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Monday, August 29, 2005

When the UN stands for U[tter] N[onsense]

How ironic to have these two news articles appear on the same day. One might think we were indeed in an Orwellian world.

Uganda promotes a strong abstinence policy which has led to a decline in the HIV rate to 6% of the population. As Reuters says, "Uganda had been praised for cutting HIV infection rates to around 6 percent today from 30 percent in the early 1990s, a rare success story in Africa's battle against the disease."

Today, Reuters also posted an article about the King of Swaziland hosting a ceremony in which he sought a wife from 50,000 topless women. As opposed to Uganda, Swaziland has one of the highest rates of HIV infection. Indeed, just last week the king ordered women to "throw off chastity scarves worn to ward of preying men."

Now guess which one Stephen Lewis, the U.N. secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa is criticizing. You get two guesses and Swaziland is wrong.

Apparently in UN logic, abstinence which is successfully lowering the HIV rate is bad because there aren't enough condoms being distributed but unhealthy lifestyles are okay as long as you have a condom.

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