tonighon "worldfocus" -- >>. for the first time, an experimental aids vaccin prevents fection. the resus of a lge study in thailand inur signaturstory, how o man inhailand has had a big impact onighting aids in that country. > in saudi arabia, we will ta you to a new progssive university causing controversy because women and men stu tother and women can wear whatever they want. and om australia, we will reveal the surprise turn of events after that country's worst dust storm in decas.

from the world's leading reporters and analts, here's wh's happening from around the world. this is "worfocus." majosupport has been proded by rosalyn wters, and the peter g. peterson foundion, dedicated to promoting fcal additional fundings provid by the folling supporters -- hello and good eveng, i' daljit dhawal. tonight, we're going to sta with an important velopment in global healt what is deribed as a major step forward in the develoent of a vaccine agast ds, a disease that kills an estited million people worldwide each year and infts 7,500 people eac d. in a large stu in thailand, experimental vaccine, a combation of two previously

successful vacnes, protected about one-third of those who received it against the ai virus. a modest, but hopel benefit. in tonighs lead focus, we will look at how that development came about d analyze what means. bein with the news from thailand with samira ahmed o itn. >> an htoric milesne says the s. aids agency on the result othe twin vaccine trial. but is it a breaktough? inbangkok, scientists carried out e search and they ow it will have aig impact. >> in the international scieific and medical communities around the globe, this tal will be regnized as a testament to thailand's ability to successfully execute a complicated vaccine trial, the largest ever attempted that ended with aredible conclusion and that brought us one ep close tore aniv vaccine. >> the million-pound trial started in 2003 and involved

more than 16,000 volunteers, men d women age18 to 30 at average risk becoming infeed. for three years, half were given the vaccines. the otr half, placebo injections andere monitor for anoth three years. both drugs stimulate dferent aspects of the immune stem to fight hiv but had been deemed ilures on their own. vaccine one alvac uses a disabled poxvirus with genetic materialrom hiv inserted into it. it prompts th bodies toake "t" cells kill the infection. vaccine contns an h protein lled gp20. it encourages the body to produce antibodies to dstroy v before the virus can infect healy cells. us together, there's a 31.2% lowerisk of infection. >> this is the first time we c improve the vaccine mproves infection -- which is the fst

stepping-stone for furer vaccine developmen >> 31% isxtremely low for a vaccinand there's concern abouhowffordable and fective they could be on the scale needed in asia and b-saharan rica. 2 million peopleied of aids in 07. nely 7,000 are infecwith hiv every y. with sexual behavior a big part of the problem, could hopes of a vaccine encourage xlkournlcoage? en so, the thailantrial brings home th possility that vaccin once written off may be part of a long-term solution. for more on the sigficance of today's announcement, we e joed by dr. jessa just n, the senior technical director andassociate professor of clinic medicine epidemiologyt the mailman scho of public health righ here in neyork.

thank u very much for coming on the program. >> sur >> so just hsignificant important aevelopment is this vaccine? >> this is very b news, i think,o have evidence that a vaccin might work and prevent hiv and ve some otection againstiv is ve exciting. we haven't had this before with hiv vaccines. >> does it meanhat we are now a lot closer to veloping a realaccine for aids? possibly. it's a newtrategy of using two different vaccines together that separately did not lk so promising. and i think this new strategy mes there's hope for usi this in other populations besides thaind where they did the sty. right. and ofcourse, as you say, thailand was chosen as the site of the trial. but is there anything that we ca extrapolate om these tria for the rest of th world and h the vacce might behave, say, for instance in rica or other regions of the

world? >> i wouldn't expec this particular eerimental vaccine to work inther parts of the wod because they designedthe vaccine to reflectthe type of virus strains that you would find in thailand. but you can use this same strategyn another part of th world. yod have to rebld the vaccine ouof pieces that reflt the virus in other parts of theworld. >> i this going to chge risky behavior >> well, thas a very good estion. i think that concern would be that it would not change anody's risky behavior and if people get a vaccine andhey thinkhey'rerotected and they increase their risky behavior, it could wash out any protection that this ccine might offe so we still have to have all of thesmessages about minimizing risky behavior,oing out athe same time as t vaccine informion. >> and what happens next? now at this vaccine has proved somewh effective,resumably

there will be lot more resear in this. whatre the sort ofstages? >> they'll need to updat the vaccine. this tri took six years and theechnology thathey used six years ago to develop the vacce has been impved. so they'll change the technology for the vacne. they'll change the schedule of how many doses for t vaccine. they'ltry it, i sume, in othe parts of the worl with fferent strains of pieces of thevirus. and they'll have to keep on giving thi mesge th it doesn't fect pple's behavior. people still have tohink about the behavior for theelves. >> all ght,r. jessica justman, tnk you very much for joining us on therogram. >> my pleasure thanyou. that bngs us to our qution of the day. if anids vacce were availabl would you take it? we wouldike to hear ur oughts. tell us at you think by going to the "how y see it" section of our website at worldfocus.org. and a bit lar in the program, we are going to return to

thailand in our signatu story to rvisit one man's crusade against aids in that count. theunited nations security council has aroved a strong the spreaof nuear weapons.i thmeeting was chaired president obama, the first american presidento preside ov a security counl summit. on goal of the resolution said the preside was to loc down l vulnerable nucar weapons within four yea and make it haer for countriesike iran and nortkorea to export them. the vote was unanimous and is aimed a gning full compliance with nuclear arms agreemts. >> let me be clear. thiss not about singlg out individu nations. its about standing up r the rights of all nations who live up to the responsibiliti.

the world must stand together. and we must denstrate that internatnal law is not an empty promise and the treaties wille enforced. >> from the united natio and fosn nuclear weapons, the presi recession at the g-20 summit that gets under way in pittsburgh tomorrow. think of it a board of directors for the gobal economy with presidenobama as chairman and the other leaders looking to him for cues on t key issues of finanal regulation as we hear now in tis rert now from deutschwelle. >> europeaneaders want the meeting in pittsburgh to establish more stable structure fointernational financial markets. but reaching aeementon't be ea. europe has already made demands to regulate hge funds and to cap executive bonuses. but not all countries want the financial markets to be so tightly controlled some observers will be watching barack obama to gae his

efforts to rein in the market. >> what's really going to differt about pittsbgh and what wilmake it a defining moment is this will be t first time the ball is really in obama'court. >> b after a show of unity london in april, sme economists say g-20 leaders still haven' dealt with the fundamental issues that brought on th crisis. ey expect little from pittsburgh. >> hope for a clear sense of direction, but exct little wa of really concrete operational agreements to co out of pittsbuh. >> that's partly because both the u.s. and britain want to protect their financl markets from orly strict regulations. new york and lonn are home to world's most iortant banks and stock markets. >> and for a look at at is likelyo happen at the g-20 summit, we a join bjohn authers, the investment editor for "the financial imes." john, nice to s you. >>ice to be re. >> as we justeard, some europeans are going to be pushing r much stricter

regulation and ctrolling of hedge funds and racing agencies and so on. is this somethinthe united stat is likely to go ang with? >> there is quite a sk that we're not going to get a gd reement on a lot of thes meases at thisummit because you're binning to see big differences in emphais arising. i thinthe reason the germans in particular are stressing this because the americans are trying to sayhat they suld be abouglobal imbalances, about addressg the problem that's been well discussed that the americans were borwing too much and the chinese wer leing too much to them in th lead up thecrisis. also you hav to take into accoun that there are different national interestst stake here. if you're talking abouthe u.s. on wall street or the yocan tting on the ci ofondon, they need to be ite a lot re careful about starting to regulatehe financialervices more toughl given that they're going to lose profit out of them. >> and wld the wors of the

global economic medown seemingly the past,o you think this sense ofrgency to come u with reform, any kind of reform is for the past now? >> plainly, thextreme urgenc that we saw in thfirst two g-20ummits is past. people do no have the luxury of being able to disagree, to eve allow the ideological differences to become at much more appent. there is a risk that this summit won't aceve anythi useful than there was in the last two summs. >> so e worst of it has passed, but the underlying structuralroblems that cause is in the first place, ey haven't passed? >> i would certainly arg that they haven. youtill have to look at the financial stem. it was extremely overconcentrated wh ower, conctrated in tooew hands before thecrisis. arguably that's considerly worse because the fitter banks have taken over, t ones that weren more trouble. and similarly ifou look at the global -- those great glol

imbalances, silarly the world' economy still looks as thought's somewhat as appealed to very reliance on china for its growth. these are problems that will ha to sorted outt some point ev if stock markets have gained 6 in the la six months and people ar feeling happy for the time bng. >> john authers, tnk you very much >> thank you. another deadly y in pakistan as militants attacked a group of promine and taliban tral leaders. it haened near peshawar in pakist's northwest. the insurgents ambushed aonvoy taking the anti--taliban figures to a meeting with curity official at least nine pele were killed in the attack ad after the attacksomething unusual happened. residents ere are said to have come out of their homes to fig off the taliban militants,

preventing them from kilng survivors ofhe attack. in irq, security forces are huntinfor 16 prisoners who escaped today from a makesft jail in that country. the jail is in tikri saddam hussein'hometown. the prisors apparently craed through a bathroom window in the compou where they were being held. a curfew was imposed in the town anauthorities set up checkpoints as they seared for the inmates including five who were linked tol qaeda. elsewhere in the mdle east, a new university inaudi arabia is ing hailed by that country's ruler as a beacon tolerance in aorld as king abdull put it that has been the target of vicious attacks from extremists. kiabdullah's university isin the city of tuwal on the red sea and it's distinguished by something take for granted here in the united states.

is saudi arabia's first coed universitys we hear from sabina caslfranco of al jazeera english. >> foring abdullah, it's a dream come true. more than 3,000 guests from all over the world were iited to e opening ceremony. the king abdullah uversity of sciee and tecology has statof-the-art falities. the hope is that it willroduce scientts and engineers to fl the country's huge workforce shortage in these eas. the king's sted vion is for the initution to become a beacon of knowledge, the ne modernouse of wisdom. an to allow research to flo flouri, social restriction that is apply to women oside the campus gates will not apy inside. onhe university rounds, women are not obligated to wear the kingdom's traditionallack tubic which covers them from head to toe.

re, they are free to put on western clothes. >> on the campus, you can do whatever you want in her it's been told 's a campus a laes can drive, they can work, whatever they want. it's their choicif they want toome here. but this is not without strong opposition om religious leaders and other hardliners ina country where men and women barely intect in public life, the liberaminded approach of thehe university has caused nervousness. a mixed gender student populati is goingo be difficult r many saudis to accept. the real questio is will the university remain a gated raty or whether it will become th heart real change in saudi arabia's secluded society. bina castelfranco, al jazee.

in tonight's signare story, we want to return to the issue of aids and global effos to combat the obal epidemic. we begintonht's broadcast with a promise o an aids vaccine sed on research in thailand. what it turns out that that country has tak other big steps in recent years stem e tide. d it is thanks largely to the efforts of one man tonight, we want to share his story with you againn a report bymark litke. >> is a respected thai litician. we want u to have fun and stay safe. >> he's handed outillions o condoms in his personal crusade against hiaids and oers them by the handfuls to street

vendors, truckdrivers, always with a smile and good mor. he'll en blow them as balloons forassing children. in his view, you'rnever too young to larn that cdoms save lives. at the end of the y, is this still the numbeone apon? that's all we he at the moment. this is the weapon. i ll it a lifesaver. >> in many say he himself the real lifesav here. he's the one that couraged thaind to confro the disease head-on, right from the beginning. it was her in the lively stres ofbangkok that hiv/ds first surged into thailand in the mid 19s. turned out to be something of a deadly perfect storm. with itsast commeial sex industry, a thriving gay counity and a growing subculture of intravenous ug uss, the inection rates soared. within a dade, aids was the country's leading cause of death.

there wafear anddenial at rst, buthailand soon bame a role model for the rest of the world, respondi to the disease with mpassion and commitnt. >> we said, thiss an ergency, everyonneeds to stand up and ght. d that's what we d. >>ollowing his lead, thailand launched a nationwide campai, aid not just at high-risk grps but the entire population. in aition to the conm campaign, government and private industry financed aids educion, publicelations and research. and vontary hiv testing was omoted and encouraged throughout the country. the rate of new infectns began to plummet from 140,0 a ye in the '90 to about0,000 a year now. and when the newrugs began owing promise thailan made a controversy cision to defy the drug companies a make its own neric copies of the drugs. most thais living with ai

today w receive those fe-saving drugs for little or no cost. bu despite allts scesses, thland is still struggling with some othe problems that ha-in-hand with hiv/aids the world over. thfear and discrimination that dre the diseasundergrnd and the complacency that sets in en it's no longer onour television seens. u can see the problem clearly at tocaluddhist monastery where manyids patients g to die when their families longer want th. the wards here are still full with patientsho never forget e lessons of the pa two decade these men alst shrugge off their infections. one admitted with a laugh, that he hadisited a few prostitutes and didn't use a conm. another admitted using needles, he's aeroin addict. in the next ward, two wome infected by eir husbands.

this woman had no idea she had hiv until herusband got sick and died. by then,he hadfull-blown aids. because hiv testing seems less gent to many thais these day, thousands of infecd mothers are passi on the disee to their ildren. >> all these childrenave the virus. >> tre are more than 15,000 childr living with aids in thland. father joe meyer runs a hosce at cares for the poorest of them, mo are aids orphans. theew medicines have helped the chilen live loger, but the drugs are too powerful for some and drug restance is rising >> used to be, they would com in and die, come in d d. they still do. but now the oldest one is 15, almost 15. we've neverhad one live pas . >> while thaild gets well-deserved edit for its

early apprch to ids, father joe says the growng number of infected children living and dying proof that more of everythi is needed. more money, dicine, education and political will. >> aids is here. it's knocki on our door. it'sot going to go away. >> and that's w thailand' tireless aids activist is still out on thetreets handingut his beloved condoms, raising aweness wherever and whenever he can. i' mark litke repting for "worldfos" in thailand. . it was eastern ustralia's

wors dust storm in 70 years, covering sydne and rrounding ars in a surre orange haze that dsrupted air traffic and other tranortation, made eathing difficult for some. that was yesterday adan rasclla of central's abc shows us at a difference a day makes. >> choking one day, perct the next. yestery sydney-siders woke up to this. today, this. all or new south wales -- >> we've bn cleaning since yesterday. >> outdoor businessesike fes wereit hard, not the most pleasant of places to be for coffee. the cleaners at olympistadium today. ,000eats had to b wiped do before tomorrow's preliminary league finals. and a the car was they were lapping i up as drivers

amored. but for many businesses, the redout will cost tse of millio of dollars in lost productivi. >> the airlinealone, when they have a schedule disrupti like they did yesterday wit anes having to y back to wherthey came from, the fuel cost and disruption costs runto millions. >> the scientists say the storm carried around 5 million tons of soil mainly frothe desert in soh australia. whilsome of itill end up falling on agrultural properties, others wl have lost valuabletopsoil >> it's usuly not evenly stributed in the areas where we want it. the's going to be moreosers than winnersut of th. >> if you needed any nvincing of the extentf the dust srm, it couldasily be seen from space. the satellite images ow just how fait stretched it moved acrosshe continent. health authorities inially feared the record air llution levels would have an impact for days. today air quality s back to normal beg out here now, it's almos hard to believthe city was

ever smothered in red dust. while it being described as a once-in-a-lifetime event, the weatherureau is predicting more strong winds this wkend, ich could whip upsmaller dust storms. rian aschella, abcnews, sydney. >>and finally tonight, a tale from britain abt a man named terry herbert. he's an amateur easure hunter who was ou on a friens farm this sumr when he struck it, yes, you gessed it, gold. not just one or two items. but 650 piecesof goldand30 silver objects. archaeologists said t treasure appeed to be anglo-saxowar lo dating back to 700 a.d. and may ve belonged to a king. many of th objects are ornames that were placed o apons. perhaps be of all, it appears that mr.erbert and his farmer friend will get to sit the proceeds0-50. so next time you get out you metal detector, who kns?

that i "worldfocus" fo this thursdayevening. for much more news and perspeive, you can goto our website, worldfocuorg. i'm daljit aliwal in new york. fome and the rest the orldfocus" team, thanksor joing us. good-b joing us. good-b good-bye. -- captions by vic -- www.tac.com > major support fo "worldfocus" has bn provided by rosalyn p walter and the per g. terson foundation. dedicated to promoting fisl responsibilitynd addressing key economic challengefacing america'future. and additional funding i prided by the following supporters --