While the media focus is on in-fighting over sexuality and gender, the July 2008 Lambeth Conference of worldwide Anglican bishops will be challenged to look outwards at the HIV-AIDS pandemic facing millions in Africa.

An educational institution in southern Africa is hosting a major theological consultation on HIV prevention called by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), based in Geneva. Participants are expected from across the globe.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, evangelical leaders Rick and Kay Warren and the Rev Gideon Byamugisha, the first African Anglican priest to openly say he is HIV-positive, are contributors to an Advent Calendar focussing on HIV-AIDS awareness.

Africa Action has welcomed revised estimates of the global AIDS pandemic published yesterday by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) but cautioned that funding levels for tackling HIV/AIDS were still far too low.

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As World AIDS day approaches (1st December), Christmas shoppers are being urged to give virtual gifts that benefit sufferers of HIV and AIDS around the world - from HIV education through to giving condoms.

World Vision has launched its Alternative Gifts’ Christmas catalogue, encouraging the UK public to buy Alternative Gifts this Christmas and help make a life-changing difference to families and communities living with poverty around the world.

The Anthem for AIDS campaign featuring desmond Tutu aims to set a Guinness World Record for the first charity single to achieve one million sales by download only.

African religious leaders have heard that gender-based violence is increasingly becoming a weapon of war in the continent's trouble spots, with some saying sacred scriptures are being used to justify violence in general.