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London - Nov. 24, 1999 - A three-way collaboration between Queen, David Bowie and Microsoft Corp. will mark World AIDS day, Dec. 1, 1999, with a global Internet-based AIDS fund-raising event. Through WindowsMedia.com, the MSNTM online guide to multimedia on the Internet, Microsoft will host a free* video download featuring Queen and David Bowie and will provide people with an opportunity to donate money to fight AIDS. The download will be available for two weeks at http://windowsmedia.microsoft.com/preview/queen/, beginning Dec. 1, exclusively in Microsoft® Windows MediaTM format, providing industry-leading sound and video quality. The WindowsMedia.com site will also help educate visitors about the worldwide AIDS epidemic and give people the opportunity to contribute online to Queens Mercury Phoenix Trust charity, which raises funds to fight AIDS. Microsoft will make a contribution to the trust. The free video download will feature the recent groundbreaking video of Queen and David Bowie together performing their classic collaboration, "Under Pressure." Although Freddie Mercury and David Bowie never actually appeared on stage together, breakthrough video technology has brought these two great performers together for the first time using unique footage. The audio track to the video is a new 1999 "Rah mix" version that features fresh recording work by Queen; the track was remixed for the new album, "Queen + Greatest Hits III." Already receiving major radio airplay, the track will be released as a single on Dec. 6 along with Queen's song of the millennium, "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the perennial "Thank God It's Christmas." The Queen and Bowie World AIDS Day video download reunites the two music giants in the cause of AIDS fund raising. Bowie was among the legendary musicians who joined Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in April 1992, an event that lead to the founding of the Mercury Phoenix Trust. The members of Queen are among the few music artists to have established their own official AIDS charity, which continues to work unrelentingly to provide both education and funds to AIDS projects worldwide and is one of only a handful of registered AIDS charities that gives globally. AIDS Continues to Spread Around the World, Largely Unchecked Despite recent developments in drug treatments and regimens, the global rate of HIV infection continues to grow. Recent reports show that in 1998 the total number of adults and children living with HIV and AIDS exceeded 34 million worldwide. The most severely affected areas are Southeast Asia, where the infection has spread swiftly since 1992, and the southern countries of Africa. In Botswana, the proportion of the adult population living with HIV has doubled over the past five years, with 43 percent of pregnant women testing positive in 1997. Eastern Europe has also seen a dramatic rise in the number of people affected by HIV or AIDS. The most notable example is the Ukraine, where the rate of incidence has shot up more than 30-fold in the past three years, a pattern being repeated in the Russian Federation. In North America and Western Europe, more than 1.3 million people are living with HIV or AIDS. The Mercury Phoenix Trust has supported AIDS projects in many of these countries and to date has donated more than £6 million (.7 million) to combat the spread of AIDS and HIV infection.