toght on "worldfocus" -- >> fighting a killer disease. for the first time, an experimental aids vaccine prevents infection. the results of a large study in thailand. in our signature story, how one man in thailand has had a big impact on fighting aids in that country. in saudi arabia, we will take you to a new progressive university that is causing controversy because women and men study together and women can wear whatever they want. and from australia, we will reveal the surprise turn of events after that country's worst dust storm in decades.

>> from the world's leading reporters and analysts, here's what's happening from around the world. this is "worldfocus." major support has been provided by rosalind p. walter, and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future. additional funding is provided by the following supporters -- hello and good evening, i'm daljit dhaliwal. tonight, we're going to start with an important development in global health, what is described as a major step forward in the development of a vaccine against aids, a disease that kills an estimated 2 million people worldwide each year and infects 7,500 people each day. in a large study in thailand, an experimental vaccine, a

combination of two previously unsuccessful vaccines, protected about one-third of those who received it against the aids virus. a modest, but hopeful benefit. in tonight's lead focus, we will look at how that development came about and analyze what it means. we begin with the news from thailand with samira ahmed of itn. >> an historic milestone says the u.n. aids agency on the results of the twin vaccine trial. but is it a breakthrough? in bangkok, where thai and american army scientists carried out the research, they know it will have a big impact. >> in the international scientific and medical communities around the globe, this trial will be recognized as a testament to thailand's ability to successfully execute a complicated vaccine trial, the largest ever attempted that ended with a credible conclusion and that brought us one step closer to an hiv vaccine.

>> the 64-million-pound trial started in 2003 and involved more than 16,000 volunteers, men and women aged 18 to 30 at average risk of becoming infected. for three years, half were given the vaccines. the other half, placebo injections. they were then monitored for another three years. both drugs stimulate different aspects of the immune system to fight hiv but had been deemed failures on their own. vaccine 1 alvac uses a disabled pox virus with genetic material from hiv inserted into it. when injected, it prompts the body to make "t" cells to kill the infection. vaccine 2 aidsvax contains an hiv protein called gp20. it encourages the body to produce antibodies to destroy hiv before the virus can infect healthy cells. used together, the researchers found a 31.2 lower risk of infection. >> this is the first time we can prove the vaccine can be developed to improve the

infection, which is the first stepping-stone for further vaccine development. >> 31% is extremely low for a vaccine and there's concern about how affordable and effective they could be on the scale needed in asia and sub-saharan africa. where there are different strains of the virus. 2 million people died of aids in 2007. nearly 7,000 are infected with hiv every day. with sexual behavior a big part of the problem, could hopes of a vaccine encourage complacency? other research is focused on the efficacy of circumcision for men and barrier creams called microbicides used by women. even so, the thailand trial brings home the possibility that vaccines once written off may be part of a long-term solution. >> for more on the significance of today's announcement, we are joined by dr. jessica justman, the senior technical director and associate professor of clinical medicine in epidemiology at the mailman school of public health right here in new york.

thank you very much for coming on the program. >> sure. >> so just how significant, important a development is this vaccine? >> this is very big news, i think, to have evidence that a vaccine might work and prevent hiv and give some protection against hiv is very exciting. we haven't had this before with hiv vaccines. >> does it mean that we are now a lot closer to developing a real vaccine for aids? >> possibly. it's a new strategy of using two different vaccines together that separately did not look so promising. and i think this new strategy means there's hope for using this in other populations besides thailand where they did the study. >> right. and of course, as you say, thailand was chosen as the site of the trial. but is there anything that we can extrapolate from these trials for the rest of the world and how the vaccine might

behave, say, for instance, in africa or other regions of the world? >> i wouldn't expect this particular experimental vaccine to work in other parts of the world because they designed the vaccine to reflect the type of virus strains that you would find in thailand. but you can use this same strategy in another part of the world. you'd have to rebuild the vaccine out of pieces that reflect the virus in other parts of the world. >> is this going to change risky behavior? >> well, that's a very good question. i think that a concern would be that it would not change anybody's risky behavior and if people get a vaccine and they think they're protected and they increase their risky behavior, it could wash out any protection that this vaccine might offer. so we still have to have all of these messages about minimizing risky behavior, going out at the same time as the vaccine information. >> and what happens next? now that this vaccine has proved

somewhat effective, presumably there will be a lot more research into this. what are the sort of stages? >> they'll need to update the vaccine. this trial took six years and the technology that they used six years ago to develop the vaccine has been improved. so they'll change the technology for the vaccine. they'll change the schedule of how many doses for the vaccine. it, i assume, in other parts of the world with different strains of pieces of the virus. and they'll have to keep on giving this message that it doesn't affect people's behavior. people still have to think about the behavior for themselves. >> all right, dr. jessica justman, thank you very much for joining us on the program. >> my pleasure. thank you. that brings us to our question of the day. if an aids vaccine were available, would you take it? we would like to hear your thoughts. tell us what you think by going to the "how you see it" section of our website at worldfocus.org. and a bit later in the program,

we are going to return to thailand in our signature story to revisit one man's crusade against aids in that country. the united nations security council has approved a strong resolution aimed at controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. the meeting was chaired by president obama, the first american president to preside over a security council summit. one goal of the resolution said the president was to lock down all vulnerable nuclear weapons wiin four years and make it harder for countries like iran and north korea to export them. the vote was unanimous and is aimed at gaining full compliance with nuclear arms agreements. >> let me be clear. this is not about singling out individual nations. it is about standing up for the rights of all nations who do live up to their responsibilities.

the world must stand together. and we must demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise and the treaties forced. >> from the united nations and a focus on nuclear weapons, the president turns to the global recession at the g-20 summit that gets under way in pittsburgh tomorrow. think of it as a board of directors for the global economy with president obama as chairman and the other leaders looking to him for cues on the key issues of financial regulation as we hear now in this report now from deutsch welle. >> european leaders want the meeting in pittsburgh to establish more stable structure for international financial markets. but reaching agreement won't be easy. europe has already made demands to regulate hedge funds and rating agencies and to cop executive bonuses. but not all countries want the financial markets to be so tightly controlled. some observers will be watching barack obama to gauge his

efforts to rein in the market. >> what's really going to be different about pittsburgh and what will make it a defining moment is this will be the first time the ball is really in obama's court. >> but after a show of unity in london in april, some economists say g-20 leaders still haven't dealt with the fundamental issues that brought on the financial crisis. they expect little from pittsburgh. >> i hope for a clear sense of direction, but expect little by way of really important concrete operational agreements to come out of pittsburgh. >> that's partly because both the u.s. and britain want to protect their financial markets from overly strict regulations. new york and london are home to world's most important banks and stock markets. >> and for a look at what is likely to happen at the g-20 summit, we are joined by john authers, the investment editor for the "financial times." john, nice to see you. >> nice to be here. >> as we just heard in that

deutsch welle story, some europeans are going to be pushing for much stricter regulation and controlling of hedge funds and rating agencies and so on and so forth. is this something the united states is likely to go along with? >> there is quite a risk that we're not going to get a good agreement on a lot of these measures at this summit because you're beginning to see big differences in emphasis arising. i think the reason the germans in particular are stressing this is because the americans are trying to say that they should be about global imbalances, about addressing the problem that's now been well discussed, that the americans were borrowing too much and the chinese were lending too much to them in the lead-up to the crisis. also you have to take into account that there are different national interests at stake here. if you're talking about the u.s. sitting on wall street or the uk sitting on the city of london, they need to be quite a lot more careful about starting to regulate the financial services more toughly, given that they're getting a lot of profit out of them at the moment.

>> and with the worst of the global economic meltdown seemingly in the past, do you think this sense of urgency to come up with reform, any kind of reform is for the past now? >> plainly, the extreme urgency that we saw in the first two g-20 summits is past. people do now have the luxury of being able to disagree, to even allow the ideological differences to become that much more apparent. there is more of a risk that this summit won't achieve anything really useful than there was in the last two summits. >> so the worst of it has passed, but the underlying structural problems that cause this in the first place, they haven't passed? >> i would certainly argue that they haven't. you still have to look at the financial system. it was extremely overconcentrated with power, concentrated in too few hands before the crisis. arguably that's now considerably worse because the fitter banks have taken over, the ones that were in more trouble.

and similarly if you look at the global -- those great global imbalances, similarly the world's economy still looks as though it's somewhat as appealed to very reliant on china for its growth. these are problems that will have to be sorted out at some point even if stock markets have gained 60% in the last six months and people are feeling happy fo >> john authers, thank you very much. >> thank you. this was another deadly day in pakistan as militants attacked a group of prominent anti-taliban tribal leaders. it happened near peshawar in pakistan's northwest. the insurgents ambushed a convoy taking the anti-taliban figures to a meeting with security officials. at least nine people were killed in the attack and after the attack, something unusual happened. residents there are said to have come out of their homes to fight

off the taliban militants, survivors of the attack. in iraq, security forces are hunting for 16 prisoners who escaped today from a makeshift jail in that country. the jail is in tikrit, saddam é÷ the prisoners apparently crawled through a bathroom window in the compound where they were being held. a curfew was imposed in the town, and authorities set up checkpoints as they searched for the prisoners, who include five inmates linked to al qaeda who were awaiting execution. elsewhere in the middle east, a new university in saudi arabia is being hailed by that country's ruler as a beacon of tolerance in a world, as king abdullah put it, that has been the target of vicious attacks from extremists. king abdullah science and technical university is in the city of thuwal on the red sea, and it's distinguished by something we all take for granted here in the united states.

it is saudi arabia's first coed university as we hear from sabina castelfranco of al jazeera english. >> for king abdullah, it's a dream come true. more than 3,000 guests from all over the world were invited to the opening ceremony. the king abdullah university of science and technology, or kaust, has state-of-the-art facilities. the hope is that it will produce scientists and engineers to fill the country's huge workforce shortage in these areas. the king's stated vision is for the institution to become a beacon of knowledge, the new modern house of wisdom. and to allow research to flourish, social restrictions that apply to women outside the campus gates will not apply inside. on the university grounds, women are not obligated to wear the abaya, the kingdom's traditional black tunic which covers them from head to toe.

here, they are free to put on western clothes. >> on the campus, you can do whatever you want in here. it's been told it's a campus and ladies can drive, they can work, whatever they want. it's their choice if they want to come here. >> but this is not without strong opposition from religious leaders and other hardliners. in a country where men and women barely interact in public life, the liberal-minded approach of kaust has caused nervousness. a mixed gender student population is going to be difficult for many saudis to accept. the real question is will kaust remain a gated rarity or whether it will become the heart of real change in saudi arabia's secluded society. sabina castelfranco, al jazeera, thuwal.myq

in tonight's signature story, we want to return to the issue of aids and global efforts to combat the global epidemic. we beg broadcast with a promise of an aids vaccine based on research in thailand. well, it turns out that that country has taken other big steps in recent years to stem the tide. and it is thanks largely to the efforts of one man. tonight, we want to share his story with you again in a report by "worldfocus" special correspondent mark litke, which we first brought you earlier this year. >> his name is mechai viravaidya, a respected thai politician but more affectionately known as mr. condom. >> we want you to have fun and stay safe. >> he's handed out millions of them in his personal crusade against hiv/aids and offers them by the handful to sex workers,

street vendor, truck drivers, always with a smile and good humor. he'll even blow them up as balloons for passing children. in mechai's view, you're never too young to learn that condoms save lives. at the end of the day, is this still the number one weapon? >> that's all we have at the moment. this is the weapon. i call it a lifesaver. >> in fact, many say mechai himself is the real lifesaver here. he's the one that encouraged thailand to confront the disease head-on, right from the beginning. it was here in the lively streets of bangkok that hiv/aids first surged into thailand in the mid 1980s. turned out to be something of a deadly perfect storm. with its vast commercial sex industry, a thriving gay community and a growing subculture of intravenous drug users, the infection rates soared. within a decade, aids was the country's leading cause of

death. there was fear and denial at first, but thailand soon became a role modelt of the world, responding to the disease with compassion and commitment. >> we said, this is an emergency, everyone needs to stand up and fight. and that's what we did. >> following mechai's lead, thailand launched a nationwide campaign, aimed not just at high-risk groups but the entire population. in addition to the condom campaign, government and private industry financed aids education, public relations and research. and voluntary hiv testing was promoted and encouraged throughout the country. the rate of new infections began to plummet from 140,000 a year in the '90s to about 20,000! year now. and when the new drugs began showing promise, thailand made a controversial decision to defy the major drug companies and make its own low-cost generic copies of the drugs.

most thais living with aids today now receive those life-saving drugs for little or no cost. but despite all its successes, thailand is still struggling with some of the problems that go hand-in-hand with hiv/aids the world over. the fear and discrimination that drive the disease underground and the complacency that sets in when it's no longer on our front pages and television screens. you can see the problem clearly at the local buddhist monastery where many aids patients go to die when their families no longer want them. the wards here are still full with patients who forget or never learned the lessons of the past two decades. these men almost shrugged off their infections. one admitted with a lah, that he had visited a few prostitutes and didn't use a condom. another admitted using needles, he's a heroin addict. in the next ward, two women infected by their husbands.

this woman had no idea she had hiv until her husband got sick and died. by then, she had full-blown aids. because hiv testing seems less urgent to many thais these day, thousands of infected mothers are passing on the disease to their children. >> all these children have the virus. >> there are more than 15,000 children living with aids in thailand. father joe meyer, an american priest, runs a hospice that cares for the poorest of them, most are aids orphans. the new medicines have helped the children live longer, but the drugs are too powerful for some and drug resistance is rising. >> used to be, they would come in and die, come in and die. they still do. but now the oldest one is 15, almost 15. we've never had one live past 15. >> while thailand gets

well-deserved credit for its early approach to aids, father joe says the growing number of infected children is living and dying proof that more of everything is needed. more money, medicine, education and political will. >> government and people, aids is here. it's knocking on our door. it's not going to go away. >> and that's why thailand's tireless aids activist, mechai viravall out on the streets, handing out his beloved condoms, raising awareness wherever and whenever he can. i'm mark litke reporting for "worldfocus" in thailand.

it was eastern australia's worst dust storm in 70 years, covering sydney and surrounding areas in a surreal orange haze that disrupted air traffic and other transportation and made breathing difficult for some. that was yesterday. adrian raschella of central's abc shows us what a difference a day makes. >> choking one day, perfect the next. yesterday sydney-siders woke up to this. today, this. all over new south wales, workers were giving it a little extra elbow grease to wash away the last remaining signs of the dust storm. >> we've been cleaning since yesterday. >> outdoor businesses like cafes were hit hard, not the most pleasant of places to be for coffee. the cleaners at olympic stadium earned their wage today. 80,000 seats had to be wiped down before tomorrow's preliminary league finals. and at the car wash, they were

lapping it out, as drivers clamored to get that glossy best. but for many businesses, the redout will cost tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity. >> the airlines alone, when they have a schedule disruption like they did yesterday with planes having to fly back to where they came from, the fuel cost and disruption costs run to millions. >> the scientists say the storm carried around 5 million tons of soil mainly from the desert in south australia. while some of it will end up falling on agricultural properties, others will have lost valuable topsoil. >> it's usually not evenly distributed in the areas where we want it. there's going to be more losers than winners out of this. >> if you needed any convincing of the extent of the dust storm, it could easily be seen from space. these satellite images show just how far it stretched as it moved across the continent. health authorities initially feared the record air pollution levels would have an impact for days. today air quality was back to normal. being out here now, it's almost

hard to believe the city was ever smothered in red dust. while it's being described as a once-in-a-lifetime event, the weather bureau is predicting more strong winds this weekend, which could whip up smaller dust storms. adrian raschella, abc news, sydney. and finally tonight, a tale from britain about a man named terry herbert. he's an amateur treasure hunter who was out on a friend's farm this summer when he struck it, yes, you guessed it, gold. not just one or two items, but 650 pieces of gold and 530 silver objects. archaeologists said the treasure appeared to be anglo-saxon war loot dating back to 700 a.d. and may have belonged to a king. many of the objects are ornaments that were placed on weapons. perhaps best of all, it appears that mr. herbert and his farmer friend will get to split the proceeds 50-50. so next time you get out your metal detector, who knows?

that is "worldfocus" for this thursday evening. for much more global news and perspective, you can go to our website at worldfocus.org. i'm daljit dhaliwal in new york. for me and the rest of the "worldfocus" team, thanks for joining us. "worldfocus" team, thanks for joining us. good-bye. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> major support for "worldfocus" has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation. dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future. and additional funding is provided by the following supporters --