Health : New first-line HIV/AIDS drugs 500% more costly, says MSF (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
The use of newer, less toxic first-line HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral combinations, now recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), has raised the cost for patients by nearly 500%, according to a new report by the international medical humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Health : Focus on drug access at HIV/AIDS meet (PRIV)
(IPS, Sydney)
Delegates at a major international conference on HIV and AIDS, unfolding here on 22 July, are expected to urge the developed countries to help guarantee the supply of affordable drugs to combat the virus and the syndrome.

Development : EU confronts its unhealthy policy (PRIV)
(IPS, Brussels)
The European Union's only directly elected institution is at loggerheads with the bloc's 27 governments over a measure officially designed to ensure that poor countries have access to affordable medicines.

Development : "Aid for trade" may cut health, education funds (PRIV)
(IPS, Brussels)
African governments are worried that funds from the European Union (EU) to help them increase their countries' share of world trade could be at the expense of other forms of development aid.

Development : Native peoples renew call for UN recognition (PRIV)
(IPS, New York)
Leaders of the world's 370 million indigenous peoples are reiterating their calls for the 192-member UN General Assembly to recognise their sovereignty over ancestral lands and resources.

United States : Will US finally end cluster bomb exports? (PRIV)
(IPS, Washington)
At the end of June, a few members of the US Congress made a discreet move to limit this country's exports of cluster bombs, a weapon that has been used around the world since the Second World War to devastating humanitarian consequences.