There is, however, a very real and far greater global threat that is not getting any where near the oxygen that George W Bush's phoney "war-on-terror" is. AIDS.
What, you thought that issue had just magically gone away. Oh, right! That's 'third world" stuff. No wonder you don't hear about it on Today Tonight.
More than 3.1 million people have died this year from AIDS, including 570,000 children way more than the toll from all natural disasters since last December's tsunami.
In 2005, about 5 million people were infected by HIV globally, the highest jump since the first reported case in 1981 and taking the number living with the virus to a record 40.3 million, the United Nations said.
The 4.9 million new infections were fuelled by the epidemic's continuing rampage in sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the UNAIDS body said in its annual report.
This is a real threat, not some hyped hysterical nonsense that can be effectively policed through criminal law and genuine international cooperation.
The Bush administration's lies, distortions, and fear-mongering is a scandal that will echo down the decades, to our eternal shame for letting them get away with it.
Meanwhile, two decades into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, many parts of the world - including southern Africa and South Asia - knowledge about HIV transmission remains alarmingly low.
The outgoing chief of India's official National Aids Control Organisation, SY Quraishi, says 70 per cent of Indian sex workers either did not know what a condom was or how to use one.
"If the situation remains unchanged, India could have an estimated 50 million HIV cases by 2025," he said.
Perhaps George W Bush thinks a little evangelical missionary work will solve this growing crisis.
George W Bush thinks?!!
Pray harder, people, pray a whole lot harder.
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Comments (5)
Chato
said:
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The future belongs to microbes. Microbes in the dull masses. Microbes in the mass media. Microbes in business. Microbes in government. Microbes in religion. |
misha
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And there I was thinking Bush was the most dangerous virus on earth! But when you're right you're right, Deadlink. Hell, more people have died choking on marmallows than from terrorist attacks. AIDS, or maybe some brand new pandemic (like the reconstructed 1918 flu escaping from a U.S. military lab?) is what the world should be uniting to fight. Too bad the Pope and the Shrub don't believe in using condoms... Too bad George Bush Snr didn't use one! |
misha
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Just read an article of another global threat that's killing people every day on a scale that makes terrorism pale into insignificance" Hunger and malnutrition are killing nearly six million children a year, and more people are malnourished in sub-Saharan Africa this decade than in the 1990s, according to a UN report released today. See here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/wor...92595.html Clearly, our national leaders don't really give a shit about life-threatening issues... unless of course they think they can glean some political mileage out of it... |
Chato
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Surely, the most important thing is to convert all the planet into money. With enough money we can have a great funeral as the whole world is put in a grave. I'm only quoting the Liberal Party. |
monsveneris
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The suffering of millions of poor and disposessed around the world does not even feature on George W Bush's 'to do" list as a side bar... America's only hope for redemption - and the world's only hope for a better future - is the impeachment and crinminal conviction of the current U.S. President and his cronies (Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in particular). |
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