Zackie Achmat

Like anti-apartheid protesters, Zackie Achmat was willing to die for his cause, and today he is alive in spite of it. So it was all the sweeter for the renowned South African AIDS activist to learn, during a visit to Los Angeles last week, that his movement has just won an unexpected battle -- if not yet the war -- in the struggle to bring AIDS medications to his countrymen.

Like anti-apartheid protesters, Zackie Achmat was willing to die for his cause, and today he is alive in spite of it. So it was all the sweeter for the renowned South African AIDS activist to learn, during a visit to Los Angeles last week, that his movement has just won an unexpected battle -- if not yet the war -- in the struggle to bring AIDS medications to his countrymen.

Apartheid-era laws banning homosexual relations were struck down Friday by South Africa's highest court, which ruled that men convicted of sodomy since 1994 could demand monetary damages and have their criminal records cleared. The constitutional court's decision formalized guarantees granted in 1994, when white minority rule ended and a provisional constitution banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, race or gender.

As a youth, Simon Nkuli had two strikes against him under the white supremacist system of apartheid and the stern Calvinist morality that underpinned it: He was both black and homosexual. Thus he endured five years in various jails and prisons for his political activism before being acquitted of treason charges in 1988. And he was both tortured and mocked by police, who called him a moffie, a pejorative for gays.

The government on Monday lost a court appeal that could have allowed it to continue restricting access to a key drug for thousands of pregnant women who are HIV-positive. Reaffirming an earlier ruling, a Pretoria high court ordered the government to provide the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to all public hospitals with the capacity to use it, even as the government awaits a hearing before the country's Constitutional Court in May.

Frustration was palpable in the hallways and meeting rooms here as the 14th International AIDS Conference drew to a close amid protests against drug companies and Western governments, dire forecasts about the epidemic's toll and limited prospects for new treatments. Activists decried what they see as greedy pharmaceutical manufacturers and miserly governments, particularly those of the United States and the European Union.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Activist Angy Peter, who has spent years exposing police failures in the sprawling township of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town, was due to testify at an upcoming commission of inquiry. Instead, she is behind bars, charged with killing a petty thief and police informer, Rowan du Preez, who supporters say Peter once saved from an angry mob that had accused him of theft. The timing of Peter's arrest and the homicide allegation are both suspicious, say fellow activists from Cape Town's Social Justice Coalition.

The world's biggest drug companies dropped their controversial lawsuit against the South African government Thursday, paving the way for this country to provide cheaper medication to combat diseases such as AIDS. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assn., on behalf of 39 drug companies, unconditionally withdrew its challenge to legislation--passed in 1997 but not yet implemented--that allows the government to make or buy cheaper drugs.