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Obama, Presidents Clinton And Bush To Mark 'World AIDS Day'

The ONE Campaign will be live-streaming at 10 a.m. ET as President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush and others take part in a forum on "The Beginning of the End of AIDS" at George Washington University.

It's one of many events marking World AIDS Day.

Others due to participate in the discussion include President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, Bono (U2 singer and ONE Campaign founder) and singer Alicia Keys.

The Associated Press says that Obama "is renewing the U.S. commitment to ending HIV and AIDS on Thursday, setting goals for getting more people access to life-saving AIDS drugs and boosting spending on treatment of the virus in the U.S. by $50 million dollars. Obama will announce the new initiatives at an event in Washington marking World AIDS Day. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will also speak at the event via satellite."

On Morning Edition today, correspondent Anders Kelto reported from South Africa on the concern at the world's largest supporter of AIDS programs about whether all the money it's been promised from donor nations will in fact be delivered. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says that economic problems around the world mean that pledges of support from some nations may not "be turned into contributions on time."

Our friends at the Shots blog will have more on the conference later.

Update at 10:40 a.m. ET: President Obama just got a standing ovation from those at the conference when he announced that the U.S. has increased the number of people it aims to help get treatment by the end of 2013, from 4 million to 6 million.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.