About

Mark - Breakfast E.P. …

Thanks to Anna Hipsley for sitting in for Glen Bartholomew as host this week.

A couple of listeners rang in to ask where Glen is.

Actually, he’s in New York, enjoying the benefits of a relatively strong Australian dollar.

Perhaps he should have waited until next March to book his flight.

You may have heard Rob Henderson - Chief Economist, Markets, with National Australia Bank on the show this morning.

Rob and the economics team at the NAB are now predicting that the Aussie dollar will reach 98 US cents by the end of the year and parity with US dollar by next March.

If they’re right, it would be the first time the $A has been at parity with the Greenback since 1982.

Gee, Duran-Duran and Men at Work were at the top of the charts then.

Don Lane was on the box.

And it was the third time in a row that a certain horse called Kingston Town won Australia’s greatest weight-for-age race, the Cox Plate.

That, of course, is a seamless segue to a plug for “Weekend Halftime At The Races” at 10am on Sunday with ABC NewsRadio’s Scott Wales & Helen Thomas and veteran turf-watcher Max Presnell.

Well, Max and Helen both tipped the winner of the Caulfield Cup this time last week.

What do they think this week?

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Helen - Racing Editor …

In many ways, the W.S. Cox Plate is the defining moment of the Australian Racing Calendar. The winner is usually the most outstanding horse in the country; not necessarily a champion, but a genuine star.

They have to be, as the picturesque track where the race is run - Moonee Valley - and the 2040 metre journey favours only the fearless.

Tomorrow afternoon, that should be Heart of Dreams, a young horse on his way to racing’s top echelon … along with his arch rival Whobegotyou. Of course, the master Bart Cummings’ even younger contender So You Think could run both of them down. But whatever happens, the winner won’t be faint of heart!

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Fiona Ellis-Jones - ‘Out of Africa”:

It’s not too often we’re able to report on good news out of Africa.

Famine, drought, war …

But this week, a change of pace.

The head of UNICEF’s HIV/AIDS program, Jimmy Kolker, has made a rare visit to Australia from New York to hold talks with the Federal Government.

He brings with him with some surprisingly positive news from the continent.

UNICEF has produced new research which shows we are now closer than ever to producing the first generation of children with HIV-positive mothers, born AIDS-free.

Jimmy Kolker says there’s been major progress in the distribution of antiretroviral drugs to stop HIV transmission.

In the past, the cost of delivering these drugs was hindered by stringent patent laws.

HIV/AIDS has infected an estimated 22 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

That’s around two thirds of the global total.

In particular, the spread of the disease has had a devastating effect on Africa’s children … leaving behind 15 million “AIDS orphans”.

This week on ‘Out of Africa’, Jimmy Kolker tells us why pregnant women and children are still accessing treatment at a significantly lower rate than the rest of the population - and what Australia can do to help battle the pandemic.

That’s ‘Out of Africa’ …at midday Eastern Summer Time on ABC NewsRadio.