China gets the jitters over HIV

Just a day after officials forced the organisers to shut down the Mr. Gay China pageant, the country's long-established HIV/AIDS group had to abandon plans to publicly celebrate its 16th anniversary.

"We don't know exactly why, and we did not really ask," said Wan Yanhai, one of China's most prominent AIDS activists and founder of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute. "The government might not believe in what we are doing. We hoped we could operate more openly in society. But it seems that the government will not accept this."

CNN also reports that a state-sponsored and UN-supported radio talk show dealing with HIV issues was also postponed, according to Zhang Wei, a spokesperson for the UN Development Program.

The program, "Positive Talks", was scheduled to start airing weekly on China National Radio but so far has not received final approval from the government.