Carla Bruni in Benin for AIDS campaign

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
COTONOU: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady of France, has begun her visit to Benin as part of her ambassador role in the fight against AIDS.

She was met on Tuesday by President Thomas Yayi Boni.

Bruni-Sarkozy, a Global Fund ambassador, last month renewed a call to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mothers to their children by 2015.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected, accounting for 67 percent of all people living with HIV and 91 percent of all new infections among children.

Around 1.2 percent of Benin's population live with HIV in the small West African country of less than 9 million people, where the first HIV case was diagnosed in 1985.

Bruni-Sarkozy described AIDS as a plague for the entire world, but said "United we can fight against these pandemic diseases."

On Wednesday today Bruni-Sarkozy and Melinda Gates, representing the Bill Gates Foundation, one of the Global Fund's biggest donors, will visit a hospital in the village of Dangbo around 100 km from the capital Cotonou.

The "House of the Redeeming Love" hospital in Dangbo specialises in programmes of protection against transmission of HIV from mother to infant.

Comments

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in

Cuba's world-famous cigar festival closes in Havana

Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo

Cyprus lace to be declared UNESCO cultural heritage

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 NICOSIA: Traditional hand-made lace produced in the Larnaca district village of Lefkara in Cyprus known as lefkaritiko includeded in UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Soseilos said that the relevant UNESCO committee has already decided to include lefkaritiko in its list of the world’s ICH, a more recent addition to UNESCO’s long-standing list of World Heritage sites, and the decision will be formally announced at the UNESCO General Assembly next month. The tradition of needlework and lace embroidery in Lefkara goes back centuries.

ONE NEWS

Search This Blog