tonight on "worldfocus" -- saying the global economic situation remains uncertain. world leaders gather in italy to talk about what to do next. as they do, we show you how things are only getting worse in much of europe. new images evailing north korea leader kim jong-il surface as his country's being accused of being behind a cyberattack that's overwhelmed important government websites in south korea and the u.s. argentina's in the middle of the winter and in the middle of a medical emergency. the h1n1 virus has now killed more people there than in any other south american country. tonight we go for a look. then we travel to western kenya, as our continuing series of "view from africa" looks at the battle to take on that continent's three biggest killers. from the world's leading reporters and analysts, here's what's happening from around the world. this is "worldfocus." made possible, in part, by the following funders --

good evening. i'm martin savidge. the g-8 summit meeting's underway in italy and while many expected the global economic crisis to dominate today's talks the big news was on a different front. ed leaders agree to set a target limiting the world's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees celsius. that's about 3.5 degrees fahrenheit and they also set a goal for industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gasses by 80% by the year 2050. a plan india and china did not sign off on. despite the focus on climate change the global recession remains a big concern for the g-8 leaders. and today they agreed to keep pressing ahead with efforts to stimulate their economies. so how are european countries going about it? our partner, deutsche welle, has tlead focus" tonight.

>> reporter: fewer hours on the job for reduced pay and in germany hundreds of thousands of employees have been put on short time. preventing mass redundancies for now. germany's economy's forecast to shrink by 6% this year. export-driven industries such as engineering are being especially bad hit by the downturn. the global recession has slashed demand for product made in germany. german exports declined by 29% in april 2009. compared with the same month a year ago, the worst decline in postwar history. the country's leaders reacted with an unprecedented economic stimulus package. plans to boost an extra $50 billion euros into the economy by 2010. >> translator: we'll succeed in making germany stronger than it was before it entered the crisis. >> reporter: the plan includes state aid for financially stricken companies, investment

in education and transport, as well as direct efforts to encourage consumers to spend money. such as the scheme of offering individuals a bonus for scrapping their old car and buying a new one. the plans are costly for the public purse, and some experts doubt they'll have the desired affect in the long run. >> translator: the economic stimulus plans in their present form, of course, cannot provide a direct boost to exports. they will if at all possible provide a boost to construction and investment and consumption. but those two sectors aren't the weakest parts of germany's economy. >> reporter: nevertheless, economists do expect a slight upswing in the coming year. in spain, abandoned building sites have come to symbolize the downturn. a crisis in the country's property market has aggravated the effects of a global recession. spain's construction industry was a mainstay of the country's economy. but hundreds of thousands of building workers have been let go. as a result, unemployment have

exploded to 17.4% of the workforce in two years. a record for any eu country. madrid also has a stimulus package aimed at fix-starting the economy. the spanish plan includes a public building program to aid the construction industry. but the intention is that the package should also help put the rest of spain's economy on a firm footing. >> translator: in the long term, we have to make sure the package encourages stronger growth in spain. that will happen if the stimulus program, not only encourages house building but also invests in infrastructure, for example. >> reporter: in the short term, however, the outlook is bleak. forecasts say spain's economy will continue shrinking. in latvia there has been mass protests. the economy is forecast to contract up to 15%. the country is on the verge of

tcy. its foreign debt have more than tripled since 2007. and now stands at 30.4% of gross national product but instead of a stimulus program latvia's government has had to make drastic cuts. with the aim of avoid of ñ÷6ee8 inflation and securing further international credit, the latvian government has cut back public spending by almost 40%. schools and hospitals are being closed. and state employees made redundant. poverty is on the rise and purchasing power is falling. >> translator: in the short term, that's bound to make the crisis worse, but you have to set the positive aspects we can expect against that. for example, the government will not have to spend so much on servicing its national debt. >> repor now, the economy is set to continue its downward slide. and latvians have to expect things to get worse before they get better. >> that report from deutsche

welle. so, what are likely to be the hot topics of discussion for the g-8 summit? for some insight we've invited back john authers. the investment editor of "the financial times." good to see you again. >> good to be here. >> we just heard how a number of nations in europe, basically, are trying to deal with their economic downturn. some of them are resulting in the stimulus programs, others are making budget cuts. the european countries, though, have been criticized that they still have not done enough. why is that? >> i think, particularly in the case of germany, it's because they entered the crisis in a different way. in the case of germany, house prices there actually fell slightly during the worst years of the housing bubble here in the states. consumers weren't overextended and overheated in the way that they were here. and so there isn't the same need for an aggressive stimulus. the other thing you've got to remember, particularly in the case of germany, is that they have a cultural aversion to inflation for very good historical reasons, which is much -- goes much deeper than does in other countries. they really don't want to risk a

return to higher inflation. >> it help lead to the nazi party. >> exactly. >> there seems to be a sense in this g-8, as we get started, that they're sort of going to lessons learned. a little premature for that but still, what sort of new regulations are we likely to see out of this? >> well, discussing, although not going to see anything concrete this early. whether the dollar should continue as the reserve currency for the international foreign exchange system or whether there is a way of moving to a more broad currency basket. there was a lot of noise about that before the summit. that's the kind of things that will take many years to deal with. i think if there's a practical measure that people are discussing at moment it's probably the oil markets, oil is obviously an international commodity as it gets. so there's no point any one nation trying to deal with this problem on its own. there's been exceptional volality in oil over the last two years, which has made it very much harder for policymakers, and you probably will see attempts to work out, whether we need more regulation in the oil market.

how that should work and how to avoid that from becoming counterproductive. >> china's leader had to leave and go back and deal with the domestic emergencies in china. what impact is that going to have? >> it continues to make the summit that much less important than it appeared to be before. you know the central dialogue, the central duality in the world economy at the moment is between the u.s. and china. if the most important people in china are not available there, that continues to reduce the chance that something truly substantial will happen. if you look at the capital

and -- but i don't think it's just germany. i think that there are issues around, quite a lot of western countries, about whether the banking crisis is behind us and in the way that people have been lulled into believing in the last few months. >> john authers, thank you very much. good to see you again. >> thank you. from north korea tonight, a rare public appearance by the leader of that country, kim jong-il. the ailing 67-year-old dictator appeared at a memorial service marking the 15th anniversary of the death of his father. the founder of the north korean state. other north koreans paid their respects by placing flowers and bong before a huge statue of the late leader. the north koreans are being implicated in a cyberattack. during the july 4th holiday

weekend, the attack, at least temporarily, brought down several major american and south korean websites. this from south korean intelligence officials, other south korean officials, though, expressed doubt that the north koreans could carry out such an attack. now let's talk more about this cyberattack. and for that, we are joined tonight from washington by keith epstein. he is an investigative reporter for "businessweek" whose specialty is cybersecurity. good to you have back. >> good to be here. >> how can we be sure that the north koreans are the ones behind these cyberattacks? >> well, we can't know for sure, at least not from the evidence thus so f that we have. the south koreans, of course, blame pyongyang. the south koreans blame pyongyang for a lot of things. so we'll need see some evidence. >> and how concerned should we be that some of the websites that were hit, i understand, include the u.s. treasury department, the secret service, federal trade commission, and the transportation department. they were all down, at least one time or another, during the july 4th holiday weekend.

>> the truth is, martin, not very. these attacks appear to have been, barring some presentation of new evidence, the old-style pranksterish, so-called denial of service attacks. in which -- in which the perpetrators, usually hackers, often in the past teenagers, target certain systems and flood them. flood them with -- flood these sites with so much traffic that the sites can't temporarily function. >> so this was -- >> temporarily. >> trying to interfere with the department of transportation, ybe trying to harm air traffic in some way? >> no, and that's the kind of thing that really worries security experts, security computer experts, are worried about interference with systems, command and control systems, with financial data, with you know, with the actual functioning or secrets that a company or a government might have. >> well, you mentioned financial data. there were, i understand, some prominent financial sites that were struck. which ones, i would like to know, and also what would the consequences possibly of those attacks? >> according to the associated

press and some other reports, nasdaq and the new york stock exchange were among the sites that were targets of attacks. but again, most businesses and in many government agencies are -- have grown pretty adept over the years. able to fend these things off. and basically shut down traffic from what they detect rather quickly is a bad neighborhood in effect. >> could this be some sort of precursor? that someone is testing and may come back with a more devastating kind of cyber strike? >> well, the thing that really worries cybersecurity professionals is on an entirely different level. we're requiring the obama administration, for instance, right now is working on a cybersecurity initiative that involves a national security agency. it involves at&t testing of a sophisticated system called einstein. a way of monitoring traffic internationally and what comes into your country, and trying to detect early what -- exactly

what's happening. whether someone is trying to pull something out again or run your system, in effect -- affect the operations within your site of site. >> keith epstein, we have to leave it there. thank you very much. >> thank you, martin. from north korea now, we take you to neighboring china and to the western province of xinjiang, where chinese officials are trying to restore calm. after rioting. muslim uighurs and han chinese. today chinese authorities deployed hundreds of troops throughout the provincial capital. and imposed a curfew. the local communist party leader is warning that those behind the clashes, which have left 156 people dead, would be executed. and now to afghanistan, where the american military offensive against the taliban in helmand province is a week old. that offensive's being carried out by 4,000 american troops and 400 afghan soldiers. and that's prompted some worried comments from american military officials in the field. one of them said today, more afghan soldiers are needed to help american troops win over afghan citizens. adding, we can't read these people. we're different.

they're not going to tell us the truth. we'll never get to build and transition unless we have the afghan troops. well, the u.s. continues to go after the taliban. just across the border from afghanistan. in a pakistani tribal region known as south waziristan, missiles apparently filed from american drones killed at least 45 militants today. in a separate attack today in the swat valley of pakistan, the pakistani military claimed to have wounded a top taliban commander. the wounded man baitullah mehsud and his supporters have believed to have burned schools for girls and beheaded rivals as part of a chain to impose extreme version of sharia law there. and still more news tonight about the war on islamic militants. it comes saudi arabia, where according to a justice military spokesman, 2,300 members of suspected al qaeda have been convicted during the first known terror trials in that country. one of the militants was sentenced to death. al qaeda's, of course, also active in africa. and in the northwestern african

country of mali, al qaeda militants and government troops have been battling for the past several days. today, al qaeda claimed to have killed 28 government soldiers. the government says dozens died during the recent fighting, but insists most of those killed were members of al qaeda. there's some interesting medical news out of britain tonight. researchers at newcastle university claimed to have created human sperm from embryonic stem cells. the leader of the research group says their work will help determine how sperm develops and will help develop treatments for infertile men. one critic said today that the sperm developed by the research team is, in his words, a long way from being authentic. and another medical story we've been trackings the global outbreak of the h1n1 flu virus. as we reported this week,

the disease is spreading throughout the southern hemisphere where it is now winter. as cap turner of al jazeera english report, argentina's been particularly hard hit. >> reporter: the disease has hit argentina hard. with 65 deaths so far, it's the worst-hit country in south america and the third-worst in the world, behind only the u.s. and mexico. the posadas hospital is the main health in the buenos aires and are filled with flu patients. this is where argentina's first fatality occurred a month ago. a 3-month-old baby girl. since then there have been nine flu deaths in this hospital alone. and the health minister predicts the number of infections could reach 100,000 nationwide. >> translator: my husband was admitted last night. i came to see how he's doing. they told me it's complicated. he has pneumonia. he's in isolation. >> reporter: the argentine government has just announced new measures to try to stop the spread of h1n1, including closing theaters and schools and

letting public service workers to take time off. the media's also showing advertising on how to prevent the outbreak. >> translator: i don't know if it's a lack of information, but i don't think the warning serve any purpose. you can take care of yourself at home, but what if you're at work? anything you touch, who knows if you'll get it. what they're telling us doesn't help. >> reporter: critics say, authorities are struggling to cope with the disease and are worried only some will have access to treatment. >> translator: we don't need another example of unfairness of argentinian health system. the only ones who get it are the ones who buy it first or get it through a doctor/friend or through some public official they know. >> reporter: argentina now ranks highly more than the 114 countries anxiously awaiting for a vaccine against h1n1, a disease the world health organization now calls unstoppable. cap turner, al jazeera. and now to the third installment of our series this week which we call "view from africa." tonight, new efforts to fight disease there.

in urging congress to spend $60 billion over the next six years. president obama called for an integrated approach to fight aids but at the same time combat other preventible diseases that kill millions of people every year. longtime cnn correspondent gary strieker, who now calls himself a citizen correspondent, traveled to western kenya, where he discovered a health project taking that very approach. >> reporter: it seemed like a carnival, huge crowds gathering for a good time. ♪ by appearances, you wouldn't know this is a serious public health project in western kenya. and that all these people, standing in lines and waiting for hours, were here to get protection from malaria and diarrhea and to have themselves tested for hiv infection. >> what makes this project unique is it's actually using the needs for health prevention

in malaria and in diarrhea. but using that as a way of encouraging people to come forward and to be tested. and the biggest problem with hiv control today is the need to actually get people to know they're hiv status. >> reporter: kenya's goal is to test 80% of its population for hiv by 2010. but the current figure is less than 20%. >> our aim is to make sure that 80% of the community are not hiv status. >> reporter: but convincing people to be tested is a major challenge anywhere especially in small communities where anyone who is even suspected of testing positive for hiv can be stigmatized, shunned by family and neighbors. many prefer not to know their status. >> this is, when i know my status, what happens to my life? what happens to my career? what happens to my family? >> reporter: that's why this

week-long prevention demonstration project is seen as a huge breakthrough. the crowds here herd of kenyans living with hiv testifying how anage their illness and live normal lives by taking antiretroviral drugs provided by the government. how hiv infection is no longer a sentence of death. and by the thousands here, they volunteered to be tested for hiv. >> here, they're actually within their community, with their neighbors, with other people within their community being tested openly. >> reporter: the concept for this project isombining multiple disease control interventions into one integrated cameaches thousands of people at one time. just by showing up, everyone )w gets a care pack with a free insecticide treated bednet to protect against malaria. a high-tech water purifier

called life straw to break the cycle of chronic diarrhea and a supply of condoms. and then confidential hiv testing and counseling. the suisse manufacturer of these bednets and water filters donated the products and underwrote the expenses of the campaign. as in much of the country and across africa, malaria and water-related diseases are the primary killers in western kenya. and for victims of hiv with impaired immune systems, chronic diarrhea is a leading cause of death. that's why proper use of insecticide-treated bednets and water purifiers has the potential to reduce deaths. in this demonstration over a period of seven days, at 30 sites in an area near kagamega, more than 50,000 care packs were given to individuals and

families. nearly 47,000 tested for hiv. among those, 2,016 tested positive for the virus, about 4.3% of the total. and in the months ahead, if all these bednets and water purifiers are properly used, there should be dramatic improvements here in public health from a campaign that could be a model for others in africa. >> that was gary strieker reporting from western kenya. finally tonight, we wanted to share an excerpt of the latest installment of the pbs series "wide angle." it's called "heart of jenin." and it traces after what happened to a 12-year-old palestinian boy was killed by israeli soldiers who mistakenly believed that his toy gun was real. the boy's father decided to donate his son's organs to

several seriously ill children, including an israeli druze and an israeli bedouin and a son of an orthodox jewish family and then set out to visit all of them. >> good evening, a palestinian boy dies in rambam hospital and his parents decide to donate his organs. six israelis will receive the heart, kidneys, lungs and liver of little ahmed. >> translator: among the recipients a 12-year-old druze girl who received ahmed's heart. [ speaking in native tongue ] >> one of ahmed's kidneys went

to a 5-year-old bedouin boy. [ speaking in native tongue ] >> ahmed's other kidney went to a 3-year-old orthodox jewish girl. >> it was a sunday. it was just after the dialysis. the doctor told me to come into the office and she had something to tell me. she said we have a kidney for her.

i looked at her. i couldn't believe it. i just started crying. she ran to get me a glass of water. on cloud nine, you know? >> the families had rushed to the hospital when it became known that organs had become available for their children. [ speaking in native tongue ] >> check your local television listings for "wide angles: heart

of jenin" and see that program online at pbs.org/wideangle. and that's it for us "worldfocus" for this wednesday night. a reminder to visit our website, that's worldfocus.org, where you can find last night's blog talk radio show about the ongoing unrest in western china. i'm martin savge in new york. as always, we thank you very much for joining us. we'll look for you back here again tomorrow and anytime on the web. until then, have a great night. "worldfocus" is made possible, in part, by the follow funders -- "worldfocus" is made possible, in part, by the follow -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com