> Asked in a March 1998 interview is she was literally threatening to let
> thousands of South Africans die, she reluctantly conceded: 'In so many
> words, yes.'"
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>No amount of PR can get around a statement like that.
sure can. thought you'd find this interesting http://www.tnr.com/082800/gessen082800.html
Russia's Silent AIDS Crisis
Russia is coming apart at the seams. The problem is that Russians refuse to admit it. The recent disaster atop the Moscow TV tower on top of the ordeal of the sunken submarine, Kursk, and President Vladimir Putin's unwillingness to ask for international help with rescue efforts until it was too late, put the severity of the situation in high relief.
But the military and technology are not the only parts of this former superpower's infrastructure that are crumbling. Russia's once-cherished national healthcare system is in shambles, yet officials still crow that it's as good as that of any First-World nation, writes Russian journalist Masha Gessen in The New Republic. "Ordinary Russians are bombarded daily with rhetoric aimed at convincing them of their country's continuing accomplishments and power."
According to Gessen, the most tragic side-effect of this mass-denial, all in the name of national pride, is Russia's growing AIDS crisis. "In Krasnogorsk, a town in the Moscow region, 3 percent of people between the ages of 15 and 25 are infected, a rate comparable to that in Angola, Ghana, and Sierra Leone. Moreover, of the 50,000 registered HIV cases, more than 20,000 were registered this year alone, which suggests a terrifyingly high rate of transmission. Projections vary wildly, but no one doubts that in a couple of years millions of Russians will have HIV."