Everyone, on every forum, streetcorner, soapbox, stage everywhere, is fighting terrorism. From school children to statesmen. Intellectuals try to analyse the terrorist mind, whilst rabble-rousers form new anti-terrorist movements that are starkly reminiscent of the beginnings of terrorism itself. The very word 'terrorism' is value-ridden and ill-defined - one man's fight for justice is another man's terrorism. And yet, the whole world is fighting this undefined spectre.

All this while, there is yet another thing that is stalking mankind. Something more terrible, more remorseless and more inexorable than the nameless, faceless, nebulousness called terrorism. Something that kills pregnant women, children, new-born infants, unborn foetuses, young men, old men, nursing mothers without any kind of discrimination whatsoever. Something that stalks people in every country, of every religion, of every ethnic extraction. Something to which we have put a face. Something which has been identified. Most important of all - something that is within our power to stop. And yet, we do next to nothing about it as it goes on, killing, at the last count, 8,000 people every single day.

One government recently signed an agreement to buy warships, planes, helicopters and submarines for 5.2 billion dollars over the next ten years. This government also says that it cannot afford to treat its 4.7 million (about one-ninth of its population) HIV-positive citizens.

Our priorities are screaming to be rethought.

Cheers.