It’s World AIDS day. Amidst government pledges and calls for more HIV testing, there’s 15 minutes of silence, an HIV+ marathon, a new Queen concert movie and much, much more.

“Governments across the globe pledged Monday to step up the fight against HIV, combating the stigma associated with the disease and promising to bankroll treatment programmes on World AIDS Day”, says the AFP.

South Africa, which has 5.5 million people with HIV (out of an estimated global total of 33 million), commemorated the day with 15 minutes of silence.

In Kolkata, India, 600 HIV-positive people participated in a ‘Red Ribbon marathon’.

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited AIDS patients in a hospital in Beijing.

French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of President Nicholas Sarkozy, announced she will become a goodwill ambassador for the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest AIDS group in the United States, is running a global initiative to test 1 million people for HIV.

Nature News speaks with Peter Piot, Chief of the Joint United Nations AIDS Programme on HIV/AIDS, who will be stepping down at the end of the year.

In the US, the American College of Physicians is publishing guidelines calling for doctors to refer all patients over the age of 13 for voluntary HIV tests.

And Queen are presenting a limited screening of their upcoming concert movie ‘Let the Cosmos Rock’, in the UK, with proceeds going to British AIDS charities.

Many newspapers — including Capital News (Kenya), Jerusalem Post (Israel), The Times of India (India) and RIA novosti (Russia) — are also taking this opportunity to highlight the local HIV/AIDS prevalence and problems.