Word: low
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...million, six-year trial, which involved more than 16,000 people in Thailand - the largest AIDS-vaccine trial ever conducted - found that an experimental vaccine was 31% effective in preventing HIV infection. The volunteer group in the study was representative of the general Thai adult population, including low-risk, heterosexual adults. Calling the results of the trial a "significant scientific advance," officials at the World Health Organization said the results reinvigorated the stalled quest for a vaccine against AIDS, which is estimated to kill some 2 million people globally each year. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs...
...Fakoya, a London-based clinician and senior adviser to the British nonprofit AIDS Alliance, tells TIME that a 30% efficacy rate is still very low. By comparison, studies in Africa suggest that male circumcision can cut the risk of HIV infection in men by up to 60%. Still, in a field that has been beset by a series of high-profile failures in the past 20 years - in 2007, for example, two international trials of a promising Merck vaccine in about 4,000 people were stopped early, and later analysis suggested that the vaccine may have increased people's risk...
...luxury residential market, however, is getting a special boost. Local property agents say prices are being driven higher by buyers from the Chinese mainland. Wealthy Chinese have ample cash and easy access to low-interest loans because of the government's loose monetary and fiscal policies, which were implemented last year to fight the recession. Buyers are looking to invest close to home, and despite China's restrictions on moving capital beyond its borders, that often means acquiring assets in Hong Kong. (The former British colony belongs to China but has a separate system of government and a more open...
...Peter Churchouse, a director at a Hong Kong investment research and advisory firm, says he doesn't think Hong Kong's housing market is a bubble. But some analysts worry that low interest rates, high liquidity and a tight supply of new apartments could fuel irrational exuberance. Churchouse says: "I could easily see this market developing into a bubble, but it's not a bubble yet." That should be of some comfort for the buyer who just paid $3.16 million for a 590 sq. ft. apartment...
...From her first appearance at an E.U. summit in December 2005, when Merkel helped break a deadlock between Britain and France on the budget, the Chancellor has gained a reputation as a shrewd and effective negotiator. Her low-key foreign policy has been in keeping with the consensual style of government imposed on her by an electoral system that forced her Christian Democrats (CDU) into a grand coalition with the largest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SPD). But it's also the manifestation of a history that has left Germany reluctant to intervene in the affairs of other countries. (Read...