To the Point

President Bush-s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

Surrounded by leaders from Africa and the Caribbean, President Bush this week announced his -Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,- which he compared to the Peace Corps, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift. After pushing it through Congress, he-ll use the measure to leverage money from other countries at this weekend-s G8 meeting. Critics are questioning the depth of commitment behind the program, and whether the $15 billion pledged over the next five years will ever be spent since Congress has attached strings to the money and the President-s own budget calls for only a portion of what he-s promised for next year. We hear more from experts at the Department of Health and Human Services, a foundation dedicated to battling the impact of HIV in developing nations, and a journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on AIDS in Africa. Making News: President Bush Heads to Europe and Points East President Bush has embarked on his first overseas trip since the war in Iraq. Though he-ll be meeting with European leaders, his first address will be in Poland. Stan Crock, chief diplomatic correspondent for Business Week, says the trip reveals a great deal about the changing relationship between the US and Europe, and the President-s resolve to bring peace to the Middle East. Reporter's Notebook: Will FCC Vote Put More Media Outlets in the Hands of Fewer Owners? Since the 1930-s, the Federal Communications Commission has granted lucrative TV and radio licenses on the condition that stations program -in the public interest.- Yet on Monday, the FCC is expected to continue its process of broadcast deregulation, allowing networks to buy more TV stations and lifting the ban on newspapers owning TV outlets in their own cities. We get two views on proposed changed from the CEO of the Media Access Project and a policy analyst at the Progress and Freedom Foundation.