We view this as a huge step by the Business sector in the fight against this pandemic – something that the federation has been calling for. This is also part of the implementation of what Cosatu fought for at the Pretoria High Court against the international drug giants.