Cambodia is considered one of the few success stories in the global fight against AIDS. Yet, the positive achievements of government health authorities and their partners have been outmatched in the past year by the negative actions of the police, Ministry of Social Affairs and municipal authorities.

A proposed Ugandan law on HIV/AIDS promotes dangerous and discredited approaches to the AIDS epidemic and would violate human rights. The HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill could be taken up by Uganda's parliament shortly.

President Barack Obama's announcement today that national travel and immigration restrictions on people living with HIV will be removed should have positive consequences for public health and other countries with similar restrictions should follow suit.

I gave birth in the developing world, in South Africa, to be precise. South Africa was in the spotlight recently when a government-commissioned report showed a 20 per cent increase in the number of deaths from pregnancy-related causes between 2005 and 2007 over the previous three-year period. The report said that nearly 40 per cent of these deaths were avoidable.

Recent attention to multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR- and XDR-TB) has increased discussion and debate over the extent to which limitations to human rights can be justified in the name of public health. Particularly in the case of drug-resistant TB, some countries have adopted rights-limiting measures before offering appropriate and proven programmatic interventions that respect human rights.

Tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy, in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite government programs guaranteeing free obstetric health care.

Plans to reform immigration detention management and oversight, announced today by the US government, should quickly be translated into actual policy change and accountability. The plans focus on centralizing control of facilities used to hold detained immigrants.