DELHI POST

Indian sex workers rewarded for HIV checks

Prostitutes in southern India are being given discount shopping cards in return for having regular checks at a sexual health clinic as part of a project to raise HIV/AIDS awareness. UNAIDS, the United Nation's AIDS-prevention agency, recently said India has the highest HIV caseload in the world, with an estimated 5.7 million people living with the virus. «They were very particular about us including a sari shop. Presentation is very important for them,» said Sushena Reza-Paul of the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust. Shops and restaurants in the city of Mysore were at first hesitant about being associated with the sex workers?project, but eventually relented after being convinced that 500 card-carrying sex workers would lead to a steady stream of paying customers. «They tell me that only rich people can normally have these kind of cards ? so it gives them a sense of pride and belonging,» she said.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

For Gay Rights Movement, a key setback

When Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in November 2003, gay rights advocates imagined a chain reaction that would shake marriage laws until same-sex couples across the nation had the legal right to wed. Nowhere did gay marriage seem like a natural fit more than New York, where the Stonewall uprising of 1969 provided inspiration for the gay rights movement and where a history of spirited progressivism had led some gay couples to envision their own weddings someday. Thursday's court ruling against gay marriage was more than a legal rebuke, then ? it came as a shocking insult to gay rights groups. Leaders said they were stunned by both the rejection and the decision's language, which they saw as expressing more concern for the children of heterosexual couples than for the children of gay couples. They also took exception to the ruling's description of homosexuality as a preference rather than an orientation.

MEXICO POST

Mexico begins massive vote recount

Felipe Calderon's slim lead in Mexico's presidential race was called into question as an official recount of vote tallies showed his leftist opponent slightly ahead late Wednesday. However, Calderon insisted he had won and even offered to include his rival in his Cabinet. With 90 percent of tally sheets recounted at 300 district headquarters across the country, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had 36 percent, compared with 35 percent for Calderon. The preliminary count completed earlier in the week had Calderon winning by 1 percentage point. Officials from Calderon's ruling party said Lopez Obrador was only leading because more votes had been recounted in areas where he was strongest, and they insisted the trend would not hold. They also accused the Lopez Obrador's party of stalling tactics in states where the conservative Calderon was strongest, saying it was deliberately trying to give the impression that Lopez Obrador was ahead as the count...

THE ECONOMIST

Backfiring

By test-launching a string of missiles on Tuesday July 4th North Korea achieved a number of small results which it probably found gratifying. It poked a finger in America's eye on Independence Day. It showed, on the same day that America was launching a space shuttle, that North Korea could do rockets too...

L?EQUIPE

Santini :«Rien d'étonnant»

Aller loin dans une compétition comme la Coupe du monde passe par la défense. L'équipe de France l'a parfaitement compris : elle a encore réalisé une grosse performance défensive contre le Portugal. Il n'y a rien de surprenant à cela. Les quatre demi-finalistes étaient les quatre équipes qui avaient le mieux défendu jusqu'ici, exception faite du premier match de l'Allemagne devant le Costa Rica (4-2). Le début de match devant le Portugal a pu laisser penser que cette demi-finale allait être débridée. C'est retombé assez vite. Le match s'est déroulé au diapason d'une compétition fermée.