[NEWS] Global Fund Announces $1.6 Billion More in Funding Over Next 2 Years

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced this week a windfall of $1.6 billion dollars in additional funding available over the next two years. The statement points to “strategic decisions made by the Board,” including cutting staff by a surprising 7.4 percent. The new amount also includes a combined billion dollars in donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Japan. 

This news was roundly celebrated in places like Burma that were dealt a big blow with cuts to the Global Fund last year. The Guardian reports this week that “in a country where nearly 33% of people live below the poverty line, thousands of Burmese are unlikely ever to be able to afford ART, which, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), cost $30 a month.”

[EVENT] Know It, Prove It, Change It, Workshop in DC

keys.jpg

DATE: Sunday, July 22, 2012 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm, optional dinner following

LOCATION: Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC (across from the
Walter E. Washington Convention Center)

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP: Through a hands-on approach, participants will gain a basic understanding of the international human rights framework and how it applies to HIV; core skills in human rights research and documentation, and the basics of human rights advocacy planning. Our training curriculum handbooks will be provided. Our curriculum focuses on rights issues faced by highly marginalized populations in the context of HIV/AIDS. Download the curriculum, Know It, Prove It, Change It here.

(more…)


[REPORT] Employment Discrimination Against People Living with HIV/AIDS and Injection Drug Users (2012)

Employers in China’s Yunnan Province openly discriminate against former drug users living with HIV/AIDS, according to a
joint report released by Asia Catalyst and Kangxin Home, a Chinese community organization.

Staff and volunteers of Kangxin Home interviewed community members and found that many had been fired multiple times from their jobs at small businesses such as auto repair shops, tobacco shops and supermarkets.

(more…)


[NEWS] China’s First Lawsuit against HIV-related Privacy Infringement

Source: China AIDS Email Group

According to the Chinese NGO Zhengzhou City He’rbutong (郑州和而不同), which runs the Aibo Legal Hotline, a district-level court in Wuhan, Hubei Province, has accepted the first case of privacy rights infringement brought forward by a person living with HIV/AIDS. 

The case of 28 year-old plaintiff, Xiao Su, was formally accepted on April 16, 2012. Xiao Su alleges that after renting out an apartment, he was blackmailed by his tenant, Peng, over Xiao Su’s status as a person living with HIV/AIDS, or PLWHA Xiao Su’s court case alleges significant impacts on his personal life after being exposed as a PLWHA in the local community. Xiao Su filed this case with the Han Yang District People’s Court, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, to stop the infringement of his private property and privacy rights. He has demanded an apology and CNY 10,000 RMB [approximately US $1,590] in compensation for psychological damages.

(more…)


[REPORT] Marching on Wall Street

Thumbnail image for ACT_UP_25.JPG

By Mike Frick

On April 25, 2012, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) celebrated its 25th Anniversary by joining forces with Occupy Wall Street to demand a 0.05% tax on financial  transactions to raise funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS. The small tax on Wall Street transactions and speculative trading (also known as the Robin Hood tax) could generate up to 400 billion dollars annually. A broad coalition of activists has called for this money to fund global public goods, including HIV/AIDS treatment, health services, and action against climate change. ACT UP, which emerged in the 1980s to break the silence on America’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, pioneered many of the direct action, non-violent protest tactics that have influenced the more recent Occupy Wall Street movement. Several hundred activists from ACT UP, Occupy Wall Street, Housing Works, and other organizations marched from City Hall to Wall Street, chanting “act up, fight back,” “housing is a human right,” and “we are unstoppable, the end of HIV/AIDS is possible.” Toward the end of the march, police caged demonstrators behind barricades in front of Trinity Church, one block from Zuccotti Park, the site of Occupy Wall Street’s former camp in NYC’s financial district. Earlier in the day, nine ACT UP activists dressed as Robin Hood were arrested for chaining themselves together and disrupting traffic outside the New York Stock Exchange. In a separate demonstration, the police arrested several protestors who set up a mock apartment in the middle of Broadway outside City Hall to call attention to homelessness and HIV/AIDS.

(more…)