News headlines in May 2011, page 13

The HidroAysén hydroelectric project in Chile’s Patagonia region is causing 'a credibility crisis for institutionality and (President) Piñera,' environmentalist Sara Larraín told Tierramérica.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees defining their rights and states' legal obligations to protect them.

Iran's officially recognised 'spiritual leader' today may be Ayatollah Khamenei, but for hundreds of years before the current establishment of mullahs and ayatollahs, Iranians of all creeds have looked to another spiritual leader: Jalal ad- Din Rumi.

Pakistan defence experts and observers say the country could expect another unilateral raid by U.S. forces, similar to the one they carried out in Abbottabad on May 2, that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

With the arrest of the once powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, following allegations that he raped a maid in his 3,000-dollar-a-night penthouse suite at the Sofitel Hotel, a spotlight has been turned on the treatment of female cleaning staff, many of whom are immigrants who keep silent for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.

Fixed targets for universal access to AIDS treatment and funding to make it achievable are what HIV and AIDS organisations want from the upcoming United Nations General Assembly Special Session due to be held in New York next month.

The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Its global focus on CO2 emissions and trading schemes based in London and other financial centres has grown suspect, writes Hazel Henderson, author, president of Ethical Markets Media, and co-author of "Qualitative Growth"(2009).

Food shortages may be causing hunger in the developing world, but the large Latin American agricultural countries that belong to the Group of 20 (G20) see the situation as an opportunity to exploit. This became clear at a working meeting on commodities held by the G20 on May 19-20 in Buenos Aires, where economy and agriculture ministers discussed today's soaring food prices.

Inaction marked the Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community heads of state in Windhoek this weekend, despite an agenda covering Zimbabwe elections, political deadlock in Madagascar, the suspension of the regional court and allegations of corruption within SADC itself.

'The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states.' The seemingly neutral and quasi-consensual principle laid out by U.S. President Barack Obama in his May 19 policy address on the current state of affairs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was all the more harmless that it was buried in the last quarter of his speech.