U2 lead singer and anti-poverty activist Bono is in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials and urge them “to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming ‘fiscal cliff’ of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year,” Reuters reports. Kathy McKiernan, a spokesperson for the ONE Campaign, said Bono “will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” according to the news service. On Monday, Bono participated in a panel discussion at Georgetown University, where he discussed the importance of social movements, and he is scheduled to meet with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim on Wednesday for a webcast discussion on poverty eradication, Reuters notes (Wroughton, 11/12). A webcast of the Georgetown presentation is available online (11/12).

In a joint initiative headed by GBC Health, UNAIDS, and Levis Strauss & Co., more than 40 CEOs have signed a pledge urging 45 countries to repeal policies and laws restricting travel for people living with HIV, TakePart.com reports (Doheny, 11/28). “CEOs oppose HIV travel restrictions because they are discriminatory and because to succeed in today’s globalized economy, companies must be able to send their employees and best talent overseas, regardless of their HIV status,” according to a joint press release. Forty-five countries, including key hubs for international business, “still deny entry, stay, residence or work visas for people living with HIV,” the press release notes (11/28). Restrictions in some countries “also include denial of work visas, disallowing short-term stays for business trips or conferences, and blocking longer-term stays, such as residence-for-work relocations and study-abroad programs, according to UNAIDS,” the U.N. News Centre writes (11/28).

The New York Times examines how the CIA’s 2011 decision to use a vaccination team to collect DNA samples and information from residents of Osama bin Laden’s compound damaged efforts to vaccinate children for polio in Pakistan. The effects of the campaign, which has prompted local leaders to ban polio vaccination teams, will not be fully known “until the summer spike of polio cases tapers off in the fall,” the newspaper writes and reviews the history of the case as well as polio in the region. Elias Durry, the WHO’s polio coordinator for Pakistan, “and other leaders of the global war on polio say they have recovered from worse setbacks,” and many experts are confident that Pakistan eventually will eliminate polio, according to the New York Times (McNeil, 7/9).

“The United States is suspending at least $13 million of its roughly $140 million in annual aid to Mali following last month’s coup in the West African nation, the State Department said on Wednesday,” Reuters reports, noting the “suspension affects U.S. assistance for Mali’s ministry of health, public school construction and the government’s efforts to boost agricultural production.” According to the news agency, “U.S. law bars aid ‘to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.'” State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said, “These are worthwhile programs that are now suspended because that aid goes directly to the government of Mali,” Reuters notes (4/5). France and the European Union also immediately suspended all but essential humanitarian aid to the country, according to the Associated Press/USA Today.

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby “was named to lead a new Office of Global Health Diplomacy on Friday, the State Department said,” the New York Times reports, noting, “Goosby will continue to head PEPFAR” (McNeil, 12/15). “The Global Health Diplomacy office was announced last July as the successor to President Obama’s Global Health Initiative,” the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog writes. “Goosby will be joined in creating the Global Health Diplomacy office by Leslie Rowe, previously U.S. ambassador to Mozambique, who will be in charge of its day to day operations,” the blog notes (Barton, 12/14).

The State Department on Friday announced the selection of U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby to lead the State Department’s new Office of Global Health Diplomacy. The following press statement and article were published in response to the announcement.

The New York Times Magazine, as part of a special issue that focuses on women worldwide, published an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who “staked her claim as an advocate for global women’s issues in 1995, when, as first lady, she gave an impassioned speech at a United Nations conference in Beijing.” The interview was conducted ahead of her 11-day seven country tour of Africa.

Lancet Infectious Diseases Features Reflection On Use Of HIV/AIDS Money In Mozambique A Lancet Infectious Diseases Reflection and Reaction piece says while PEPFAR’s “investment of over US$228 million into Mozambique in 2008 alone” resulted in “an exponential increase in the number of people on” ARVs and boosted prevention programs, “[t]here is more money…

G20 finance ministers meeting in London next Friday, ahead of a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh “will face concerted pressure to introduce a tax on financial transactions as a coalition of anti-poverty campaigners aim to force the issue onto the agenda,” the Guardian reports.

Lancet Comment Examines Efforts To Subsidize ACTs A Lancet comment examines an Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm) program to help countries procure subsidized artemisinin-based combination treatments (ACTs). The authors write though it is worth celebrating the recent advances in malaria prevention, “these successes cannot hide the fact that close…