New Scientist is reporting that stem cells have enabled paralysed rats to walk. This brings to mind parallel issues and a speech by the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, speaking in Edinburg earlier this year. He said "The world's response to the HIV/AIDs pandemic has been murder by indifference... HIV/AIDS is a modern apocalypse. It is a catastrophe that exceeds everthing else in human history in the field of communicable diseases, and it is impossible to understand the depth of the excruciating human toll without keeping in mind that we have never dealt with this kind of human phenomenon before." He went on to make the point that hundreds of billions of dollars have been magically found for the fight against terrorism, yet the West could put a major dent in the fight against AIDS with just $10 billion per year. Koffi Annan has set up the Global Fund to this end but has so far only got pledges to the cummulative effect of about $2billion and only a fraction of those pledges actually donated. Lewis said "We could stop this pandemic in its tracks in a few short years. We know what to do - we simply must find the will to do it."

In the thick of all this internet law and technological developments there is the background not just of the effects of the changes, which most of accept all too passively, but also of the use to which we actively put these developments. I haven't touched on the ethical issues in stem cell research but if we are going to engage in these kinds of developments we surely should be looking at them in the kind of global equitable context that Lewis is so passionate about?