{"id":41136,"date":"2026-07-30T16:14:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41136"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:14:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:14:54","slug":"us-presentation-displays-flawed-map-of-africa-at-aids-2026-conference","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/us-presentation-displays-flawed-map-of-africa-at-aids-2026-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"US presentation displays flawed map of Africa at AIDS 2026 conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A United States (US) State Department presentation delivered at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has drawn widespread criticism after displaying a map of Africa that mislabelled every country on the continent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The graphic was displayed during a session outlining new health agreements under the US President&#8217;s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief before an audience that included senior officials and diplomats from several African nations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The misrepresentations included placing Nigeria landlocked in the Sahara Desert, shifting Mozambique to the Horn of Africa, and positioning Ivory Coast on the eastern side of the continent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A Reuters analysis of the presentation footage revealed an artificial intelligence (AI) watermark embedded in the map image, indicating it had been generated using OpenAI tools.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The US State Department accepted full responsibility for the error, stating that the slide was hastily produced and inserted by a team member shortly before the event took place.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters\/ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41137,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-41136","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"US State department AI map mislabels every African country at AIDS 2026","published_date":"2026-07-30 16:14:33","news_description":"US State department AI map mislabels every African country at AIDS 2026","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41147,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41136\/revisions\/41147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}