World Digest
AIDS drug discounts go worldwide

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Broadening the program to more than 100 countries offers hope that the World Health Organization might achieve its goal of getting 3 million poor patients on anti-retroviral therapy by 2005, advocates said.

The World Bank, the Global Fund, UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation negotiated the deal, which will rely on fixed-dose medicines made in India and South Africa that combine three drugs in one pill. The cheapest treatment will cost about $200 a patient a year.

Of some 6 million AIDS patients in poor countries, 200,000 receive the treatment that can save their lives.

Strong earthquake shakes remote Afghanistan region

KABUL, Afghanistan — A powerful earthquake jolted the remote Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's northeast border with Pakistan early today.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, but officials said they feared for isolated communities of flimsy mud houses.

The quake's magnitude was estimated as high as 6.8, and it caused panic even in Kabul, 175 miles to the southwest.

Fazel Ahmad Nazeri, a police official, said walls were knocked over in the Badakhshan provincial capital Faizabad. "People here grabbed their children and ran for their lives," Nazeri said.

U.N.'s top nuclear inspector to step up pressure on Iran

VIENNA, Austria — Iran has not been cooperating as openly or quickly as it should to dispel the suspicion it wants to build nuclear weapons, the chief U.N. inspector said yesterday as he left for Tehran to apply new pressure on the Islamic regime.
 
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was scheduled for talks in Tehran amid indications of continued nuclear cover-ups and signs that previously reluctant allies are moving closer to the U.S. view that Iran should be penalized.

ElBaradei said he would address two key issues with Iranian officials: The traces of highly enriched uranium found in the country, and Iran's advanced centrifuge equipment that could be used to enrich uranium for use in a weapon. Iran insists its nuclear program is geared only to producing electricity.

Taiwan opposition demands new election for president

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan's opposition asked the nation's high court yesterday to nullify last month's presidential election. Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian urged rival China to begin talking to him and accept that there's a rising "Taiwan identity."

The opposition request for a new election was issued about a week after the losing candidate, Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, petitioned for a recount of the March 20 vote. Lien claims the election was marred by irregularities and the unexplained shooting of Chen, who won by a margin of 0.2 percent, or 30,000 ballots.

As Lien sought a new vote, the president discussed China relations with visiting U.S. academics. Chen said his victory should pressure Chinese leaders to begin talking to him. So far, Beijing has refused to deal with Chen, labeling him a separatist who rejects the Chinese goal of unification. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949.

Russian scholar convicted of selling weapons secrets

MOSCOW — Researcher Igor Sutyagin was found guilty of espionage yesterday, Russian news agencies reported, in a case that raised fears of a resurgence of Soviet-style tactics and alarmed the scientific community.

Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow's respected USA and Canada Institute, was jailed in October 1999 on charges he sold information on nuclear submarines and missile-warning systems to a British company that Russian investigators claim was a CIA cover.

Sutyagin said the analyses he wrote were based on open sources and he had no reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover. He faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing.

Also ...

Haiti vowed yesterday to hold presidential elections in 2005, and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged U.S. support to help the country start over after a bloody revolt. ... Sri Lanka's president yesterday appointed veteran politician Mahinda Rajapakse, 58, as prime minister.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company