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AIDS: Away With Political Correctness
Professor James Chin 2008-08-13 The biennial AIDS conference ended in Mexico on 8 August with calls for more money and promises to spend it better but UC Berkeley’s James Chin explains why much of that money will be wasted until the AIDS industry honestly accepts the facts: by targetting general populations at extremely low risk, AIDS programs are wasting money that should be spent on high-risk groups.
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Zimbabwe: Justice vs. Reconciliation Rejoice Ngwenya 2008-08-12 Zimbabwe peace talks in Pretoria are due to reach a conclusion this week but will probably drag on a bit longer, even if they turn out to be just another cunning manipulation by Mugabe. One major problem is that international law now makes it impossible for dictators to retire peacefully, either at home or on the Côte d’Azur. Read More »
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"Romantic" AIDS cause diverts needed funds Karol Sikora 2008-08-05 AIDS advocacy has taken money from diseases that kill more people and are easily cured: we need to redress the balance for the benefit of all poor countries and poor patients. Although average global prevalence is much lower, this imbalance applies even in South Africa and other African countries hard-hit by AIDS. Read More »
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Economics can set you free Eamonn Butler 2008-07-29 Adam Smith discovered the economics that make people better off but he is not a household name, unlike Newton or Einstein: this very accessible article explains why Smith’s basically simple tenets work so well and still matter every day, especially in poor countries seeking growth. Eamonn Butler is a Director of the Adam Smith Institute that campaigned for the very first public statue of Adam Smith in the country, unveiled on 4 July (he was sympathetic to American independence) in Edinburgh. Read More »
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Weep not for Doha Daniel Ikenson 2008-07-25 The Doha Round has staggered to a slow death, with dire predictions of what will befall us, but this research shows the cheerful news that trade is expanding massively without the WTO and that unilateral bureaucratic reforms can be even more valuable to trade than tariff reductions. Read More »
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Trusting the African private sector with aid Philip Stevens 2008-07-03 Because it is channeled through corrupt and dysfunctional ministries of health, most foreign aid for health never makes it to patients. Donors should abandon this model and instead take advantage of Africa's massive private sector. Read More »
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Aiding poverty: the G-8's role in Africa's progress
Caroline Boin & Alec van Gelder 2008-07-02 The G8 meeting Hokkaido from 7 to 9 July will inevitably culminate with more calls for more aid to Africa, where US$2.3 trillion over the last 40 years has failed to remove poverty or improve production: there must be a reason that makes poverty perpetual.
Caroline Boin and Alec van Gelder argue that bad policies create bad economies and that aid supports corrupt and incompetent governments as they keep the poor in serfdom - Ethiopia being a particularly nasty example.
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Health tourism can be healthy
Fredrik Erixon and Lucy Davis 2008-06-23 The benefits of trade have for too long been driven away from healthcare by ring-fenced nationalised systems and vested interests. Now evidence suggests that trade can slow the rise in healthcare costs and be a valuable source of revenue for developing countries. Read More »
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How surveys twist rankings on health care Glen Whitman 2008-06-11 Proponents of nationalised healthcare systems frequently refer to the WHO ranking the US system a lowly 37th in the world. Yet how reliable are these rankings? Glen Whitman reveals their faults and underlying, ideological bias. Read More »
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Twelve step programme to poverty Kofi Bentil 2008-06-06 World Environment Day on 5 June offers the poor a tempting formula: developing countries must slow economic growth to avoid becoming eco-vampires like the industrialized economies. Its "Twelve Steps to Help You Kick the CO2 Habit" mean we Africans should be content to live quaintly in our mud huts lit by solar and wind power. Read More »
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How bad government caused the food crisis Julian Morris 2008-05-30 Recent shortages and price rises of staple food in Asia and Latin America have been caused as much by parasitical politicians as by poor harvests. Read More »
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UN’s Russian roulette for poor patients Jeremiah Norris 2008-05-26 Sub-standard AIDS and malaria drugs can cause parasite resistance and clinical failure. Yet the Global Fund has been procuring such drugs for millions of low-income patients. Read More »
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The Food Crisis and Restrictive Trade Practices Thompson Ayodele 2008-05-19 The food crisis in Nigeria and Africa can be linked to inappropriate agricultural policies that have stifled the continent’s great agricultural potential. Over the years nothing has been done to address low yields--on the contrary, it seems as though government has gone out of its way to stifle production: governments remain part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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Myths behind AIDS might lead to billions in misspending James Chin 2008-05-18 Global and regional HIV rates have remained stable or have been decreasing during the past decade except in sub-Saharan Africa; HIV continues to be concentrated in populations with the highest levels of HIV risk behaviors; and HIV is incapable of epidemic spread in the vast majority of heterosexual populations. Let's face the data and put the money where the real problems really are.
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Poor medicine for poor people Roger Bate 2008-05-16 New field research by Africa Fighting Malaria shows that a third of anti-malaria drugs collected in six African cities fail at least one quality test - yet aid agencies continue to fund untested, substandard drugs. Read More »
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Funding for sub-standard drugs Jeremiah Norris 2008-05-15 Sub-standard AIDS and malaria drugs can cause parasite resistance and clinical failure. Yet the Global Fund has been procuring such drugs for millions of low-income patients. Read More »
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Why I am bothered by Neo-Colonialist NGOs Temba A. Nolutshungu 2008-05-03 Soon after the real colonialists left Africa, a new breed of Western colonialists emerged: the statist Non-Governmental Organisations that want to save us from everything from genetically-modified food to globalisation - and growth. They have enormous influence even though their ideologies have failed in their own countries: before taking the neo-colonialists' medicine, we must carefully read the label or suffer nasty side effects.
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Threat to Modern Medicines Philip Stevens 2008-04-28 The WHO’s plans to push subsidised local drug production in Africa threaten to worsen the problem of substandard generics, placing the most vulnerable at risk. Read More »
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Mugabe overstretches voters’ patience Rejoice Ngwenya 2008-04-16 The 18th of April is Zimbabwe’s Day of Independence but, after throwing off white rule, we have still not overthrown one-man rule. Read More »
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Attack on patents hurts the poor Franklin Cudjoe & Alec van Gelder 2008-04-09 The “patients not patents” campaign has a simplistic appeal but will only make things worse for the poor, as well as distracting attention from the real causes of ill health: poverty and corruption. Africans must not let their health and growth be damaged by populist propaganda.
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