Studies showing that people in the poorest African villages take their medicines at a ”stunningly” high percentage are evidence that the poor ”will live if you give them the tools to live”, former United States president Bill Clinton said in Toronto on Monday. Clinton and Microsoft head Bill Gates discussed Aids issues at the International Aids Conference.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang opened the South African Aids exhibition to a background of brightly coloured displays at the International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada, on Sunday. The exhibition showcases garlic, lemon and beetroot. The minister will be in Toronto until Thursday.
The power to prevent HIV should be put in the hands of women, who depend on men to use a condom and can’t always choose to abstain, Bill Gates told thousands of delegates to the International Aids Conference in Toronto on Sunday. ”We need tools that will allow women to protect themselves,” Gates said.
Good nutrition could be the only available life-prolonging alternative to people living with HIV/Aids in rural areas, a senior officer for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday. He said the South African Department of Health can ”do more and do better” when it comes to fighting HIV/Aids.
Creating jobs without damaging the environment was the only way to guarantee workers’ livelihoods, a conference in Johannesburg heard on Friday. About 80 trade union leaders from 22 African countries were meeting with environmentalists for a two-day conference to examine connections between poverty and environmental damage and how these affected workers.
Tightening South Africa’s porous borders to prevent the influx of illegal immigrants is futile if economic problems in neighbouring countries are not dealt with, Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday. The minister also admitted to ongoing corruption in her department, despite efforts to curb it.
The death of a female leopard three days after she tore herself from a gin trap in the Eastern Cape has reignited debate around what some conservationists call ”barbaric weapons”. The leopard tore free from the trap and was on the loose in the Baviaanskloof area for at least three days with the trap still attached to her paw.
A nationwide strike on Thursday could have cost the economy over R2-billion and defeated the aims of striking unions, business and economists said. The strike would have had a negative impact on job creation and poverty alleviation, said chief operations officer at the Business Unity of South Africa, Vic van Vuuren.
The wreckage of a Cessna 172 that went missing after leaving South Africa was found in the Abjaterskop area outside the Madikwe Game Reserve in Botswana on Friday. The only occupant of the plane was found dead. This accident is the latest in a spate of tragedies involving South African aircraft.
Four of five life rafts spotted by a rescue aircraft searching for missing crew of the Alexandros T were found to be empty, search-and-rescue officials said on Thursday. One person was rescued from a life raft at about 10am, bringing the total number of crew rescued to seven. Twenty-six crew members are still missing.