Nuclear accord opposed

Democrats and Republicans in the House are opposing the Bush administration's civilian nuclear agreement with Russia, pending before Congress, over concerns that Moscow is still supplying dangerous weapons and technology to Iran and other rogue states.

Fourteen House Republicans wrote to President Bush last week to tell him to withdraw the proposed civilian nuclear cooperation accord over concerns the administration can't certify that Moscow has stopped supplying missile and other weaponry to Iran.

The lawmakers are opposing the so-called "123 Agreement" on peaceful nuclear cooperation with Russia, which the Bush administration is touting as a positive step in gaining Russian nonproliferation cooperation.

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, based their opposition on a recent presidential waiver request to allow U.S. space cooperation with Russia. The need for a waiver indicated Russia is not in compliance with the terms of a U.S. nonproliferation law aimed at blocking Iranian, North Korean and Syrian weapons programs.

On the Democratic side, Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak, both of Michigan, wrote earlier to the president asking about continued Russian nuclear assistance to Iran. Mr. Dingell and Mr. Stupak stated that any civilian nuclear agreement should include a prohibition on Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran, including apparent ongoing transfers of nuclear technology and training of Iranian nuclear scientists.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on the accord, which goes into effect automatically unless Congress acts to modify the agreement, which will permit transfers of nuclear materials and reactors.

Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said he opposes the nuclear agreement unless conditions are added that would seek to halt Russian support to Iran's nuclear program, in light of international efforts to pressure Tehran. "In the politically charged environment of presidential politics, some might call this appeasement," he said of approving the accord in its current form.

Bush administration defends Russia deal

By DESMOND BUTLER – 27 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Bush administration official was seeking to convince skeptical lawmakers Thursday that a U.S.-Russian agreement on civilian nuclear power would not undermine efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program.

Although announcement of the deal last month provoked swift criticism from lawmakers, it remains unclear whether opponents have sufficient votes to block it.

The administration views the agreement as an important breakthrough in cooperation reached at a time of rising tension between Washington and Moscow over issues including missile defense, NATO expansion and differences on Iran. It would give the United States access to state-of-the-art Russian nuclear technology and would help Russia establish an international nuclear fuel storage facility.

John Rood, undersecretary for arms control and international security, was testifying on the deal to the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee.

The committee's chairman, Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, opened the hearing with a statement that raised questions about Russia's commitment to stopping Iran's program. He promised a hard look at the agreement but did not come down clearly for or against it.

The committee's ranking Republican member, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, left no doubt that the agreement should be rejected because of the Russian government's "continuing assistance to Iran.."

"The agreement will inevitably be seen in Moscow, and elsewhere, as a political reward bestowed by the U.S," she said.

Another opponent, Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat, said "it is true Russia has supported sanctions against Iran," but he added, Russia continues to proliferate nuclear and missile technology to Iran, finalizing construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor and providing Iran with advanced conventional weapons.

The agreement, he said, is part of President George W. Bush's program to support civilian nuclear reprocessing, which he called "unnecessary, horribly expensive and dangerous."

Critics of the agreement believe that Russia is not doing enough to help prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and should not be rewarded. Some are also critical of Russia's human rights record.

In testimony prepared for delivery at the hearing, Rood noted the opposition of some members but called the proposal "a good, solid agreement" that "contains all the necessary nonproliferation conditions and controls that Congress has written into law."

He compared the agreement to those already in effect with China, Japan and the European Atomic Energy Community, which codifies cooperation with the 27 member states of the European Union. The pact is called a 123 agreement because its requirements are set in section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act. Rood said in the prepared text that a Russian 123 agreement was important "both to build a closer relationship as well as to improve our ability to address major challenges we face in the 21st century."

Among them, Rood said, are growing energy demands, nuclear nonproliferation and possible nuclear terror.

Under U.S. law, Bush's notification of Congress on May 13 began a process to complete the deal. The agreement will take effect unless both chambers of Congress pass resolutions blocking it within 90 working days.

Lawmakers would have to pass the resolutions by two-thirds majorities to avoid a presidential veto. That feat is unlikely. They could pass legislation, however, that would hinder the administration or its successors from implementing the deal, either by withholding money or imposing restrictions.

Members of Congress also are exploring whether the administration made a clerical miscalculation that could kill the deal. A report by the Congressional Research Service that was requested by an aide to Ros-Lehtinen found that the administration may have informed Congress too late to meet the requirement for 90 days of consideration. Republican aides conceded the full implications of the apparent glitch remain unclear.

The agreement would be a boost for efforts in the United States to ramp up nuclear energy development, which has slowed drastically since a 1979 U.S. nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island plant in the state of Pennsylvania.

The deal also would help Russia in its efforts for a nuclear fuel storage facility. It cannot achieve that goal without signing the deal, since the United States controls the vast majority of the world's nuclear fuel.

Work on the agreement began after former Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush promised in 2006 to increase nuclear cooperation.

Dubious Russian nuclear deal

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Tomorrow morning, the House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on a U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation agreement signed last month in Moscow.

The State Department has been touting the accord as a means to win Russian support for peaceful nuclear cooperation with the international community. But absent a verifiable halt to Russian support for Iran's missile and nuclear weapons programs, the deal should be killed.

Washington and Moscow have long disagreed on whether Iran should receive atomic assistance. Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush declined to negotiate an agreement to permit civil nuclear cooperation with Russia until Moscow ended all nuclear and missile aid to Tehran. During the current President Bush's first term, Washington strongly opposed Russian assistance for Iran's light-water reactor at Bushehr. The Department of Energy estimated that the reactor could produce enough plutonium to build between 50 and 60 nuclear weapons. Washington withheld funding for Russian work on the international space station because of Moscow's support for Tehran's efforts to develop nuclear-capable missiles.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures as he greets supporters in Ilam province, western Iran, today. A new U.S. intelligence review concluding Iran stopped developing an atomic weapons program in 2003 is a "declaration of victory" for Iran's nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said.

However, during Mr. Bush's second term, the administration has softened its approach to Bushehr and purported "peaceful" nuclear cooperation involving Moscow and Tehran. In a joint declaration signed by Mr. Bush and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 6, the two leaders described Moscow's completion and fueling of Bushehr as a "welcome step"

that would undercut Tehran's argument in favor of enriching uranium. The administration also persuaded Congress to lift the ban on U.S. payments for the space station.

But the agreement will likely face considerable bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill. Last September, the House voted 397-16 in favor of H.R.

1400, which would block any U.S.-Russian nuclear agreement until the president certifies that advanced Russian-Iranian nuclear and missile cooperation have ended. The Senate version of the bill (H.R. 970) has 71 cosponsors. Congressional skepticism is well warranted. In a March 2007 letter to the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded: "We assess that individual Russian entities continue to provide assistance to Iran's ballistic missile programs. We judge that Russian-entity assistance, along with assistance from entities in China and North Korea, has helped Iran move toward self-sufficiency in the production of ballistic missiles." While this has taken place, Moscow has angrily protested U.S. and NATO-backed efforts to build a limited ballistic missile defense system in part to protect the United States and Europe from Iranian missiles.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has teamed up with First Lady Laura Bush and a bipartisan group of House members to launch a Congressional caucus with the aim of coordinating U.S. policy on fighting malaria.

By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 3, 2008; A04

The House of Representatives yesterday passed a five-year reauthorization of the Bush administration's global AIDS program, adding $20 billion to the $30 billion the president requested.

The program, originally known by the acronym PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), provides money to treat people infected with HIV and to help support their families, as well as for a long list of activities aimed at preventing infection.

Although it contained controversial features, including a heavy emphasis on abstinence-oriented prevention strategies, the global AIDS program has been popular with lawmakers in both parties and has been praised around the world.

The reauthorization passed 308 to 116. A motion to send the bill back to committee, which was offered by lawmakers unhappy with the $50 billion price tag, failed on a 248 to 175 vote.

The Senate version of the bill is out of committee and is awaiting floor action.

"It's a very big bill and an expensive one, but it does a lot of important things," said Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "I was pretty happy we maintained the essence of the bipartisan coalition on final passage."

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said on the House floor that the bill "strengthens our national security" because AIDS is "destabilizing governments and societies" in entire regions around the world.

The original program, unveiled by the president in his 2003 State of the Union address, is spending $15 billion over five years. The reauthorized program would be bigger and broader in scope.

About $9 billion would go to fight tuberculosis and malaria, which are huge burdens in many countries where the AIDS epidemic is severe. Money would be used to buy food for AIDS patients and their families, provide clean water to communities, train health-care workers and provide "micro-credit" loans to women widowed by the disease or ostracized because they are infected.

Unlike the original PEPFAR, the renewed global AIDS bill would not stipulate the percentage of prevention spending that must be used to promote abstinence, but abstinence and sexual faithfulness would remain important strategies.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen

A fragile compromise on President Bush’s international AIDS relief package passed the House Wednesday, but it’s unclear whether the agreement will survive opposition from both the left and the right in the Senate.

The bill would authorize $50 billion over five years for the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, an ongoing initiative to combat the spread of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, primarily in Africa. The bill more than triples the $15 billion allotted for the original five-year program, which expires this fall.

The measure, which passed the House by a 308 to 116 vote after an intense push from the White House, is the result of a compromise that was years in the making, the brainchild of two recently deceased former chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Henry Hyde (R-Ill.).

The conservative Hyde broke with many pro-life advocates in 2003 by agreeing to give up a provision that would have prohibited funding from going to family planning organizations abroad that performed abortions. In exchange, Lantos agreed that a certain percentage of funds would be earmarked for abstinence-only programs.

The updated compromise — negotiated primarily by Lantos and Hyde’s successor on the committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) — increases the total budget for the program and removes the provision requiring 33 percent of all prevention funds go to abstinence- only programs but requires a report to Congress if spending on abstinence falls below certain levels. The deal however, keeps a contentious requirement that groups must have a policy opposing prostitution in order to receive funding.

The delicate agreement now faces challenges from both sides of the aisle in the Senate. Fiscal conservatives have balked at its $50 billion price tag, while some liberals are calling for more funding for family planning initiatives, which many experts believe can help greatly reduce AIDS rates by helping HIV-positive women avoid unplanned pregnancies.

“The Senate will be playing with fire if it takes this carefully crafted compromise and blows it apart,” said one House GOP aide who was involved in the negotiations.

The bill has already passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who supports it, intends to take it up “as quickly as possible,” according to his spokesman, Jim Manley.

But Reid faces many tough decisions, especially over what amendments will be included in the Senate’s version of the bill.

“It is a very, very delicate balance right now,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

So far, the Senate bill makes no mention of family planning, but advocates are pinning their hopes on Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is contemplating an amendment to expand family planning funding that could potentially reopen the abortion fight and endanger the support of many conservatives.

“I hope the Democrats get their act together, stand strong on these issues and not cave,” said Serra Sippel, the executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, a public health watchdog group that favors an expanded role for family planning in AIDS prevention.

Boxer said Tuesday she has not yet made up her mind on how to proceed.

“Either we will introduce the amendment or we will make it clear that family planning is not impacted by this bill in any way,” she said.

Although the $50 billion price tag has turned off some budget hawks on the right, the AIDS program’s success to date has won over all but the most hard-core fiscal conservatives.

So far, the program has provided AIDS drugs to more than 1.4 million people and care for more than 6.6 million, prompting former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson to call it “perhaps the most successful foreign assistance effort since the Marshall Plan.”

Behind the scenes, the White House is working furiously to make sure the Senate doesn’t undo the House compromise. Getting PEPFAR passed, the White House believes, is a way to help secure the president’s legacy.

“This is one of the president’s highest priorities,” said Fratto. “We do lots of programs in [the international arena], but few others provide such direct dollars to a sick person who is very likely to do die. ... This is saving lives."

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen

By JIM ABRAMS – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to triple to more than $10 billion a year U.S. humanitarian spending on fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and other stricken areas of the world.

About $41 billion of the $50 billion over five years would be devoted to AIDS, significantly expanding a program credited with saving more than 1 million lives in Africa alone in the largest U.S. investment ever against a single disease.

Every day another 6,000 people are infected with the HIV virus, said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif. "We have a moral imperative to act and to act decisively," he said.

The House voted 308-116 to extend and broaden the scope of the $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that President Bush promoted and Congress enacted in 2003. It has been hailed as a noteworthy foreign policy success of the Bush presidency.

The White House, which backs the House bill, said the program is supporting anti-retroviral treatment for about 1.45 million people and is on track to meet its goals of backing treatment for 2 million, preventing 7 million new infections and providing care for 10 million, including orphans and vulnerable children.

In 2007, 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV and AIDS, according to the United Nations.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, added that while the program is based on altruism, it has strengthened U.S. security.

Without addressing the AIDS pandemic, she said, it "will continue to spread its mix of death, poverty and despondency that is further destabilizing governments and societies, and undermining the security of entire regions."

The compromise bill was one of the last endeavors of the former Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who died of cancer in February. The measure is named after Lantos and his predecessor as Foreign Affairs chairman, the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who worked together on the 2003 act.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a similar $50 billion bill, and the legislation is seen as having a good chance of passing in an election year in which few major bills will reach the president's desk.

To advance the legislation, conservatives had to give up a provision in the 2003 act requiring that one-third of all HIV prevention funds be spent on abstinence programs. Instead it directs the administration to promote "balanced funding for prevention activities" in target countries.

Liberals, in turn, had to accept some restrictions on family planning groups participating in AIDS programs. Conservatives, concerned that money might be diverted to abortion promotion, pushed for a provision that allows the use of funds for HIV/AIDS testing and counseling services in those family planning programs supported by the U.S. government.

A measure in the 2003 act requiring groups receiving funds to have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking, opposed by some health groups as impeding efforts among sex workers, was also left intact.

The White House, which originally promoted doubling the program to $30 billion, has expressed concern over the $50 billion figure but not opposed it.

Some conservatives still objected. "This is irrational generosity," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., saying the country doesn't have enough money to help veterans and the elderly. "This is benevolence gone wild."

The bill authorizes $10 billion a year, or $50 billion through 2013. Of that, $41 billion is for AIDS prevention and treatment, $4 billion for tuberculosis and $5 billion for malaria. The actual dollars still have to be approved in annual spending bills, but over the last five years Congress exceeded the $15 billion goal, appropriating $19 billion for global AIDS and related programs.

The $41 billion includes up to $2 billion a year for the international Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The bill limits U.S. contributions to the Global Fund to one-third of total contributions.

It expands the program, originally focused on 15 mainly sub-Saharan African countries, to include Caribbean nations as well as Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho in Africa. The goal of the next five years is to prevent 12 million new infections, provide anti-retroviral treatment for 3 million, and train more than 140,000 health care workers. The bill increases coordination with drinking water and nutrition programs and efforts to educate girls and women.

"This will be remembered as the single most significant achievement of President Bush's two terms in office," said Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen, Ros-Lehtinen

Wed 2 Apr 2008, 19:13 GMT

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill to more than triple spending to fight AIDS in Africa and other parts of the world, one of President George W. Bush's foremost foreign aid quests.

The measure, a bipartisan compromise backed by the White House and passed by a vote of 308 to 116, calls for $50 billion in funding for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs over the next five years. It marks a big hike from the $15 billion authorized over the first five years of the initiative.

Bush had initially proposed doubling the program to $30 billion. The Democratic-led House boosted it to $50 billion.

A similar bill is heading toward passage in the Democratic-led Senate.

The initiative aims to prevent infection by the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, treat people already infected and care for children left as orphans by AIDS.

"There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

The White House said the current program is supporting life-saving treatment for 1.45 million people.

The program launched by Bush in 2003 provides support programs and drugs in 15 countries, 12 in Africa plus Vietnam, Guyana and Haiti. The new bill would add 14 more countries in the Caribbean basin, and an amendment approved by the House would add three more African countries.

Bill opponents said it was simply too expensive, and that there were pressing needs at home that need to be addressed.

The bill would discard a current requirement criticized by some Democrats and AIDS activists that a third of all HIV prevention funds be spent on sexual abstinence education. It instead calls for "balanced funding" for abstinence, fidelity and condom programs.

There are 33 million people worldwide infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to U.N. estimates.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said the bill would save millions of lives around the world and help maintain stability in a key region of the world.

"The program that we are authorizing today ... is now recognized as perhaps the most successful foreign assistance program of the United States of America since the Marshall Plan," Ros-Lehtinen said, referring to the costly U.S. plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.

Bush sees his efforts against AIDS and malaria as foreign policy successes in a presidency dominated by the unpopular war in Iraq. During a trip to Africa in February, Bush was given a hero's welcome in part for U.S. AIDS and malaria programs.

The White House calls the anti-AIDS initiative the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative dedicated to a single disease.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Donald Payne said the initiative will go down as Bush's single most important achievement.

But opponents said it costs too much. "It is terrible that millions of Africans are suffering AIDS. But we cannot afford such totally irrational generosity. This is benevolence gone wild," said California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

"We can't take care of our own veterans when they come home from the war. We can't take care of our elderly. We have people who can't take care of their own health needs and are at risk of losing their homes," Rohrabacher added. "We have big hearts. But we need to use our brains."

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By Dan Robinson Washington 12 March 2008

Members of the U.S. Congress say the leaders of newly-independent Kosovo, as well as the country's Serbian minority and the government in Serbia, must work to ensure ethnic tolerance and protection. VOA's Dan Robinson has a report.

Lawmakers are concerned both that the Kosovo government follows through with commitments it has made to protect ethnic minorities, and that Serbia pursue a course that will not encourage unrest.

Congressman Howard Berman, the new Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says the government in Kosovo and the one in Serbia under newly-elected Boris Tadic both share a responsibility.

"The international community, particularly the NATO Kosovo force, should continue to send strong and unambiguous signals that the minority communities can count on their protection. The Serbian minority must be allowed to prosper and participate in the new country. While we recognize the immense pain that the resolution of Kosovo's final status has caused for many Serbs, it was shameful to see the U.S. embassy in Belgrade in flames while Serbian police officers were idle bystanders watching the fire," he said.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said recognition of Kosovo was an exception to the rule of discouraging secession.

He described Kosovo's leadership as focused on building its new country, and committed to protecting Serbian rights. "I can report to you that the Kosovo leaders with whom I met conveyed to me their intention to see that [U.N. special envoy on Kosovo Martti] Ahtissari's provisions, including the rights and privileges for the Serb community in Kosovo, are respected," he said.

Fried said U.S. and international financial support for Kosovo's economy will be crucial adding that ensuring peace in the new country will be, in his words, a long term challenge.

Eliot Engel, a Democrat from New York, said neither U.N. nor Serbian control was a workable alternative to an independent Kosovo, adding that Serbia and its people must make an important decision. "The ball is in Serbia's court. Will they keep looking backwards to alliances to Russia and fight wars of 1389 or 1999 or will they look forward and be part of the European Union and the 21st century?," he said.

"I am concerned and I have been concerned for 28 years as a member of Congress, first about the Kosovar Albanians and the breach of their human rights which occurred systematically, and now the Serbs," said Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican.

On Wednesday, U.N. authorities told Serbia to stop interfering in Serb areas of Kosovo.

February's independence declaration by Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority was recognized by more than 30 countries, including the U.S. and 15 European Union states, with others preparing to recognize it. Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus refused. U.N. Security Council members Russia and China withheld recognition.

Assistant Secretary Fried said he has no reason to believe that Serbs will engage in what he called the most provocative behaviors, adding the hope that the parliamentary election campaign in Serbia will be about its future in Europe rather than self-isolation.

Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says the U.S. and key allies must be prepared if trouble comes. "We need to be certain that our European allies will provide additional troops for Kosovo if such troops are needed," she said.

U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior member of the Florida Congressional Delegation, was inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame at a Tallahassee ceremony on Tuesday.

Ros-Lehtinen and two other women were selected from a list of 10 finalists picked by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women.

The Hall of Fame recognizes and honors women who, through their works and lives, have made significant contributions to the improvement of life for women and for all citizens of the state.

By: Brittany Benner

Tallahassee, Florida -- Three women entered Florida's Hall of Fame, including one Tampa Bay area inductee.

Dr. Pallavi Patel is President and CEO of State Care and Bay Area Primary Care Association. There are five locations across Tampa. She also established a charity hospital in her native country, India.

"This is really exciting, you know we do the work we do without any expectation of recognition," said Patel. "When you see such distinguished women who has been recognized before and inducted into Florida Hall of Fame… to be recognized alongside with them, it's a great honor."

Governor Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and Attorney General Bill McCollum presented the awards. They also inducted: Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente and US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

The adoring crowds that recently hailed President Bush in Africa did so because the AIDS program he championed five years ago has helped more than 1.4 million people. Those crowds may have more to cheer in another five years, thanks to a compromise bill in Congress that would boost the AIDS-program funding and effectiveness.

All that is needed now is for the House and Senate to pass the bill and send it to the president.

Triple the funding

The bipartisan bill would more than triple the funding of the original President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, as many Africans call the program. It would expand treatment not only for AIDS but also for tuberculosis and malaria, diseases that often attack AIDS patients. PEPFAR would reach additional countries threatened by the epidemic, including in the Caribbean.

Altogether, the bill would authorize $50 billion over the next five years to prevent transmission of HIV, the AIDS virus. It would pay for treatment for people with HIV, training for 140,000 health workers and taking care of children orphaned by the disease. Congress has provided $19 billion in the program's first five years, although it originally authorized only $15 billion. The money has been well spent.

Tough compromises centered on funding for abstinence programs and restrictions on sex workers and family planning, including contraception. Health experts note that infected prostitutes can rapidly spread HIV and shouldn't be ignored. Abstinence programs alone won't stop unprotected sex.

The bill instead requires ''balanced funding'' for abstinence, fidelity and condom programs, three traditional AIDS-prevention strategies. These programs will have to be be proven effective, too. It also allows funding U.S.-supported family-planning programs to do AIDS testing and counseling services. But the policy against sex workers and contraception funds remains. This is what happens in a compromise.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, is the House Foreign Affairs Committee's ranking member. She says the committee's bill maintains core values important to both sides. Neither side gets all that it wants. Overall, the bill would expand and improve an already good AIDS-relief program.

The Associated Press Wednesday, February 27, 2008

WASHINGTON: The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives endorsed a resolution Wednesday that suggested the Russian government might have had a hand in the 2006 radiation poisoning death of a Russian dissident.

The resolution asks President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials to cooperate with British investigators probing the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian-born former KGB agent who fled to Britain in 2000 and took British citizenship. He died in November 2006 in a British hospital from the effects of radioactive polonium-210 he had ingested.

British authorities have said they will try to prosecute Russian Andrei Lugovoi in Litvinenko's death. They expelled four Russian diplomats last year because the Kremlin refused to extradite Lugovoi.

The resolution was offered by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Foreign Affairs Committee's top Republican. It will have no effect except as an expression of the sense of Congress and now goes to the full House for action. Passed as a concurrent resolution of both chambers, it also will go to the Senate for consideration.

Among facts the document includes to reinforce its accusations about Litvinenko's death is that 97 percent of the world's legal production of polonium-210 occurs at the Avangard nuclear facility in Russia. It says Russia is the world's leading exporter of polonium-210 for commercial purposes, and the substance is neither produced nor commercially imported in Britain.

"The fatal radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko raises significant concerns about the potential involvement of elements of the Russian government in Mr. Litvinenko's death and about the security and proliferation of radioactive materials," the resolution says. "The use of such radioactive materials in such cases demonstrates a threat to the safety and security of the people of the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A House committee on Wednesday voted to more than triple spending for a global AIDS program that has proven to be one of the Bush administration's most successful and popular foreign policy initiatives.

The Foreign Affairs Committee's voice vote on the plan to approve spending of an average $10 billion annually over the next five years came hours after lawmakers and the White House reached a compromise on some of the policy issues, including spending on abstinence programs, that had held up action on the legislation.

The bill extends the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which authorized spending of $15 billion total for five years for prevention and care programs in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions hit by the epidemic. That act, passed in 2003, expires in September.

Every day another 6,000 people are infected by HIV, said committee chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif. 'We have a moral imperative to act decisively.'

While the program has wide bipartisan support, the White House and many Republicans objected to the original Democratic-crafted draft because it removed a provision requiring that a certain amount be spent on abstinence programs and bolstered links between AIDS treatment and family planning. Some Republicans said that would open the way for family planning groups to spend money on abortions.

The compromise worked out in late-night negotiations Tuesday does eliminate the clause requiring that one-third of all HIV prevention funds be spent on abstinence, instead directing the administration to promote 'balanced funding for prevention activities' in target countries. The administration must issue a report if programs focusing on abstinence and fidelity do not receive half of funds devoted to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV, a smaller pot.

The agreement also allows the use of AIDS funds for HIV/AIDS testing and counseling services in those family planning programs supported by the U.S. government. Earlier drafts permitted use of funds for family planning programs including contraceptive services and commodities such as birth control pills. The final bill gives no authority beyond current law to fund family planning programs with AIDS money, although Democrats pointed out that it also does not prohibit such activities.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., top Republican on the committee, said the compromise maintained core values important to both sides. 'Many of us in this room concluded that a collapse of the political consensus on this issue would do irreparable damage to what is arguably the most successful U.S. foreign assistance program of the last half century.'

President Bush was hailed during his recent trip to Africa for a program that has resulted in 1.4 million people receiving drugs to fight the virus and has cared for nearly 6.7 million, including 2.7 million orphans.

The bill was named after two former chairmen of the committee, Reps. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and Tom Lantos, D-Calif., Hyde, who died last November, and Lantos, who died earlier this month, sponsored the 2003 bill. Lantos was the sponsor of the new bill.

'This historic agreement will save millions of lives,' said Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. He welcomed the increase in funds for tuberculosis and malaria while expressing concerns that the compromise retains limitations on AIDS funding for family planning.

The White House on Wednesday also repeated that the president's proposal to double spending to $30 billion, rather than the $50 billion in the House bill, was more appropriate. 'We believe ... that $30 billion is the right amount of money that could be effectively used by these governments to tackle the HIV-AIDS problem,' White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said. 'We don't think it's smart to send additional American taxpayer dollars that will sit there and not be used, or be used ineffectively.'

But Josh Ruxin, assistant clinical professor at Columbia University and a resident of Rwanda where he heads the Access Project, said that while the first five years of the program have been 'extraordinary... simply continuing to implement the same policies and practices over the next five years will be inadequate to address this tidal wave' that is engulfing Africa.

He noted that investing more in such areas as running water and electricity for health centers and training medical personnel increases the capacity of programs to spend more to combat the disease.