Africa fact of the day

Mobile phones may be a key weapon in the war against HIV and AIDS in Africa, says to the UNAIDS chief.The relatively new technology has a role to play in a continent plagued by inadequate health centres and dilapidated infrastructure, said Michel Sidibe, the executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency."You can talk about different policies, about capacity building, but you can't beat this kind of epidemic with facility-based approach only," he added.

More money, less waste and smarter programmes are urgently needed to consolidate precious gains in the war on AIDS and HIV, UNAIDS said on ahead of the disease's 30th anniversary."The number of people becoming infected and dying is decreasing, but the international resources needed to sustain this progress have declined for the first time in 10 years, despite tremendous unmet needs," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned on Friday.

On March 20th, 2003, one day after the United States and a "Coalition of the Willing" began its military assault of Iraq, China's Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the war.

Leading scientists fighting the world's worst Aids epidemic have called on African leaders to head a month-long sexual abstinence campaign, saying it would substantially reduce new infections. Epidemiologists Alan Whiteside and Justin Parkhurst cite evidence that a newly infected person is most likely to transmit HIV in the month after being exposed to it. An abstinence campaign could cut new infections by up to 45%, they say – a huge step in countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland.

Almost the entire continent of Africa is geographically poorly represented in Wikipedia.

Nek Muhammad knew he was being followed. On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains. He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has called for jihad in Mali, a monitoring group said Tuesday, after four days of suicide attacks and guerrilla fighting in territory French-led forces reclaimed from Islamist rebels.

This is a post to recognize the 40th anniversary of the day in 1971 that President Nixon declared the U.S. government would start waging a "War on Drugs" war on peaceful Americans who chose to use intoxicants not approved of by the U.S. government (HT: Don B.).