[RooneyX]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3209741.stm

[yakkiebah]

Finally something positive to read

[ThinkInsane]

Why didn't he do it when he was still President? Not bashing, just curious.

[Spliffdaddy]

He was too busy supporting legislation to enforce the installation of low-flush toilets in all new residential construction.

[RooneyX]

Originally posted by ThinkInsane:
Why didn't he do it when he was still President? Not bashing, just curious.

He didn't want to get JFK'd.

No, honestly it's because cheaper alternatives to patented versions only just sprung up in recent times. Suffice to say GW would never have done it as his 'lobbys' would never allow it, let alone allow family planning programs and condoms for Africa and other poorer nations.

[Meneldil]

Can someone post the article? The government in this wonderful country I'm visiting has deemed it unnecessary for me to read the BBC.

[Troll]

Good for Clinton! He's doing some great work on AIDS.

[Troll]

Originally posted by Meneldil:
Can someone post the article? The government in this wonderful country I'm visiting has deemed it unnecessary for me to read the BBC.

Do you want us to liberate you? I tell you what, send us a photos of the rose petal that await us if we do, and we'll consider it!

Here you go!

Clinton brokers landmark Aids deal


Clinton said the deal would bring hope to millions of people
Former US President Bill Clinton has brokered a deal to supply cut-price Aids drugs to developing countries.
An agreement was reached with four generic drug companies in India and South Africa to provide certain treatments at less than a third of the cost of patented versions.

Nine countries in the Caribbean, as well as Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania will receive the low-cost medication.

Aids organisations have hailed the deal as a breakthrough, with the potential to save millions of lives.

Mr Clinton said treatment could begin in places where until now there had been virtually no medicine and no hope.

Life-saving deal

The agreement was reached after advisors from the William J Clinton Presidential Foundation worked with the drugs firms to find ways to cut costs.


Few Aids sufferers in developing countries can afford proper treatment
Under the deal, the price of a generic triple-drug regimen will be less than 40 cents a day, as opposed to more than $1.50 for the same patented medicines.

"This agreement will allow the delivery of life-saving medicines to people who desperately need them," Mr Clinton said.

He said he hoped up to two million people would receive the cut-price drugs by 2008.

The high cost of anti-retroviral drugs is a big issue in poor countries.

In southern Africa, only 50,000 out of four million Aids sufferers are receiving required treatment.

'Crucial breakthrough'

Aids campaigners have welcomed Mr Clinton's initiative as an important step forward.

"Providing Aids treatment to those who most urgently need it in poor countries is the most urgent health challenge the world faces," said Dr Lee Jong-Wook, director of the World Health Organization.

Irish rock star Bono, a leading Aids activist, said the deal "marks a crucial breakthrough in the Aids emergency, showing that we can, and must, wage a successful war against this preventative and treatable disease".

The Clinton foundation raised money from wealthy countries, including Ireland and Canada, to help pay for the drugs.

[Meneldil]

Originally posted by Troll:
Do you want us to liberate you? I tell you what, send us a photos of the rose petal that await us if we do, and we'll consider it!

Here you go!

Thanks! I think liberation can wait, all I need right now is a free proxy server.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by ThinkInsane:
Why didn't he do it when he was still President? Not bashing, just curious.

From what I read, he couldn't because he needed supporters.

Brokering means a high potential of making someone mad. If 1 company agrees, and another doesn't. That other company looses out in postivie PR.... and may not make a donation.

To much at risk then.

Now Clinton is free to be himself. He's disqusted with politics. His "wife" has her own career. He can do what he wants.

Good to see him doing this. Just like Carter took initiative to use his fame. Carter suprisingly woke millions up to the ideas that there are poor people with jobs during his charitable work. Also dabbed with foreign relations several times (Cuba rather recently).


Good to see a president do something like this. Hope it becomes a tradition. Would be nice if every president, regardless of their job in office, makes 1 positive contribution like this as an ex-president to society.

[spacefreak]

Sweet....now the Bush administration can buy more of these lower cost drugs.
Combined with the Senate confirming Bush's AIDS ambassador, it looks like some progress will finally be made.

Kudos to all involved, including Bono.

[WinsOBoogi]

Just goes to show you that the Bush Administration should be sending Clinton to Israel.

Egos tend to prevent that, though.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by WinsOBoogi:
Just goes to show you that the Bush Administration should be sending Clinton to Israel.

Clinton had the bargain of the century on the table for Arafat to sign (with Israel making a reported 98% of concessions asked for by the Palestinians).

That Arafat refused Clinton's mediated agreement with Israel (IMO Clinton's best work) should have convinced all year ago that Arafat is not interested in peace, and that his true desire to drive, as he has said repeatedly, is to drive the "Jews into the sea".

[ZackS]

Clinton truly is a great man. Now only if conservatives could understand that...

Quote from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html

During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country's history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare roles. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus. As part of a plan to celebrate the millennium in 2000, Clinton called for a great national initiative to end racial discrimination. More...

You'd have to use some pretty creative writing to say something that glowingly positive about Bush.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by ZackS:
You'd have to use some pretty creative writing to say something that glowingly positive about Bush.

What presidential biography hosted on the whitehouse.gov website isn't glowingly positive?

Did you even read Bush's biography on that same site? Looks pretty positive to me.

Here's the part you should be concerned about:

Elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote, he became the first Governor in Texas history to be elected to consecutive four-year terms when he was re-elected on November 3, 1998, with 68.6 percent of the vote.

[ZackS]

I was avoiding Bush's current info on there because it doesn't really talk about Iraq, the bulk of it is just his State of the Union address, his presidential term is still going, and it's actually not THAT positive, not nearly as much as Clinton's.

By "concerned with" do you mean "pay particular attention to" or "be worried by?"

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by ZackS:
By "concerned with" do you mean "pay particular attention to" or "be worried by?"

I was pointing out Bush's re-election surge in percentage - from just over 50% to almost 70%. If you are a Bush-hater, I figured I'd toss that scare at you.

[ZackS]

I think it's pretty safe to say that Texas is nowhere even close to representative of the United States as a whole.

[Spliffdaddy]

I think it's damn close.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
I think it's damn close.

I've lived in a lot of different places in the US, and there are some similarities but there are regional eccentricities as well.
I do not think Texas is representative of the US anymore than Seattle or Los Angeles or Chicago...etc.