africa: AFRICAN AIDS PROGRAMME THREATENED

The U.S. government has cut off funds to an AIDS programme for refugees in Africa - six weeks after President George Bush toured the continent promising to fight AIDS and launching a US$15 billion initiative. The U.S. objects to one of the aid agencies involved, Marie Stopes International, which runs family planning programmes in China. Organisations that work on reproductive health and AIDS argue that the decision betrays the Bush administration's wider hostility to abortion. Its commitment to a rightwing Christian agenda has led to its promotion of abstinence rather than condoms as a strategy against HIV/AIDS.