BTL:African Continent Challenged by AIDS Pandemic, Wars, & Unsupportable Debt

African Continent Challenged by AIDS Pandemic, Wars, and Unsupportable Debt

Interview by Between The Lines' Scott Harris.

For decades, the U.S. government and American-based corporate media outlets have either ignored or relegated issues facing the African continent to the back pages. While there are exceptions, such as the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, or the current dispute over elections in Zimbabwe, American citizens know very little about more pressing concerns like the continent's deadly AIDS pandemic, ongoing violent conflicts and worsening poverty.

The group Africa Action has recently released its annual summary titled: "Africa Policy Outlook 2002," where a range of important issues facing the people of Africa are examined. Among these are the struggle to gain access to affordable medicines to treat Africa's exploding population that have contracted HIV or AIDS; the increasing number of nations unable to make progress in development due to a suffocating burden of debt to the World Bank; and deadly conflicts that still rage on or remain unresolved in Angola, Burundi, the Sudan and Congo.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, who assesses the devastating crises challenging the people of the African continent(A RealAudio Version of this interview may be found at http://www.btlonline.org).

Contact Africa Action by calling (202) 546-7961 or read the Africa Policy Outlook 2002 report online at: http://www.AfricaAction.org <http://www.AfricaAction.org>

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