Paying for AIDS

Last month, an eight-year showdown ended successfully with the release of five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who had been held captive in Libya over charges of infecting 438 children with HIV in the clinic where they worked. It has since been revealed that the medics were tortured and their "confessions" came as a result of coercion.

Nevertheless, perhaps to put an end to this diplomatic battle, on Monday Bulgaria signed an official agreement to transfer Libya's communist-era debt to a fund for the victims of the Libyan AIDS epidemic. The agreement would waive the $56.6 million debt and transfer the funds to the Benghazi Fund, which would then go to the families of the infected children. The fund, established in 2006, was set up to finance the treatment of the HIV-infected children and improve conditions at the Benghazi hospital, so such a mass infection could not occur again. The agreement was part of a deal in obtaining a pardon from the families of the victims in Benghazi, which allowed the medics' death sentence to be annulled and led to their eventual release.