Dear Readers,

I can't help myself now that the damage controllers have stepped in
to try and whitewash the inexcusable cancellation of 7th ICAAP.

The one part of Marina's defence that I want to take exception to is this bit:-

"The bids for hosting the conference were called for publicly.
There were queries from India but no follow-up after the Exco
asked for more information. China, through its embassy in
Canberra, explicitly declined to host the ICAAP."

According to my information India did offer and the reason given for
not accepting the offer was that there were not enough of the
appropriate class of accommodation anywhere in India and that
Indians couldn't possibly organise a conference as large as ICAAP.
So the indians went back into their box.

The only piece of information I didn't get was who was in that
conversation from the Exco.

I have participated in several HIV/AIDS conferences in India and the
standards, facilities, technologies and accommodations were totally
adequate.

What a conference hosted in India or China or Sri Lanka or any of
the high prevalence countries creates is that more of the
functionaries can attend and learn. In practice those who attend
the high priced conferences are the Directors General, residential
Aids and scientists, and the people whose lives are most intimately
connected with the day to day problems of the pandemic are left
home and threatened with demotion if they persist with travel
subsidy requests.

IAC's don't help much but ICAAP's are essential and we have lost a
lot of ground because of the ditching of the last one (adjective
deliberate).

Geoff Heaviside
E-mail: <gheaviside@...>