Melinda Gates visits India in fight against AIDS

Melinda Gates visits Indiain fight against AIDS
CALCUTTA, India -- Melinda Gates, who along with billionaire husband Bill Gates has donated $200 million to fight AIDS in India, visited one of Asia's largest red light districts and discussed AIDS control programs with prostitutes.
Gates spoke Sunday to several women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at Sonagachi, a rundown area with some 6,000 prostitutes in north Calcutta. She met with nearly 40 sex workers who discussed their lives, families and children as security guards pushed back a surging crowd of onlookers and journalists.
The Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated millions to help fight the disease in India, where an estimated 4.6 million people, or 0.9 percent of adults, have HIV or AIDS.
"India hangs in balance so far as AIDS is concerned," Gates told The Associated Press.
She said the biggest problem in fighting AIDS in India is a lack of awareness and social stigma.
"Social stigma is still an enormous issue, but pockets of people are speaking out, and it's fundamental to back them," she said.
Bill Gates is the chairman of U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp.
David Bowie feels OK nowabout his old material
SAN FRANCISCO -- These days, David Bowie isn't intimidated by his own music.
Touring as a headliner for the first time in more than seven years, Bowie told the San Francisco Chronicle that the music he made as a glam-rock pioneer was dragging him down throughout the 1990s.
"I really felt, in all honesty, fairly intimidated by my catalog at the time. I really had to work out a new way of approaching what was going to be the '90s, and I needed elbow room. I didn't want those things staring me in the face every time I went to do a show."
Bowie's hits include the songs "Let's Dance" and "Serious Moonlight" and the album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars." His last few albums include "Earthling" and "Heathen" and "Reality."
Now the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has worked up more than 50 songs for his latest tour, playing material from throughout his career,
"As the '90s went along," he said, "I felt more and more confident about the writing I was doing. Now that I'm here, 2004 now, I kind of feel there are certain amounts of the new material that balances well with the older material. And the older material doesn't seem so intimidating anymore."
Notable death
Alexandra Ripley, the prolific historical fiction writer best known for "Scarlett," the official sequel to "Gone With the Wind," died of natural causes Jan. 10 at her Richmond, Va., home. She was 70.
Today's birthdays
Musical conductor Skitch Henderson is 86. Singer Bobby "Blue" Bland is 74. Actor James Cromwell is 64. Actor John Witherspoon is 62. Rock musician Nick Mason (Pink Floyd) is 59. Rhythm and blues singer Nedra Talley (The Ronettes) is 58. Ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov is 56. Country singer Cheryl White is 49. Country singer-musician Richard Young (The Kentucky Headhunters) is 49. Actress Mimi Rogers is 48. Rock singer Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 43. Rock musician Gillian Gilbert (New Order) is 43. Actress Bridget Fonda is 40. Actor Alan Cumming is 39. Country singer Tracy Lawrence is 36. Rock singer Mike Patton is 36. Rapper Tricky is 36. Rock musician Michael Kulas (James) is 35. Rock musician Mark Trojanowski (Sister Hazel) is 34. Actor Josh Randall ("Ed") is 32. Country singer Kevin Denney is 28.