Thailand's "Condom King" will receive a one-million-dollar award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Thursday on behalf of the group he founded to promote family planning and AIDS prevention.

Mechai Viravaidya, the founder and chairman of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), will be presented with the 2007 Gates Award for Global Health at a health conference in Washington, the Gates Foundation said.

"When we began our work in 1974, we couldn't have imagined a health crisis on the scale of HIV/AIDS," Viravaidya said in a Gates Foundation release announcing the award.

"I was thrilled to see PDA's staff and volunteers rise to the challenge of the epidemic, and I am deeply honored to accept this award on their behalf," he said in the statement released Tuesday.

The one-million-dollar (740,000-euro) award, which honors "extraordinary" efforts to improve health in developing nations, is the world's largest prize for international health, according the Gates Foundation.

PDA's achievements include playing a pivotal role in establishing Thailand's national HIV prevention campaign in 1991, which led to an 87 percent reduction in new infections of the virus that causes AIDS, the Foundation said.

"Mechai Viravaidya is widely known as Thailand's 'Condom King,' a testament to his extraordinary popularity as well as his personal leadership in family planning and HIV prevention," said Nils Daulaire, president and CEO of the Global Health Council.

"The world needs more leaders like Mechai, who are willing to tackle taboo subjects like sex and HIV/AIDS directly in order to save lives."

The non-profit association It was chosen from more than 90 nominees by a jury of global health leaders.

The prize will be presented at the Global Health Council's 34th Annual International Conference on Global Health in Washington. The Gates Foundation was created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda.

US President George W. Bush on Wednesday urged lawmakers to set aside 30 billion dollars over five years to fight AIDS worldwide, but AIDS activists said the proposal fell short of funds needed to battle the global scourge.

Bush also said that First Lady Laura Bush would visit Africa in June to assess HIV/AIDS-fighting strategies in Zambia, Mali, Senegal and Mozambique, and report back on what works and what does not in battling the deadly disease.

"She's going to meet with community leaders and visit with participants in HIV/AIDS programs during her trip to Zambia, Senegal, Mali, and Mozambique. And she's going to come back with her findings," the president said.

Bush urged the US Congress to renew and double his President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has 15 billion dollars and is due to expire in September 2008.

"The generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time. Our citizens are offering comfort to millions who suffer and restoring hopes to those who feel forsaken," said Bush.

"Today, I ask Congress to demonstrate America's continuing commitment to fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS by reauthorizing this legislation now," he said in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by AIDS activists.

"I ask Congress to double our initial commitment and approve an additional 30 billion dollars for HIV/AIDS prevention for care and for treatment over the next five years," he said.

Bush said Washington would work with African governments, the private sector, and community groups around the world to focus the funds on treatment for some 2.5 million people, preventing some 12 million new infections, and care for 12 million more, including more than five million children.

The White House said that PEPFAR, as of March 31, had helped fund treatment for 1.1 million people in its focus countries -- Botswana, Cote dÂIvoire, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.

The program pays for anti-retroviral treatment in the worst-hit countries, funds drugs for patients in the developing world and delivers medicine to pregnant women to prevent infections to newborns.

However, Paul Zeitz, director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said the proposal's fine print belies Bush's announcement.

"In fact, 30 billion dollars is about what the US is already on track to spend over the next five years even without the president's announcement," he said in a statement.

"The reality is that we are not even treading water as the tide of HIV/AIDS rapidly rises," Zeitz said.

He added that "the fine-print of today's proposal also shows a radical reduction in US support for HIV/AIDS treatment (domestically), even as the world is racing to meet the 2010 deadline of universal access."

Zeitz said with the United States providing treatment to 33 percent of those who need it currently, the Bush proposal would slash that funding to treat "only 2.5 million people, or about 20 percent of the 12 million people expected to need treatment in 2013."

At the end of last year, around 39.5 million people around the world were living with HIV or AIDS, according to UN figures.

Sub-saharan Africa remains by far the worst-affected region and is home to two-thirds of all people living with HIV.

A gay gang that allegedly raped victims lured on the Internet, drugged them and infected them with the AIDS virus has shocked the Netherlands and raised questions over its liberal sex culture.

Health Minister Ab Klink on Thursday called the case "horrible", as the press splashed the news across its front pages.

The matter came to light Wednesday, when police said they had arrested three seropositive homosexual men two weeks ago after four victims, men aged 25 to 50, accused them of rape and premeditated bodily harm.

Ronald Zwarter, the police chief in the northern town of Groningen, where the alleged crimes took place, said two of those arrested, a couple aged 48 and 33, had confessed.

"Their stated motive was that it excited them -- and also that, the more HIV-infected people there were, the better their chances of unprotected sex," he said.

"They considered unprotected relations to be 'pure'."

A fourth man who allegedly supplied the three suspects with several litres of the date-rape drug GHB and ecstasy tablets was also arrested.

The gang risks up to 16 years in prison.

According to police and prosecutors, eight more victims have come forward since the case was publicised.

Officials said the three seropositive men invited gays contacted on the Internet to private homosexual orgies.

When the victims turned up, they were allegedly given ecstasy and GBH (which is undetectable when mixed in drinks), leaving them helpless and, in some cases, with no memory of what happened.

The three suspects -- one of whom is a male nurse -- were said to have raped the men, and even injected some of them with a mix of their contaminated blood.

The case has deeply unsettled the Netherlands, and caused it to cast a hard look at its easygoing views on sex, with some figures suggesting that frequent homosexual orgies posed a public health risk.

"That homos organise orgies is nothing new, but this is something else. This is unimaginable," said Frank van Dalen, the president of a gay rights group called COC.

He stressed that the illegal use of GHB (gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) -- known on the street by such nicknames as "Easy Lay, "Gay Home Boy" and "Liquid Ecstasy" -- also posed a danger in heterosexual circles.

Said Henk Krol, the editor of a homosexual magazine titled Gaykrant: "These people were drugged, it's therefore rape, pure and simple. It's shameful, disgusting and terrifying. Those who did this are crazy."

Health officials pointed to a recent rise in the number of HIV infections in Groningen -- from 14 in 2005 to 25 last year, out of the town's total population of 185,000 -- as significant.

"This doesn't mean that the rise is entirely explained by the orgies... but it's probable that part of the rise has been caused by them," Marco Ter Harmsel, of Grongingen's municipal health service, told the Dutch newspaper DRC.

Algeria has 10 million free condoms to distribute but there are no takers, a senior medical official in the conservative Muslim country said Wednesday.

"In Algeria, where AIDS spreads mainly through sexual contact, 10 million free condoms are waiting in warehouses of the national pharmacy but there are no takers," said Mohamed Mesbah.

Some 19,000 of this north African country's 33 million people -- 0.05 percent of the population -- live with AIDS, according to the UN agency UNAIDS.

Algerian authorities offer dramatically lower estimates. At the end of last year, it said there were 746 AIDS cases and 2,175 people living with HIV.

After experts began talking about the benefits of condoms as barriers to spreading HIV/AIDS, the government began soliciting imams to preach about the virus and the risks of unprotected sex during Friday prayers.

They face an uphill task. Many Algerians in television interviews claimed AIDS can be transmitted simply by being in contact with someone who had it. Others, swayed by hard-line clerics, argue the virus aims to punish sexual deviants, including homosexuals.

A striking 40 percent of Algerian youth know "nothing about AIDS," nor about how to prevent it, according to an official survey published in November.

Cultural beliefs that women are inferior to men are spurring the rapid spread of HIV in Swaziland and Botswana, the countries most affected by AIDS, according to a report released Monday.

The report from Physicians for Human Rights showed that women's dependency on their male partners made them more vulnerable to the disease in the countries which had questionable human rights.

"The legal systems in both countries grant women lesser status than men, restricting property, inheritance and other rights," reads the report.

"Neither country has met its obligations under international human rights law, as a result women continue to be disproportionately vulnerable to HIV/AIDS."

Women subsequently had no control over sexual decisions, including using a condom, and feared testing positive would jeapordise their relationships and lead to them being stigmatised and shunned by society.

In Botswana, a country of 1.64 million people which had the highest HIV-prevalence until surpassed by Swaziland in 2004, 19 percent of community survey respondants said it was more important for a women to respect her partner than for him to respect her.

Women's lesser status in Botswana -- which has not criminalised intimate partner violence and marital rape -- meant after being infected their ability to provide for themselves was even more precarious.

Interviews with HIV-positive women revealed many engaged in risky sex with men in exchange for food for themselves and their children.

"Women are having sex because they are hungry. If you give them food, they would not need to have sex to eat," said one women.

In Swaziland, the continent's last absolute monarchy with an HIV prevalence of about 40 percent, a dual civil and customary law system denies equal rights to women.

King Mswati III practices the accepted culture of polygamy in a society which encourages multiple sexual partners for men while women are in turn blamed for spreading the virus.

"Ninety-seven percent of community survey participants held at least one gender discriminatory belief," said the report.

Vienna's extravagant Life Ball brought together a string of international celebrities, from actress Sharon Stone to pop sensation Scissor Sisters as it celebrated 15 years of fundraising for the fight against AIDS.

A combination of Gay Pride Parade, Carnival in Rio and Oscars red carpet, the Life Ball saw 40,000 revellers gathered in front of City Hall Saturday night to admire the outrageous costumes on this year's "Fairytales" theme and soak up the party atmosphere.

Elaborately-costumed Little Red Riding Hoods and big bad wolves rubbed shoulders with guests in "S and M" outfits, while others opted for body paint and little else.

A young man impersonating a superb Empress Sissi in white ball gown with crystals in his hair moved royally down the red carpet, while three little female piglets in pink tutus scurried along.

"It reminds me of a huge Disneyland fantasy... it's like gay Disneyland personified!" Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears, visibly delighted, told AFP as he fought his way through the crowd upon arrival.

Every possible material was used to make costumes, from candy necklaces to playing cards, all of it sprinkled with a generous dose of glitter.

A bosomy "Titania" in a shiny ball gown said he had spent 30 hours making his costume and two hours "getting rid of the male to become this beautiful lady" as he re-applied a false eyelash.

Politicians also played along: Social Minister Erwin Buchinger appeared as a musketeer while portly Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky strutted her stuff in the fashion show with obvious delight.

The show opened with a fairytale song and dance number that included a figure-skating performance on the red-ribbon shaped catwalk, despite 25-degree Celsius (77-degree Fahrenheit) heat, followed by appearances by German model Nadja Auermann, designer Vivienne Westwood and French opera star Natalie Dessay.

"It's more fabulous every year," said organiser Gery Keszler who has overseen the Life Ball ever since he created it in 1993.

Vienna Mayor Michael Haeupl pointed out however that "while we have fun, we must remember there are some people who don't have as good a life as we do here."

The Life Ball raises money every year for projects helping those with HIV and AIDS. Keszler expected to top the 1.1 million euros (1.48 million dollars) raised last year.

"It's a sensational cause. Gery Keszler made a small thing into a worldwide event and it's just nice to be part of it," said fourth-time Life Ball guest Mona, in a self-made vinyl "Puss in Boots" costume.

The star of the evening, actress Sharon Stone of the Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR), one of the recipients of the Life Ball proceeds, praised the event and the support it receives from local and national governments, calling it "an example of kindness and compassion, decency, dignity and elegance."

A fashion show followed with celebrities like singer Mya, actor Alan Cumming, Lance Bass and JC Chasez of former boy band N'Sync, porn star Jenna Jameson and famous transsexual Amanda Lepore modelling creations by hip New York designer duo Heatherette, aka Richie Rich and Traver Rains.

Some 4,000 guests, who paid between 75 and 135 euros (100 and 180 dollars) for a ticket, then moved into City Hall, "the only political building in the world to host an AIDS event" according to Keszler, where Vienna's biggest party of the year continued until 5:00 am Sunday.

There, a mock Wedding Chapel offered to marry heterosexuals, homosexuals and groups, while guests were treated to a live performance by the Scissor Sisters and discos, bars and poker tables were set up in the sumptuous vaulted rooms.

"It's unbelievable. This is a photographer's dream, I can't stop!" famed fashion photographer Mario Testino said as he crossed the building's courtyard snapping pictures with cameras in both hands.

Fifty percent of the money raised at the Life Ball will go to AIDS projects in Austria, while the rest will be handed to international organisations.

Some 40 million people currently have the HIV virus, according to the United Nations. Last year alone, some 2.9 million people died of AIDS.