Aids This article in The Economist has floored me. Why would a court order be required for vital medicine be given to people who need it, especially in a supposedly progressive country like South Africa. But as always, it's down to one man, and yet again, it's a president: "The government’s baffling reluctance to offer people this cheap and simple life-saver is usually blamed on one man: Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa. After surfing some of the odder corners of the Internet and chatting with a few maverick American scientists, Mr Mbeki, who has no medical training, concluded that HIV does not necessarily cause AIDS. He also seems to have decided that the anti-retroviral drugs that keep HIV-positive people in rich countries alive indefinitely are useless packets of poison."

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