Last night Zackie Achmat gave an inspiring talk on the state of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and the world. I hope to have a video of it soon which I will make available here. He discussed so many varied issues which included new information on prevention (I thought I had heard it all) to all sorts of ways treatment could be improved. He was casual, relaxed and incredibly knowledgeable. He was able to handle criticism and comment coolly and casually without looking like a politician searching for a response.

Today we had the HIV/AIDS march, which was one of the best marches I have been too. The march was well attended by a great group of people, the organisers had put a lot of work into rewriting Rhodes' defunct HIV/AIDS policy, they had already courteously discussed the new policy and march with the Vice-Chancellor earlier and the march went off without any sort of nastiness.

Afterwards I had the privilege of lunching with Zackie Achmat where I mostly sat in the corner and made a fool of myself. Something about people I am in awe of makes me go all dumb.

There are some great pictures by Gregor Röhrig and Michael Salzwedel.