A few days before the International Aids Conference in Toronto, a report on HIV-Aids in Africa by the mainly evangelical agency Tearfund has concluded that church congregations all over Africa are in the front line in dealing with the depredations of Aids. Working with extended families, they are particularly notable in the care they give to the millions of orphans the epidemic has produced. The report calls for a more sophisticated understanding by Western governments and agencies of the value of channelling resources through these traditional structures of the community. They could make a significant impact, for instance, on reducing mother-baby transmission, one of the major routes through which the epidemic spreads. 

But while Churches could be a central part of the solution they are also part of the problem. Stigma and taboo stemming from traditional sexual morality lead to ignorance, which is a major catalyst in spreading the disease. Perhaps as few as 10 per cent of those infected know about their condition because of a fear that a positive test result might lead to social ostracism.

Where this report goes further than most is in its willingness to defy Western silence concerning discussion of gender equality in Africa, and the very poor deal most African women get from their male sexual partners, usually their husbands. Many African women have had only one sexual partner when they marry, and their husbands infect them having already contracted the HIV virus from prostitutes or casual sex.

The debate about the use of condoms to prevent transmission of the HIV virus is usually conducted without reference to its social and cultural context, which for a change this report supplies. For while it supports the standard "ABC" strategy (Abstain, Be faithful, use a Condom), it comments realistically that it will "remain ineffective until gender inequalities are tackled". It is men who flout the ABC code, but women who live with the consequences. ...

So far, the usual long, hot summer of sectarian tension associated with the marching season in Northern Ireland has passed without a single soldier on the streets. Gradually the old hatreds seem to be diminishing, for which some credit has to go to the Nationalist community's traditional foe, the Orange Order. The Government has proposed turning the annual Orange marches, once the focus of anti-Catholic antagonism, ...

The citizens of Britain, like those of other Western countries, think it normal to fly abroad on holiday, sometimes several times a year. They think it normal for families to own several cars. They timetable their lives around rapid travel and high consumption of energy. This week the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, asked them to consider what they are doing to the planet. Climate change is accelerating ...