“A new tax on financial transactions is set to launch in France in August, and could generate billions of dollars to help fund the global fight against HIV/AIDS,” the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog reports. “‘We want to create additional innovative financing instruments. This is the aim of the tax on financial transactions which my country has decided to implement from 1 August 2012,’ said French President Francois Hollande, who spoke via pre-recorded video message at the plenary session of the International AIDS Conference in Washington Monday,” the blog notes (Mazzotta, 7/25).