Mandela presses EU to catch up with US Aids funding

Nelson Mandela urged Europe yesterday to match Washington's funding of Aids. The former South African president praised President George Bush at the International Aids Society conference in Paris for increasing cash for research and treatment and said he had "moved the debate from hundreds of millions of dollars to tens of billions".

In May Mr Bush signed into law a $15bn plan to help combat the disease in Africa and the Caribbean, tripling American spending over five years. He urged Congress to approve the plan during his trip to Africa last week. EU officials say they are already doing more than Washington in fighting the virus that has infected 42 million people worldwide, nearly three quarters of them in Africa.