Gere attacks Bush over sex education

Hollywood heart-throb Richard Gere launched a scathing attack on American President George W Bush's attitude to sex education in Bangkok on Tuesday.

The passionate actor was speaking at the 15th International Aids conference in the Thai capital, after visiting India the previous week with his younger brother David to highlight the Aids epidemic.

Gere took the opportunity to attack Bush's unrealistic approach to sex education after the president proposed in the 2005 budget that $270m (€216.8m) should be put into funding programs which dissuade teenagers from having sex.

During his time as Governor of Texas from 1995 until 2000, Bush ensured sex education in schools taught that abstinence was the only way to protect teens from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy.

Since Bush's abstinence only policy came into force, Texas' teen pregnancy rate - one of the highest in America - has remained the same, while the amount of STDs amongst Texan youths has risen.

Gere fumes: "The most important issue is this one, to this planet, to this time and place is AIDS. We may well have hopefully another administration in about four months in the US and along with that some sanity on this subject."

Gere added the billions of dollars spent on the Iraq campaign, "probably could have eradicated this illness".