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The Test of HIV Testing

By George E. Curry
NNPA Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Mamie Harris, executive director of IV-CHARIS, a Cincinnati faith-based HIV/AIDS support group, figured out the problem: Too few African Americans were being tested for HIV because the efforts to reach them were ineffective, unimaginative and dated.
So, the widow of a prominent local pastor initiated a series of innovative programs aimed at increasing the number of Black Ohioans being tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
"Everybody had gotten lethargic about HIV," said the head of IV-CHARIS (Com-passionate Hearts Assisting Rebuilding Instructing Serving). "We've been talking about this for 27 years and people had been hearing the same message and had the feeling that 'I've heard this before.' We're trying to mobilize the community to attack the problem."

Ohio budget showdown?

By Stephen Majors
Wire Service Correspondent

COLUMBUS, OH (AP) – The next three weeks of negotiations over the two-year, $54 billion budget have all the makings of an epic political showdown.
The newly empowered Democrats control the House and have the leadership and backing of Gov. Ted Strickland. The Republicans who control the Senate have the feistiness that comes with limited influence and the knowledge that they have just enough power to obstruct Democrats’ most vital goals.
That combination has been absent during budget negotiations since 1995, when Republicans took control of both chambers, and it plants fertile ground for the swapping of legislative goals.
Add to that the expectation that new revenue estimates will give lawmakers up to a couple billion dollars less to work with as the downtrodden economy continues to influence the political scene. And don’t forget that a new gubernatorial campaign is just starting to heat up.
All of these dynamics have Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck believing lawmakers may miss their budget deadline of July 1, the date the new fiscal year begins.
“It would be hard enough...

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Longest-serving president dies

By Yves Laurent Goma
and Rukmini Callimachi
Wire Service Correspondents

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) – Gabon President Omar Bongo, the world’s longest-serving president whose 42-year rule was a throwback to an era when Africa was ruled by “Big Men,’’ has died of cardiac arrest in a Spanish hospital. He was 73.
Doctors at the Quiron Clinic in Barcelona anno-unced Bongo’s death around 2:30 p.m. (12:30 GMT, 8:30 a.m. EDT) Monday, Gabo-nese Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong said. Bongo was admitted to the hospital last month.
Only hours earlier, Ndong had said he saw the president and declared him “alive and well.’’ Gabonese officials have become increasingly belligerent with journalists, including calling a meeting with the French ambassador in Gabon in order to discuss the coverage of the president’s death by French media outlets.
Bongo, who was believed to be one of the world’s wealthiest leaders, became the longest-ruling head of government – a category that does not include the monarchs of Britain and Thailand – when Cuba’s Fidel Castro handed power to his brother last year.
The country’s constitution calls for the head of the Senate, Rose Francine Rogombe, to assume power and organize presidential elections within 90 days of Bongo’s death. But there has been speculation that one of Bongo’s sons would try to seize power upon his father’s death, as happened in nearby Togo.
Bongo had kept a tight grip on power in the oil-rich former French colony since he became president in 1967, and his ruling party has dominated the country’s parliament for decades. Opposition parties were only allowed in 1990, amid a wave of pro-democracy protests.

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