AIDS Is A Politic Problem ?

[Rasputin]

Grand Ambitions

Thiel had grand ambitions for the company. ``PayPal was the new currency for the world economy,'' he says. Like many young dot- commers, he believed the Internet would empower the individual. For Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: It would enable people to s***t currency controls and move money around the globe.

Before Thiel could change the world, however, he had to guide PayPal through life-threatening challenges. Russian hackers were stealing millions from the company. Credit card companies were claiming PayPal was violating their rules. By early 2000, PayPal had only enough money to stay afloat for eight weeks and was losing more than $10 million a month, according to Luke Nosek, a former PayPaldirector of strategy.

That March, as the Nasdaq Composite Index roared its way to a record 5,048, Thiel set out to raise money from venture capital investors. Dot-com fever was running high, and VCs valued the money-losing PayPal at $500 million.

``Everyone thought that wasn't high enough,'' Sacks says.

Nasdaq Bust

Everyone except Thiel. He looked at the Nasdaq frenzy and concluded the dot-com bubble was about to pop. He seized his opportunity. Based on the $500 million valuation, Thiel raised $100 million, more than his colleagues had planned, and closed the deal in three weeks, on March 31, 2000.

He was just in time. The next day, the Nasdaq began a plunge that would eventually send it tumbling 67 percent in 18 months.

``If he hadn't made that call, the company wouldn't be around today,'' Howery says of Thiel.

By mid-2001, Thiel had positioned the company as the pre- eminent Web payment service and was contemplating an initial public offering. He registered for the IPO just weeks after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

The day PayPal stock began trading, Feb. 15, 2002, the shares soared 55 percent. Out in the parking lot of PayPal's Palo Alto offices, Thiel and his crew celebrated by doing ``keg stands.'' That's when you're held upside down over a running beer keg and chug as much of the flowing brew as you can. Thiel raced around playing 10 games of speed chess simultaneously. He won all but one, against his Stanford buddy Sacks. Thiel, who says he hates to lose at anything, swept the pieces off the board.

``Peter smashed the pieces,'' Sacks recalls. Thiel doesn't apologize for his competitive streak. When someone calls him a bad loser, he replies, ``Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.''

EBay Comes Knocking

Thiel won big with PayPal. Eight months later, in October 2002, EBay agreed to buy the company for $1.5 billion.

The PayPal crew cashed-in and moved on. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim founded video-sharing Web site YouTube Inc. and sold it to Google Inc. in October for $1.65 billion. Levchin went off and founded Slide, a photo-sharing site.

Executive Vice President Reid Hoffman founded Linked-In Corp., a business networking site. Vice President Jeremy Stoppelman created Yelp, a site that helps people find restaurants, shops and other businesses in their area. And Thiel went back to hedge funds and founded Clarium.

PayPal Veterans

Thiel has invested in several of his former employees' startups through a $50 million venture capital firm, the Founders Fund, which is run by Howery and Nosek. Thiel says he regrets not having invested in YouTube. ``It kind of fell through the cracks,'' he says. Thiel has high hopes for Facebook, however. ``It is the largest independent Web 2.0 company,'' says Thiel, who's one of three Facebook board members.

Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook with zero business experience, calls Thiel a mentor. ``He helped shape the way I think about the business,'' Zuckerberg, 22, says. When Thiel backed the startup in 2004, he told Zuckerberg to move to Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and did just that. If Facebook one day pulls off a deal like YouTube's, Thiel would pocket about $100 million.

On a cloudy September afternoon, Thiel is picking at a chicken pesto salad in his 32nd-floor apartment on the Upper East Side of New York, explaining his plan for Clarium.

``Our long-term goal is to rehabilitate the more classical approach to qualitative investing,'' Thiel says. ``Nowadays, people think everything is mathematical or that everything is just noise and random. There is no in-between space.''

[Rasputin]

Religious response to AIDS

The Faith Forum on Tuesday featured speakers Father Joseph O'Brien, executive director of AIDS outreach at the Saint Therese Center and representative from Catholic Newman Center, Pastor Ralph Supper from the Community Lutheran Church, Dr. Sayed Qazi, representative from the Muslim Student Association, Art Gafke from the Protestant Campus Ministry and moderator Joe Valenzano, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication.

They each represented a different background and religion, but each of them discussed the calling they have from God to respond to the AIDS pandemic.

O'Brien said that, when the outbreak of AIDS first started to surface, it created a tremendous amount of ignorance and fear, including within himself.

Such ignorance included the nickname "gay cancer" and statements such as "God is punishing you because you are gay."

"When the pandemic started, we did not know what was going on," O'Brien said. "All we knew is people were dying."

Supper explained ignorance can lead to great changes, which indeed it did.

Despite shared ignorance about AIDS, action started to form at a grassroots level within churches.

"We have a higher calling," Supper said. "We can either follow Christ or follow our ignorance."

O'Brien told his story about starting AIDS outreach. He said he moved to San Francisco and met people he knew he would be burying in six months.

He even discussed encounters with women and children who were not homosexual yet had the virus.

"How can I say to them this is God's will," O'Brien said.

Qazi added that God will eventually ask, "Did you accept my people?"

Qazi brought home his point through the story of a man who turned away three people, each of them that was in a state of brokenness such as homelessness and poverty, each asking for help. On judgment day, he was told by God that he turned away God when he himself was in that state of brokenness.

The man was confused and asked God how could he, God Almighty, be in a state of brokenness.

God said the man turned him away by turning His people away who were broken.

The story was related back to the AIDS pandemic and how all people of religion are called to help.

Even though it "took a while to gear up," Gafke said, organizations began to take charge.

Qazi said that Uganda called for a Jihad on AIDS, portraying the different Muslim responses to the epidemic.

Supper said 1994 is when the grassroots effort to stop AIDS truly began to take off, but by the year 2000, after the United States' own celebrities and athletes were diagnosed, the country had a well-developed program.

The panelists then began to discuss bringing the benefits of their efforts to other countries not as fortunate as the United States.

"What's going on in the Unites States is horrendous," O'Brien said. "What's happening in Africa is horrendous."

Qazi said that most Muslims don't live in resourceful countries such as the United States.

In countries such as Saudi Arabia, the topic of AIDS goes ignored. Qazi said Sadie Arabia won't own up to their problem.

However the approach of AIDS is different in Iran. The country knows its people will practice drug use, so clinics offer free, clean needles to hand out to the people of Iran.

He also said if two people go to obtain a marriage license, a mandatory HIV test and counseling session is required.

Valenzano gave a scenario of leper colonies being segregated back in ancient times, which led to questions about people with AIDS being segregated, as some people have wanted, and how suffering has helped bring whole communities together.

O'Brien said, usually when people are infected and find out, he has seen them put their lives together and gain a more spiritual connection with God.

Gafke explained AIDS had a positive effect on the medical field, as strange as it may sound at first. He said that medical practitioners take better precautions, not only when it comes to AIDS but other diseases as well. He added that doctors treat everyone like they have HIV in order to be as accurate and as cautious as possible.

Supper explained that discrimination is not the way to go. He said the religious community is called to be the connectors between those infected and those who are not aware of what AIDS really is and to help educate everyone.

"If we are not educated on someone's history, it leads to discrimination," Supper said.

"In my mind, there is not going to be a silver bullet solution to this problem," Qazi added.

"The one thing that stands between an HIV-infected person and the church is a welcome mat," O'Brien said.

[Rasputin]

Opium war a battle for soul of Afghanistan

When NATO leaders meet for their summit in Riga, Latvia, at the end of this month, there will be a ghost at the feast: Afghani-stan's opium. Afghanistan is in danger of falling back into the hands of terrorists, insurgents and criminals, and the multi-billion-dollar opium trade is at the heart of the country's malaise. Indeed, NATO's top general, US Marine General James Jones, has called drugs the "Achilles heel" of Afghanistan.

This year's record harvest of 5,534 tonnes of opium will generate more than US$3 billion in illicit revenue -- equivalent to almost half of Afghanistan's GDP. Profits for drug traffickers downstream will be almost 20 times that amount.

Opium money is corrupting Afghan society from top to bottom. High-level collusion enables thousands of tonnes of chemical precursors, needed to produce heroin, to be trucked into the country. Armed convoys transport raw opium around the country unhindered. Sometimes even army and police vehicles are involved. Guns and bribes ensure that the trucks are waved through checkpoints. Opiates flow freely across borders into Iran, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries.

PAYOFFS

The opium fields of wealthy landowners are untouched, because local officials are paid off. Major traffickers never come to trial because judges are bribed or intimidated. Senior government officials take their cut of opium revenues or bribes in return for keeping quiet. Perversely, some provincial governors and government officials are themselves major players in the drug trade. As a result, the Afghan state is at risk of takeover by a malign coalition of extremists, criminals, and opportunists. Opium is choking Afghan society.

Within Afghanistan, drug addiction is rising. Neighbors that used to be transit states for drugs are now major consumers, owing to similar dramatic increases in opium and heroin addiction. Intravenous drug use is spreading HIV/AIDS in Iran, Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. In traditional Western European markets, health officials should brace for a rise in the number of deaths from drug overdoses, as this year's bumper opium crop will lead to higher-purity doses of heroin.

REMEDIES

What can be done?

First, the veil of corruption in Afghanistan must be lifted. Afghans are fed up with arrogant and well-armed tycoons who live in mansions and drive top-of-the range Mercedes limousines -- this in a country where barely 13 percent of the population have electricity and most people must survive on less than US$200 a year.

It is time for the Afghan government to name, shame and sack corrupt officials, arrest major drug traffickers and opium landlords, and seize their assets. Donors have trained police and prosecutors and built courts and detention centers. Now it is up to the government to use the judicial system to impose the rule of law.

It will be difficult, but not impossible, to re-establish confidence in the central government. Putting major drug traffickers behind bars at the new maximum-security prison at Pul-i-Charki, near Kabul, would be a good start.

Of course, Afghanistan does not bear sole responsibility for its plight. The heroin trade would not be booming if Western governments were serious about combating drug consumption. It is a bitter irony that the countries whose soldiers' lives are on the line in Afghanistan are also the biggest markets for Afghan heroin.

JOINT EFFORT

Furthermore, Afghanistan's neighbors must do more to stop insurgents, weapons, money and chemical precursors from flowing across their borders into the country.

Coalition forces should take a more robust approach to the drug problem. counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency are two sides of the same coin. Improving security and the rule of law must include destroying the opium trade. Allowing opium traffickers to operate with impunity gives them a free hand to raise money to pay for the arms and fighters battling the Afghan army and NATO forces.

The UN Security Council has authorized the International Security Assistance Force to take all necessary measures to fulfill its mandate. NATO troops should be given the green light to help the Afghan army fight opium -- destroy the heroin labs, disband the opium bazaars, attack the opium convoys, and bring the big traders to justice. And they should be given the tools and manpower to do the job. There is no point in trying to win the hearts and minds of major drug traffickers.

DEVELOPMENT

Farmers are a different story. Forced eradication risks pushing farmers into the hands of extremists, and thus will not lead to the sustainable reduction of opium fields. Indeed, as we have seen in some Andean countries, it can be counter-productive. Therefore, security and development must go hand in hand.

To achieve this, Afghanistan needs more development assistance. International support so far has been generous, but it is still well below per capita equivalents for other post-conflict situations -- and the need is much greater. Farmers will be weaned off opium over the long term only if they have sustainable livelihoods.

At the moment, the drug lords of Afghanistan are prospering, and rural communities are suffering. That situation needs to be reversed. We must punish the traffickers and reward the farmers.

We cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan. Recent history has given us graphic evidence of what would happen if we do. But any solution in Afghanistan depends on eliminating its opium.

[Rasputin]

An HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program in Iran founded by two local physicians is providing antiretroviral drugs and clean needles to HIV-positive people in the country, the Washington Post reports. The program -- which was founded in 1997 by Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei and initially treated about one patient per week -- operates 70 clinics throughout the country. The program has been featured on the World Health Organization's Web site and commended for its "best practices," the Post reports. In addition, Iran's Disease Management Center solicited a five-year plan to fund the program -- which has drawn $3 million annually from the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Clinton Foundation; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and several countries. The Iranian government also will provide $8 million to $12 million annually, Arash Alaei said. According to Arash Alaei, 68% of HIV-positive individuals in Iran have "a history of needle-sharing," and the program has begun to distribute sterilized, disposable needles and to reduce the spread of HIV. In addition, the program this year launched a media campaign that provides lectures and pamphlets about HIV to high school students. Arash Alaei, along with 14 other Iranian physicians, last week visited Washington, D.C., to participate in discussions -- hosted by the Aspen Institute -- about the American and Iranian health systems .

[Rasputin]

[Sepideh_UK]

Intresting....
Thanx alot Agha Siamak.

[Khorsheed]

hello redwine . .i would like you to tell me the websites from you get the hiv articles.. i need them for a class. . .

[Rasputin]

hello redwine . .i would like you to tell me the websites from you get the hiv articles.. i need them for a class. . .

Read your PM my dear :=) .

[Khorsheed]

yes. . thanks

[Rasputin]

AIDS Test Obligatory Before Marriage in China

BEIJING- A Chinese province which has been ravaged by AIDS plans to force all couples in the worst-hit areas to take compulsory HIV tests before being married, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.


The results of the free tests in Yunnan, obligatory from January 1, will be given by health authorities to the would-be spouse of anyone who tests positive and does not tell their partner.

The rules are part of new AIDS prevention and control laws passed by the regional legislature, with target areas specified by health authorities at a later date.

At the end of September Yunnan had 47,314 people officially living with HIV or AIDS -- or a quarter of the national total, Xinhua said. Located near the heroin-producing Golden Triangle, it became an AIDS hotspot because of intravenous drugs use.

"In a province like Yunnan where AIDS is prevalent, the new regulation can better safeguard the rights of people who are susceptible to HIV infection," the report quoted Zhang Changan, director of the office of the Provincial Committee for AIDS Prevention and Control, as saying.

The Health Ministry said last week that the reported number of Chinese HIV/AIDS cases at the end of October was 183,733, up from 144,089 at the end of 2005, but both Beijing and the United Nations estimate the true number of cases at about 650,000.

[Sepideh_UK]

loool
cool...
its actually good idea...
but look at the increase in number of ppl getting infected every yr....

[Rasputin]

Politics in the U.S. "took an important turn" last week when Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) were invited to speak at an HIV/AIDS conference hosted by Rick Warren -- an author and the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. -- and to address the role of religion in the fight against the pandemic, E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist, writes in an opinion piece. According to Dionne, Warren "faced down right-wing pressure" after inviting Obama to address the conference and "sent a signal: A significant group of theologically conservative Christians no longer wants to be treated as a cog in the Republican political machine." Obama in his speech at the conference "took on the moral message of evangelical AIDS activists -- and then challenged them," Dionne writes. Obama said, "[I]f condoms and potentially things like microbicides can prevent millions of deaths, then they should be made more widely available ... I don't accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence." In addition, according to Dionne, "Warren speaks for a new generation of evangelicals who think that harnessing religious faith too closely to electoral politics is bad for religion and who are broadening the evangelical public agenda to include a concern for global poverty and the scourge of AIDS" (Dionne, Washington Post, 12/5).

[Rasputin]

Africa: African Muslim Clerics Divided On Condom Use

Muslim clerics from 25 African countries failed to reach consensus on the use of condoms in preventing HIV/AIDS at a meeting on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.

The Network of African Islamic Faith-based Organisations met in November to discuss issues that included HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence, but could not to agree on a unified HIV/AIDS strategy.

When the network was launched in March 2005, in Abuja, Nigeria, the religious leaders stated in their declaration: "We support all appropriate methods of preventing HIV/AIDS. These include abstinence, being faithful and, when absolutely necessary, correct and consistent use of the condom between couples."

Nevertheless, many clerics at the meeting rejected the use of condoms on the grounds that they promoted promiscuity, particularly among the youth. "The majority still stick to 'no promoting condoms', and believe in abstinence and being faithful as preventive measures - condoms can only be used by HIV-positive couples," said Zanzibar's Dr Issa Ziddy, deputy secretary of the network.

Other participants felt the organisation needed to make a clear statement in favour of condom use in the fight against HIV/AIDS. "I think it is high time we define the preventive measures. Let us strengthen advocacy in abstinence [A] and being faithful [B], but also promote the use of condoms [C] for those who fail to stick to A and B," said Ebyan Salah, a Gender Advisor to the Somalia Transitional Federal Government. "Every tool must be used, including promoting condoms."

Despite the long political crisis in Somalia and current efforts to build a government, many people in the country were aware of HIV/AIDS. Activists, including Muslim leaders, spoke openly about the pandemic, but promoting condom use remained largely taboo, and they were difficult to find on the market, she said.

Dr Hamid Suleiman, of the Zanzibar AIDS Commission, told delegates that condom use was not encouraged by the island's clerics either and they were not directly involved in the campaign against HIV/AIDS until 2002.

At the 2005 Abuja summit, Muslim religious leaders from Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania, among others, agreed that they should disseminate information on HIV/AIDS in sermons and at religious events.

Fortunately, for the last three years Muslim leaders in Zanzibar have helped a lot in controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS," Suleiman said. "Since the majority population are Muslims, the message can spread well."

Zanzibar's HIV still relatively low prevalence has reached 0.9 percent, but in 2002 it was estimated at just 0.6 percent. Health workers on the island say lack of information and worrying trends like increased injecting drug use could see the island's problem continue to grow unless urgent action is taken.

[Rasputin]

نتايج تحقيقات تازه دانشمندان در شهر کيسوموی کنيا نشان داده است که ممکن است ميان شيوع دو بيماری بسيار رايج در آفريقا يعنی اچ آی وی- ايدز و مالاريا ارتباطی وجود داشته باشد.
اين تحقيقات که در مجله علوم در آمريکا به چاپ رسيده، نشان می دهد وقتی افراد به بيماری مالاريا مبتلا می شوند، در اثر بروز تغييرات در سيستم ايمنی، احتمال بيشتری وجود دارد که شريک جنسی خود را به ويروس اچ آی وی آلوده کنند.

در عين حال، افراد آلوده به ويروس اچ آی وی نيز بيشتر مستعد ابتلا به مالاريا هستند.

دانشمندان می گويند ارتباط دو بيماری با هم، باعث شيوع گسترده هر دوی آنها در ميان مردم منطقه جنوب صحرای آفريقا می شود.

به گفته آنها، رشد پنج درصدی موارد آلودگی به ويروس اچ آی وی در شهر کيسومو در کنيا را می توان به مالاريا نسبت داد و ده درصد از موارد ابتلا به مالاريا را می توان ناشی از آلودگی به ويروس اچ آی وی خواند.

دانشمندانی که درباره علل شيوع سريع اچ آی وی - ايدز در اين شهر تحقيق می کردند، وقتی متوجه شدند رفتارهای پر خطر جنسی به خودی خود توضيح دهنده نرخ بالای انتقال اين بيماری نيست، به وجود رتباط ميان آن و بيماری مالاريا مشکوک شدند و در پی کشف تاثير آنها بر هم برآمدند.

اين دانشمندان نتيجه گرفتند که وقتی افراد آلوده به اچ آی وی مورد حمله پشه ناقل مالاريا قرار می گيرند، ميزان ويروس اچ آی وی در بدن آنها و به تبع آن، خطر انتقال اين ويروس نيز افزايش می يابد.

خبرنگاران می گويند اين تحقيق جديد می تواند تاثيرات مهمی در نحوه مبارزه دولت ها و مقام های بهداشتی با هر دو بيماری داشته باشد.

[Sepideh_UK]

Thanx alot agha SIamak.