S. Africa blasted at AIDS conference

South Africa came under withering attacks at the closing of the weeklong global AIDS conference on Friday, with some of the world’s leading AIDS experts accusing the government of ignoring the epidemic and promoting inadequate prevention methods.

As the 16th International AIDS Conference concluded, Stephen Lewis, the U.N. special envoy for AIDS in Africa, said that of all the things that have infuriated him in his AIDS work, “South Africa is the unkindest cut of all.”

“It is the only country in Africa whose government continues to promote theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state,” he said.

South Africa’s contentious minister of health, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, promotes nutrition and natural remedies as key weapons against AIDS and has questioned, along with South African President Thabo Mbeki, the effectiveness of antiviral drugs.

The South African government last year estimated that 5.5 million South Africans have HIV, accounting for more than one-eighth of the estimated cases worldwide. UNAIDS estimates that more than 19 percent of people aged 15 to 49 in that country are infected.

Berlin

Suspects in failed bomb plot sought

German authorities announced Friday that they are searching for suspects in a failed terrorist plot involving propane bombs concealed in suitcases that were timed to explode simultaneously on two regional trains in western Germany.

The bombs were constructed of propane tanks, gasoline bottles, ignition switches and timers. They were hidden in two suitcases and loaded onto trains leaving Cologne and bound for Koblenz and Dortmund on July 31. They were set to explode 10 minutes before reaching their destinations.

Surveillance video shows the two suspects in the Cologne train station. One has long black hair and wears a white shirt. He carries a hiker’s backpack around his shoulders and wheels a dark-colored suitcase behind him. The second man has close-cropped black hair and wears a German football jersey. He carries a satchel and pulls a large suitcase toward the train platform.

At some point, the two men disembarked from the trains, investigators said. Rail workers later discovered the abandoned luggage.