The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of today's news; then, two reports from Ukraine; the Canadian view of their country's relationship with the United States; and, on World AIDS Day, conversations about women and AIDS, and a book on a South African boy's struggle with AIDS.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The crisis over Ukraine's presidential election appeared to ease some today. The two sides held talks with European mediators. And afterward, the opposition candidate agreed to call off a blockade of government buildings in Kiev. He proposed a new vote for Dec. 19. His supporters insist last month's run-off was rigged so the prime minister could win. Also today, parliament voted to dismiss the prime minister's government. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. There were new efforts today to keep Iraq's elections on track for Jan. 30. Some Sunni Muslim leaders have called for a delay. But President al-Yawer, a Sunni himself, said today, "There is a legal and moral obligation to hold elections on the set date." U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte told the Washington Post that security will improve enough to allow the elections. And the U.N.'s top election official in Iraq said today he is satisfied with preparations for the vote. The United States will increase troop numbers in Iraq by 12,000 to enhance security for the elections. The announcement today said roughly 1,500 troops from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division will deploy this month, and more than 10,000 marines and soldiers from other units will have their tours of duty extended. The additions will make a total of 150,000 American troops in Iraq. The U.S. Military also announced today the arrests of more than 200 suspected militants in Iraq. They were captured in a week-long series of raids south of Baghdad. The offensive was aimed at restoring stability to an area known as the "Triangle of Death." President Bush called today for Canada and the United States to work together on bringing peace to Iraq. He spoke in Halifax, Nova Scotia, concluding a two-day visit to Canada. The Canadian government opposed the invasion of Iraq, but has since contributed humanitarian aid. Today, Mr. Bush acknowledged the split.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Sometimes even the closest of friends disagree. And two years ago we disagreed about the best course of action in Iraq. Yet as your prime minister made clear in Washington earlier this year, there is no disagreement at all with what has to be done in going forward. We must help the Iraqi people secure their country and build a free and democratic society.

JIM LEHRER: The president also thanked Canada for taking part in peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We'll have more on the Canada visit and U.S./Canadian relations later in the program tonight. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan warned American citizens today of a new kidnapping plot. It said militants are trying to get jobs with western companies and non-government organizations in Afghanistan. They could use those positions to gain easier access to Americans in the country. The statement also warned of possible suicide attacks. A jailed Palestinian leader entered the Palestinian presidential race today. Marwan Barghouti got his filed papers at the last minute. He is currently behind bars in Israel, serving five consecutive life sentences for attacks that killed five people. Israel has said it will not release him. The other major candidate in the Palestinian race is Mahmoud Abbas, a former prime minister. The Philippines struggled to recover today from a powerful typhoon, with another one on the way. More than 400 people are confirmed dead in the storm that struck east of Manila on Monday night. Nearly 180 others are missing. We have a report narrated by Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

IAN WILLIAMS: Three men cling desperately to their car, which is then swept beneath an inundated bridge. Soldiers struggle to pull one man from the water. Miraculously, on this day of death and destruction in the Philippines, all three survived. Heavy rains caused flash floods and landslides across a swath of the northern Philippines, sweeping away bridges and flimsy houses. Where homes still stand, people cling to the rooftops, waiting for precarious rescue attempts. (Cheers and applause) The president of the Philippines rushed back early from a regional summit in Laos to be briefed on rescue and relief efforts.

SPOKESPERSON: We will bring it by whatever transport, up to a point.

IAN WILLIAMS: The disaster is centered on an important food producing region, and is already being blamed in part on deforestation. As survivors negotiated a path through the debris, there was further unsettling news: Forecasts that a typhoon is bearing down on the same area.

JIM LEHRER: And that approaching typhoon could hit the Philippines by tomorrow. Thousands of activists around the world joined today in marking World AIDS Day. The U.N. warned infection rates are rising among women and girls, and across Asia and the former Soviet Bloc. U.N. officials said China alone could have ten million cases by the year 2010 unless it takes urgent action. We'll have more on this AIDS story later in the program. The U.S. economy got a double dose of good news today. The price of oil dropped sharply on word that supplies of winter heating oil and diesel are better than expected. In New York trading, oil futures fell more than $3.50 to close at $45.49 a barrel. And the Commerce Department reported consumer spending was up .7 percent in October, beating expectations. On Wall Street, the positive economic news touched off a rally today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 126 points to close at 10,590. The NASDAQ rose 41 points to close at 12138, a gain of almost 2 percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The latest from Ukraine; the Canadian view; and, on World AIDS Day, women and AIDS, and a boy and AIDS.

UPDATE - POWER STRUGGLE

JIM LEHRER: The Ukraine story. We begin with this report by Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON: Once again, they came to parliament in their thousands, and soon, the building was engulfed in orange. Order is now kept by men in paramilitary uniforms, Yushchenko's "soldiers of free Ukraine." The crowd heard deputies decide to modify the normal rules and vote by secret ballot. Since parliament decided that the vote should be in secret, it's the opposition that has started winning the counts. They've already voted that the president should do everything possible to achieve stability. And now, the result of another count is coming out. (Crowd cheers) Inside, they voted on the key resolution-- to sack the government of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich. It was passed by three votes. ( Cheers and applause ) Opposition MP's went wild with joy over a victory that is largely symbolic but dramatically boosts their "people's power" revolution. ( Cheers and applause ) Outside, thousands celebrated. The vote has no legal force unless President Kuchma approved it, but it is a heavy blow against the prime minister, who they accuse of trying to steal an election.

WOMAN: I am very excited. And I am very proud of my country, of my name.

JULIAN MANYON: As they emerged, opposition MP's were acclaimed as heroes, but the prime minister's key henchmen was booed and pursued down the street. All day, European mediators have been working for compromise between the two sides. Tonight, outgoing President Leonid Kuchma announced what has been agreed: No use of violence, and opposition demonstrators to end their blockade of official buildings. The next step will be the Supreme Court decision on the elections themselves. But at least the two rivals managed a brief handshake as they wait for the next round in this grueling contest.

JIM LEHRER: And earlier this evening, Margaret Warner spoke by telephone to New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers in Kiev.

MARGARET WARNER: Steve Myers, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Did any of the to'ing and fro'ing we saw today, either in the parliament or in the negotiations, move the situation any closer to a resolution?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: I think what we saw with the negotiations tonight was the beginnings of the compromise that will resolve the election dispute. What they agreed on was a series of measures that both sides accepted, but the most significant one perhaps is an agreement to pursue political reform. This is a sweeping constitutional amendment that Kuchma had... President Kuchma presented in March of this year, and it was rejected by the parliament. But essentially what it would do is shift the powers from the presidency to the parliament and specifically the prime minister.

MARGARET WARNER: That sounds like a very long-range thing. Why is that essential to resolving this immediate crisis over who is going to be the next president?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, it seems, according to many people on both sides, that what President Kuchma has done is revised this issue as a way of essentially diminishing the power of the presidency. In that case then there could be a new election that many people believe Viktor Yushchenko would win in a fair election, and that then would allow him to essentially take office, though with diminished powers; would still leave President Kuchma with considerable power to appoint a new prime minister, perhaps a loyal prime minister, essentially before he leaves office.

MARGARET WARNER: So why would Yushchenko, who signed this agreement this afternoon, why would he be interested in pursuing that?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, partly... it's very complicated, the politics here. But he, you know, leads a coalition in the parliament that includes the socialist party, who favors this reform, essentially creating more of a parliamentary republic rather than a presidential one. And many people believe that he essentially has had to accept this in order to keep his coalition.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, now, explain how all this is going to relate to the Supreme Court decision? First of all, why is the Supreme Court taking so long to rule on whether the election was invalid? What's going on at the core?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, actually, I don't think the Supreme Court has taken that long. They began hearings on Monday. The amazing thing is they're televised and you're able to watch what seems to be a fairly objective hearing of the complaints by Mr. Yushchenko's camp that this election was essentially stolen by the government. You know, it has only been three days now. Most people seem to expect this court could rule either tomorrow or Friday, within days anyway. And they're hearing a lot of evidence. And today, in another strange twist, Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister, who was declared the winner, essentially put in an appeal that there was always votes-rigging that went on on behalf of Mr. Yushchenko, but essentially it added ammunition to Mr. Yushchenko's argument that there was considerable fraud in this election. So many people now expect that the court will actually rule that this election was so fraudulent that it can't be accepted.

MARGARET WARNER: And so, if and when that happens, let's say the court rules that way, then are there procedures in place for what would happen next or would that decision go back to the political players then to negotiate, say, about a new election?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, that's part of what was being discussed today in the meetings mediated by the European diplomat. I think that they're seeking a political solution. One of the other things they agreed on today was the forum, what they called a working group, to immediately consider how to implement the court's decision. I mean, no one will say they know what the court is going to rule, but there does seem to be an expectation that the election will be ruled invalid, and it raises all sorts of questions about how do you hold a new election? Do you hold a runoff between the two men again, or do you hold an entirely new election process, beginning from the start, which is what President Kuchma said today should happen?

MARGARET WARNER: And Yushchenko wants just a rerun of the second round that just took place. Now, explain why they have those different demands or objectives.

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, I think Mr. Yushchenko thinks he won, and he thinks in a fair vote he would easily beat the prime minister, Yanukovich. I think that their... motivation for having a whole new election seems to be that President Kuchma and his supporters might ditch Yanukovich in favor of another candidate.

MARGARET WARNER: And meanwhile, while all these machinations and maneuverings are going on, how stable does the situation appear to be in the streets? In other words, does it appear to you that anything is in danger of getting out of control here, or can this process go on for a couple of more weeks?

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Well, I'll tell you, one of the things that's really struck me and is often not seen on the part of... or I should say not accepted by the Yanukovich camp or certainly in Russia, is that the mood on the street is extraordinarily peaceful. It's almost electric. The people there are certainly non-violent. They're very disciplined. The mood is a festive one, I would say. Yesterday, though, there was a tense moment when the parliament also took up a vote of "no confidence" and failed, and then there was a vote to try to annul the parliament's decision to declare the election invalid. And a number of protesters stormed the barricades and got into the lobby of the parliament building, and there was a scuffle with the security people before they got them all out again. I think that that was a sense that the... that the crowd, like any large crowd, is a volatile thing.

MARGARET WARNER: Steve Myers, thank you so much.

STEVEN LEE MYERS: Thank you.

FOCUS - AU CANADA

JIM LEHRER: Next, the Canadian view of the United States. President Bush wrapped up his two-day visit to Canada today. Gwen Ifill has that and the broader story.

ANNOUNCER: The President of the United States and the prime minister of Canada.

GWEN IFILL: Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin welcomed President Bush to the Canadian coastal city of Halifax today. It was the second stop on the president's first official visit to Canada.

PAUL MARTIN: Mr. President, this place is Canada, and it is an honor today to share it with the leader of our nation's great friend.

GWEN IFILL: Residents of Halifax, Toronto and many other Canadian cities took in thousands of U.S.-bound airline passengers who were stranded for days after the 9/11 attacks.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: One American declared, "My heart is overwhelmed at the outpouring of Canadian compassion." How does a person say thank you to a nation? Well, that's something a president can do. And so, let me say directly to the Canadian people and to all of you here today who welcomed Americans: Thank you for your kindness to America in an hour of need. ( Applause )

SINGING: -- through the perilous fight...

GWEN IFILL: While Canadians stood with the U.S. in the days after 9/11 and sent forces to Afghanistan, the bonds between the longstanding allies frayed over the U.S. Decision to go to war in Iraq. Part of the goal of this visit was to begin the process of mending those fences, but many Canadians are in no mood for that. 45 percent of them now view the U.S. unfavorably, up from just 8 percent in 1981. President Bush is especially unpopular.

WOMAN: I was really disappointed when he got re-elected.

MAN: It's hard to understand how Americans could vote for someone who's made so many mistakes.

GWEN IFILL: 80 percent of Canadians agreed with their government's opposition to the Iraq War, a sentiment which played out yesterday in the streets of Ottawa. Mr. Bush, however, remained unapologetic.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to be: "Stay in place for four more years." I made some decisions, obviously, that some in Canada didn't agree with, like, for example, removing Saddam Hussein and enforcing the demands of the United Nations Security Council.

GWEN IFILL: Much of Canada's 32.5 million people are concentrated in major cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. That leaves vast acres of land open for logging, farming and cattle ranching, major money makers that account for a large part of $1 billion-a-day in trade with the U.S. and also for some of the thorniest disputes between the two nations. The U.S. has placed steep import tariffs on Canadian lumber, an issue now before the World Trade Organization. Ranchers are incensed over a U.S. ban on Canadian cattle imposed after the discovery of a single case of Mad Cow Disease in Alberta last year. America is Canada's largest beef customer. Today, the president noted the extent of U.S./Canadian trade, but made light of the Mad Cow controversy.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: 23 percent of American exports go directly North, and more than 80 percent of Canadian exports go to my country. With so much trade, there are bound to be some disagreements. I proudly ate some Alberta beef last night... (laughter) ...and I'm still standing. (Laughter and applause)

GWEN IFILL: Increasingly, there is also a political and cultural disconnect between the two countries, which, on occasion, can degenerate into sneering animosity, as in this American cartoon.

SOUTH PARK SEGMENT: Well, blame Canada -

CARTOON WOMAN SINGING: -- it seems that everything's gone wrong since Canada came along.

VOICES: Blame Canada. Blame Canada.

CARTOON MAN SINGING: They're not even a real country, anyway

GWEN IFILL: Prime Minister Martin's efforts to initiate a thaw in icy U.S./Canadian relations were complicated when a liberal member of parliament, Carolyn Parrish, mocked and abused a President Bush doll on Canadian television. She was expelled from her caucus several days later. But today in Halifax, President Bush emphasized the values the two nations share in common.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We believe in the right of every person to live in freedom. We believe in free markets humanized by compassion and fairness. We believe a diverse society can also be united by principles of justice and equality. With so much in common and so much at stake, we cannot be divided. I realize, and many Americans realize, that it's not always easy to sleep next to the elephant. (Laughter) As a member of Canada's parliament said in the 1960s, "the United States is our friend whether we like it or not." (Laughter and applause) When all is said and done, we are friends, and we like it.

GWEN IFILL: Now for more on how Canadians have come to view their neighbor to the South, we're joined by three Canadian citizens who think and write about cross-border relations. Margaret Wente is a columnist at the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto and author of "An Accidental Canadian." Rick Mercer is a comedian and satirist who hosts a popular weekly CBC television show, Rick Mercer's Monday Report. And Mark Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine. Welcome all of you.

Professor Kingwell, I would like to start with that comment the president just made about sleeping with an elephant. How would you gauge the state of U.S.-Canadian relations right now?

MARK KINGWELL: Well, I think probably it's fair to say that they haven't been this bad in recent memory. I think probably you'd have to go back more than four or five decades to have a sense of what was described as a disconnect primarily it seems to me not because both countries aren't liberal political organizations -- they are. I mean, those are shared values -- but because there are fundamental rifts on what kind of liberalism each country is pursuing. And the reasoned objection to an unjust war, the legitimate claims of cultural independence in these trade disputes really simply protecting the interests of our farmers and ranchers and loggers have highlighted those differences. So I would say probably it hasn't been this bad for a long time. It certainly historically has been worse; you know, in 1813, the British attacked Washington and the Americans attacked Canada. So we are not that bad. But... and I'd like to say by the way, that many of my best friends are American.

GWEN IFILL: That's so kind of you.

MARK KINGWELL: I have a feeling -- I have a feeling both in my own experience and talking to many people across this country, that things have rarely been this bad.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Wente, what is your take on that?

MARGARET WENTE: Well, it is certainly safe to say that George Bush is the most unpopular American president since Richard Nixon, for sure. And that goes back a ways. But at the same time, Canadians want their government to be on fairly good speaking terms with the United States, with Washington because we know where our interests lie. And we are so economically dependent on the United States that any fraying of that relationship at the top is going to hurt, and so I think people, especially the business community, felt that this meeting and this sign of friendship and I have to say that the two men got along pretty well; the body language was pretty good. There was a sense that it was long overdue and it was kind of a relief that on some level we started to try to close that gap, and at least get back on speaking terms again.

GWEN IFILL: Rick Mercer, did you see the ice breaking or are we making too much of this split?

RICK MERCER: Well, obviously actions speak louder than words. That's why Mr. Bush decided to come to Canada because one of the big sticking points between Canada and the United States is that Bush never came here. And since the beginning of time, the president of the United States generally when he went on a state visit for the first time, he would come to Canada. And, you know, Bush didn't do that and that kind of set the tone. And the words would come from his ambassador and his ambassador would roll back and forth across the country for the last four years telling Canadians what to do and telling us, you know, what we were doing wrong and how we should run our country and what laws we should pass and should not pass. And, as a result, there has been an incredible amount of animosity building between the two nations and not just over trade, which is obviously very big, but this feeling that there is this attitude coming from Washington that Canada is, you know, is a state, essentially someone who should do just what they're told when they're told. And, you know, Canadians didn't buy into that. And, as a result, that's why you see George Bush being phenomenally unpopular in this country.

GWEN IFILL: Rick Mercer, how much does it matter to Canadians what Americans think? Are Canadians viewing themselves through an American lens?

RICK MERCER: Well, we would like to think we don't care but clearly we do care. I mean, one of the interesting things about Canadians is that we do sometimes define ourselves about how we are different than America. There is no doubt about it. Our nose is out of joint. When George Bush snubbed us the first time around, but at the same time we've always been friends. We've always been neighbors and yes, one does care what one's neighbor thinks of one. So it's not like we are relishing in the fact that the president doesn't seem to like us or that there is this animosity between the two nations. We have actually been a little bit confused by it, I think. But, you know, in the issue of Iraq, we had no choice. We just, you know, stood our ground. And that worked out for the prime minister of the day because overwhelmingly, over 80 percent of the Canadian people stood by him. And actually I'm surprised to see George Bush coming to visit. And it's probably a good thing for relationship between the two nations especially on the issues of, you know, beef and lumber. That's what's important here -- not really, you know, what we think of George Bush; that doesn't really matter.

GWEN IFILL: Well, Mark Kingwell, let's talk about those sore spots, especially the cattle ban and the lumber tariffs. How big a deal have those been? Have they been the driving force? Has there been any deterioration in the relationship?

MARK KINGWELL: Well, first of all I think many Alberta ranchers are not going to be particularly pleased with the mockery that the president offered on the issue. This has been a serious hit to the economy of the prairies. And while it doesn't get the same kind of attention as the foreign policy issues because it doesn't seem so emotional and doesn't affect all Canadians, not obviously, it hasn't had the same attention. And yet I think Rick is right. On a day-to-day basis, these trade issues are far more important. I think American policy -- trade policy has not been willing to recognize deep importance of the Canadian market to the health of American economy. I mean Margaret spoke about our interests. Well, yeah, we have our interests, but the Americans have our interests in keeping us happy, too. And I think this is the forgotten fact in most Canada-U.S. relations. I think likewise many Canadians are wondering not just why Bush is here now, but why it took him three years to thank us for what happened after 9/11. This was a significant breach of diplomatic protocol when there was no forthcoming thanks at the time. And I think that's part of what made the relationship deteriorate, part of a general loss of faith in the American attitude after 9/11.

GWEN IFILL: So are you suggesting that the goodwill that we saw on display when the president joked about the beef and when the president said thank you, didn't necessarily sit that well with Canadians?

MARK KINGWELL: Well, it didn't sit well with this Canadian. I think it is disingenuous. I also think that his defense of his actions in Iraq as being in accordance with the United Nations Security Council is disingenuous. The Bush administration has consistently failed to cooperate with the United Nations; something that Canadians have been urging all along as the real basis of any kind of legitimate international action. He has also refused to cooperate with the international criminal court with various measures which Canadian diplomats and thinkers have been spearheading to try to give a legitimate basis to international law so that we don't see the kind of rogue action that we have seen in Iraq.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Wente, let's talk a little bit about Iraq. Has the president or have Americans successfully made their case with Canadian observers, with Canadian citizens about the reason why United States felt the need to go into Iraq? And has the breach been healed over about Canada's decision not to support the U.S. on that?

MARGARET WENTE: Well, no, generally no, Canadians are still pretty unconvinced that that was a wise thing to do. I think the question now is what do we do? What is appropriate for to us do now that the United States is there, now that there's a certain necessary commitment to turning this thing around. And I think sometimes Canadians tend to be too obsessed with the past and not as engaged as they could be with how we could contribute to the reconstruction effort. There certainly are some things that we've got to offer. In fact, our prime minister said during this visit that we are going to contribute some money and some expertise. And I think that's quite appropriate. There is some kind of role that we can play in partnering with the United States. And I think we should think about playing that kind of role. It's important. We still have some kind of constructive thing that we can do in the world.

GWEN IFILL: Rick Mercer, let's talk about your prime minister, Paul Martin. Obviously there is a different relationship between he and President Bush and his predecessor, Jean Chr tien. Perhaps Iraq was part of that. How would you compare the two?

RICK MERCER: Well, when our current prime minister, Paul Martin, you know, came into power, one of the first things that he made clear was he was going to warm up the relationship between Canada and the United States. And he was going to head on down to the states and he was going to, you know, make that relationship work. And he tried very desperately to do that. And, you know, that's a fine line to walk in Canada because we don't want our prime minister to be seen sucking up to the president too much. But he went. He did his job. And people expected and I think Paul Martin expected there would be some thawing and there would be some movement on the big files of softwood lumber and Alberta beef or Canadian beef and nothing happened. So - you know, but now we see them being cozy with one another, so I guess they're getting a long in front of the cameras, which is more than, you know, our former president and former prime minister did.

GWEN IFILL: Does that mean or suggest in any way that years of being allies can counter balance these recent tensions?

RICK MERCER: Well, I would hope that, you know, when push came to shove, that, you know, all of these problems could be solved because of the historic relationship between the two countries. But, you know, it just doesn't seem to be going that way. In Canada we definitely do think that these directives are coming directly from the White House, directly from George Bush. It seems to me that, you know, with soft wood... you said at the top of the show, this is an issue that's in front of the World Trade Organization. Well, in front of the World Trade Organization once again because time and time again the World Trade Organization says Canada is not doing anything wrong and the United States should not be putting these tariffs on soft wood lumber and the United States does whatever it wants to do. And you know, George Bush is making jokes about Canadian beef - it's you know, these are very touchy issues, and what we need to see is action, not just photo-ops, quite frankly.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Wente, watching the elections from north of the border, what was the sense of how people reacted to the outcome?

MARGARET WARNER: I think many people were surprised that Bush got back in with as decisive a majority as he did. People thought it would be a squeaker. People thought the first time was an accident. But the second time seemed inexplicable; it's because we really don't understand the United States, I think, as well as we think we do.

GWEN IFILL: What does that mean?

MARGARET WARNER: And I'd like to make one other point.

GWEN IFILL: Well, go ahead.

MARGARET WARNER: Which is that, you know, we make George Bush a lightning rod for all of this. But in fact, the strain of anti-Americanism in Canada goes back long before George Bush. It has always been a theme in Canadian life. You know, to some extent, we like to define ourselves as in opposition to the Americans, as more tolerant, less crime, more virtuous and all those sorts of things that make us feel as if we're kind of morally superior. And we forget that, for example, trade disputes have been going on forever. It's not the Bush presidency. It's been all the presidencies. Soft wood lumber was around during the Clinton years. It will be around I'm sure 20 years from now; same with Kyoto. We blame George Bush for not getting involved in the Kyoto Agreement. But we forget that actually it was the Clinton administration that said no thanks.

GWEN IFILL: So Mark Kingwell, can this marriage be saved?

MARK KINGWELL: Well, it can. But I think the first thing to see from this side of things is that this whole debate about anti-Americanism is a totally misleading and fruitless kind of discussion. It has no bearing on the real issues. Legitimate resistance to imperial foreign policy is not anti-American. It's anti-imperial. If we are going to give reasons for why we're different, that's fine. I don't think defining oneself as against something else is for some reason illegitimate. We're saying these are the things we are. They're not the things that you are. I think there is a fundamental set of value differences that haven't been fully recognized. One thing I agreed with in what Margaret said is that we don't understand Americans as well as we think we do. That's why there was so much bafflement after the election results. It's also the case that we are far more different from the Americans than the Americans think we are. We are not your northern 51st state. This is a completely different political culture. Our baseline values are quite distinct. The CBC just ran, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a contest to decide who was the greatest Canadian. The winner was Tommy Douglas, who -- a name I'm sure is unfamiliar to many of your viewers, if not most, who was the architect of universal health care in this country. So that is our baseline value, or one of them and it's not one that we share with you.

GWEN IFILL: Mark Kingwell, Margaret Wente and Rick Mercer, thank all you very much for joining us.

FOCUS - WOMEN AND AIDS

JIM LEHRER: This is AIDS Day around the world. And we note it with a two-part look at the pandemic. We begin with the disease's impact on women. Susan Dentzer of our health unit discussed that issue with Dr. Piot, head of the UNAIDS program.

SUSAN DENTZER: The international face of HIV and AIDS is increasingly a female one. That's the conclusion of a new report by UNAIDS, the United Nations' umbrella group on the pandemic. It says women now make up just under half of the nearly 40 million around the world infected with the HIV virus. Women and girls have also made up a huge share of the three million with HIV who have died this year. The report says the feminization of AIDS is linked to low social and economic status of women in much of the world.

ASUNTA WAGURA: My life has never been the same.

SUSAN DENTZER: Asunta Wagura is a Kenyan woman with HIV. She spoke today at a Washington news conference.

ASUNTA WAGURA: If you are a woman and you're HIV-infected and you don't have the resources to keep yourself healthy or to access treatment, then eventually you die very quickly within three years of knowing your HIV infection.

SUSAN DENTZER: UNAIDS calls for new health strategies and social and economic changes to lessen HIV's growing toll on women. To discuss those, we met today in Washington with Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS.

SUSAN DENTZER: Dr. Piot, welcome. Why are women around the world so affected by HIV AIDS?

DR. PETER PIOT: There are basically two major reasons why women are more affected by HIV: First is biology. It's just more efficient to transmit HIV from men to women than from women to men during intercourse. But the main reason has to do with the status of women in society: The fact that half of the world's women live with less than $2 a day. So in other words they are livings in extreme poverty which has a lot of consequences. It means often that selling your body is the only way to feed your kids. Secondly, women are less educated on the average and so understanding how to protect themselves from diseases is a problem. Thirdly, the inferior status of women in many societies makes it that they can't say no to sex. There's a lot of sexual violence and they even lose all their property and they have no inheritance rights when, for example, their husband dies from AIDS. All that makes that we are faced with a new AIDS epidemic: Half of all people living with HIV are women.

SUSAN DENTZER: The mantra of prevention in AIDS is ABC, Abstinence, Be faithful and use Condoms. You've said that's not applicable for most of the world's women. Why?

DR. PETER PIOT: We believe ABC has to be expanded everywhere because most people don't even have access to that. But the reality is also that for many women, what matters is not so much their own sexual behavior, but it's the behavior, the risk behavior of their partner. For example, in Thailand we know today that half of all women who become infected with HIV become infected from their only sex partner and that's their husband. We know that marriage doesn't protect against HIV Infection because in many societies, girls, young women, are married to older men, older men who are sexually experienced, have already HIV before marriage and that's how the women got infected. And what about abstinence in societies where there is a lot of sexual violence? And women are raped and become infected that way. So all this makes that we have got to go beyond ABC, and we've got to make sure there is zero tolerance for sexual violence and sexual abuse with or without AIDS but in the era of AIDS, this becomes absolutely deadly. We have to make sure that girls remain in school as long as possible. We have to make sure there is some money, some micro credit schemes for widows who are left behind so they can feed kids, send them to school instead of having to sell their bodies.

SUSAN DENTZER: Reporter: One technology that has been mentioned as a way for women to defend themselves against HIV AIDS, is microbicides. What are those and how can they be helpful?

DR. PETER PIOT: Microbicides are Gels and creams that women can put in the vagina that includes a substance that kills HIV, the virus and thereby that would protect women and their male partners from being infected during intercourse. This is a product that is still in development. A lot of research is done and it will take a few years before that can come on the market. But I don't know of any other technology that would make such a difference to stop the heterosexual spread of HIV.

SUSAN DENTZER: In a speech here in Washington yesterday, you said we are nearing a tipping point in HIV AIDS in three countries: India, China and Russia. What do you mean?

DR. PETER PIOT: Well, when I look at the history of the epidemic, it is clear that many countries have gone the way that South Africa has. Over ten years ago, South Africa was at 1 percent of the adult population that was infected. It took five or six years to go from .5 percent to 1 percent. And then once it had reached 1 percent, it really shot up to 25 percent, the situation where we are now in. We've seen it in every society. When you go beyond like 1 or 2 or 3 percent of infection in society, suddenly you get a logarithmic growth. You go outside classic groups that are at high risk such as sex workers, truck drivers, injecting drug users and there is more heterosexual transmission. You reach the general population and that's what the going to happen in China. That's what's going to happen in India if we are not really scaling up the response to AIDS in a way that is unprecedented: Strong leadership and programs everywhere.

SUSAN DENTZER: Four out of five people around the world in highly infected countries lack preventive services. Nine out of ten who need to be on anti-retro viral drugs are not. What needs to happen in the coming year to seriously make inroads into the AIDS pandemic?

DR. PETER PIOT: Well, first of all, there is still a major funding gap. Even if we made major progress in terms of mobilizing money from the rich countries and the developing countries to deal with AIDS, we are now at about $6 billion this year; that's a major increase over the last two years. But there's a need for at least a double of that. So that's the first thing. But secondly and equally important, we've got to make sure the money works for the people on the ground. What does that mean? We need to make sure that the drugs that are needed to save lives are getting to the village level, to the community level, so that there is a good supply management. It means also that we've got to do something on the institutions that people who have to deliver the goods, nurses, the doctors, the teachers, they're dying from AIDS as well -- they also don't have access to treatment in many countries. And what you are seeing is a phenomenon that I saw in Malawi, a small country in Central Africa, where in the main hospital that should be the reference for treatment for HIV, that only one out of three slots for nurses are filled because the nurses have emigrated to South Africa or to Great Britain or the U.S. because their salary conditions are so lousy. Some have moved to work in research projects and one-third have died from AIDS. So we've got to work at the same time -- making sure that the people are there to deliver the services because that's what AIDS is also doing to society. Just what AIDS does to the human body, where it undermines our resistance to infections, et cetera, AIDS is also eroding the institutions, the services, the people who are the first line of defense in society against this epidemic. So we've got to work at these two fronts.

SUSAN DENTZER: Dr. Piot, thank you.

DR. PETER PIOT: Thanks.

JIM LEHRER: Now, part two, and to Jeffrey Brown for the story of a young life lived with and lost to AIDS.

JEFFREY BROWN: Nkosi Johnson was born with AIDS in 1989 in rural South Africa. The disease was transmitted through his mother, who died when Nkosi was two. The boy was taken to a Johannesburg shelter for children and mothers with AIDS, founded by a white South African woman named Gail Johnson. She later took Nkosi into her own home, caring for him for years as her own son. Together, they crusaded for better care and treatment for the victims of AIDS. In July 2000, Nkosi, then 11, received worldwide attention when he addressed the International Conference on AIDS held that year in Durban, South Africa.

NKOSI JOHNSON: We are normal. We are human beings. We can walk. We can talk. (Cheers and Applause) We have needs, just like everyone else; we are all the same. Thank you. (Applause)

JEFFREY BROWN: He would die within a year, aged 12 and weighing just 20 pounds. His story is told in the new book, "We Are All the Same," written by veteran journalist Jim Wooten, the senior correspondent for ABC News Nightline.

Jim Wooten joins me now. Welcome.

JIM WOOTEN: Thanks for inviting me.

JEFFREY BROWN: You and I were just watching the interview with Peter Piot and like many people in the audience shaking our head at the enormity of the problem. But Nkosi Johnson put a human face on it, didn't he?

JIM WOOTEN: That's what he tried to do and that's what I tried to do in this book as well because the numbers, 40 million people now infected worldwide, nearly 40 million, they don't mean anything; 40 million sounds like 30 million or 42 million. It doesn't really mean anything. But when you can put a face on the disease, as I've tried to do in this book, then it takes on some meaning. Dr. Piot and the other people in the international AIDS community are working very hard, but what has happened so far is like spitting in the ocean. It doesn't really make much difference because the problem is so vast. And without political will, without billions of more dollars it's just not going to change.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, tell you also a little bit about Nkosi Johnson. In some ways it strikes me as a typical story mother to child transmission, orphaned at a very young age. But in other ways it is a very atypical story.

JIM WOOTEN: It is atypical because having been dealt a very bad hand, having been born infected into a culture of abject poverty, a family of no education and almost no future, he then finds himself in a middle class white home in Johannesburg where he lived for the rest of his life and was able to get sanitary conditions, a reasonably healthy diet, medical care, medication, and I think that contributed to the fact that he survived as long as he did, perhaps longer than any other pediatric AIDS patient ever. Atypically, I think also applies to the kind of child he was. He was compelling for me because I stepped across this distance that I always keep between myself and the people that I cover.

JEFFREY BROWN: This was quite new for you, right?

JIM WOOTEN: It was absolutely an odd experience and yet the child was irresistible for me. To this day I can't really explain it. I mean it had something more to do than the fact that he was cute or that he was tiny. That's one of the awful effects of pediatric AIDS is that it stunts the children. They don't grow. And so when I first saw Nkosi, he was 11 years old. And I thought he was probably six or seven. I wasn't really sure it was the child that I had come to see because he was so tiny. But his attraction to me was also in his courage. I had over the years covered a lot of combat and a lot of wars. I had seen men do heroic things under fire. But Nkosi showed to me and taught me a different kind of courage, and that's the quiet courage in the face of these absolutely overwhelming odds that he well understood. And he had a mantra that has stuck with me over the years since his death which was this: Do all you can with what you have in the time you have in the place you are.

JEFFREY BROWN: Remarkable that an 11-year-old, 12-year-old boy... we have a short clip from a story you did for Nightline near the end of his life with I think excerpts from what I think must be some of the last interviews you did with him. Let's look at that now.

JIM WOOTEN: By Christmas, he had lost a great deal of weight from his already undersized body. His fondest holiday wish was not for himself but for a larger Nkosi haven with room enough for 100 mothers and their children.

NKOSI JOHNSON: We're full. This is a small house. It can't fit the other mothers who are HIV. They are dying.

JIM WOOTEN: And as usual, there was his thin voice of defiance.

NIKOSI JOHNSON: But I said no, I'm not going to give up. I've got a lot of work to do for the others, the mothers and children out there.

JEFFREY BROWN: A lot of work to do for an 11-year-old boy. You know, the work they did, there was a very public fight. So the clip we saw earlier when he made the speech, that was fraught with a lot of political meaning, wasn't it?

JIM WOOTEN: It was because Nkosi had become something of a celebrity in South Africa and in the international AIDS community because he and his foster mother Gail Johnson, who is a tornado, wanted... he wanted to go to school and she was just determined that he was going to go to school. And through this long drawn out fight, there is now something on the books in South Africa called Nkosi's law which says that no child can be kept from going to school because of HIV but over the months of his prominence, he also began to take on the political leaders, including President Mbeki, which is what he the that night in the clip that you saw from the AIDS convention; in which he simply says I wish the government and President Mbeki would allow anti-retro viral drugs, AZT and Neveripine into the country.

JEFFREY BROWN: There is tremendous resistance to that.

JIM WOOTEN: Absolutely, Mbeki was saying, no, they can't come in; they're poisoned; this is all a plot by the west to kill black South Africans which is bizarre. Besides that, he didn't say to hear Nkosi's speech. He had left just before the child spoke. Nkosi later told me, very uncharacteristically, in that funny little sing-song voice of his, "You know, that really made me angry."

JEFFREY BROWN: We should say that most of the proceeds of your book are going to what is called the Nkosi Foundation. Briefly, tell us what they're doing now.

JIM WOOTEN: The Nkosi Foundation is very simple and straightforward. It provides care and housing and comfort for women with AIDS and to their children and to AIDS orphans. It is a small operation and very... as I said, it's almost like spitting in the ocean when you look at all the numbers. There are 700,000 AIDS orphans in South Africa now. Nkosi's Foundation perhaps cares for thirty or forty. But do all you can with what you have in the time you have in the place you are.

JEFFREY BROWN: Quite a legacy. Jim Wooten, thanks a lot.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of this day. The crisis over Ukraine's presidential election appeared to ease. The opposition candidate agreed to pull back protesters from government buildings. The U.S. Military announced it will increase troop numbers in Iraq by 12,000 ahead of the January elections there. U.S. officials also announced the arrests of more than 200 suspected militants in Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: And once again before we go, to our honor roll ofAmerican service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 11 more.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.