Tomorrow, May 13th, President Obama will be at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Committee at St. Regis Hotel in New York. Outside the building, AIDS activists from around the world will be gathering to protest the Obama's administration's approach to the funding of global HIV/AIDS treatment programs. These same groups most likely celebrated Obama's election in 2009: so how did this happen?On the face of it, one can see the protests as a reaction to broken promises: the Obama administration promised, during the election campaign, to add one billion US dollars per year to the funding of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). But this year he asked Congress for only $366 million, the lowest increase in funding since PEPFAR began, citing the recession as...
(Washington, D.C.) - In its Sudan policy review completed in mid-October 2009, the Obama administration indicated it would regularly assess the progress of peace in Sudan-or lack thereof.
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(Washington, DC, December 1, 2009) - US President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan plan needs to strengthen civilian protection through ending the impunity and warlordism that have fuelled the insurgency, Human Rights Watch said today.
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When President Obama traveled to Russia to meet with President Medvedev for their first summit, he made a concerted effort to reach out to ordinary Russians – business leaders, academics, students, civil society activists, and the population at large – to remind citizens in both countries that the US and Russia share numerous common values, concerns and strategic interests. One of the highlights of that effort was an important speech Obama gave to the graduating class of the Higher School of Economics (HSE), one of Russia’s top academic institutions. In that speech (which, as has been reported, did not receive the media coverage within Russia that had been hoped for), Obama spelled out clearly the links among democratic governance, the rule of law, the fight against...