News headlines in May 2011, page 30

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled to descend on Washington in less than two weeks, President Barack Obama faces some difficult decisions about how to restore the credibility of his promise to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without triggering a backlash in a Congress that is solidly pro-Israel.

Escalating fuel prices, climate change and the impact of the global financial crisis are the challenges currently compromising development in Malawi. The Southern African country wants to see a bold plan of action addressing these problems agreed upon at the Fourth U.N. Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) currently taking place in Istanbul, Turkey.

Almost a decade of neglect has raised serious concerns about the readiness of Afghan security forces to take over from foreign forces by the end of 2014, a new report claims.

In anticipation of growing sorghum during the coming rainy season, Hamadou Abdou and his son are busy preparing the soil on the family's farm in Bougoum, a village in the west of Niger.

The implementation of a forestry programme against climate change in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas poses a threat to indigenous people in the state, non-governmental organisations warn.

When their sugarcane crops failed to deliver a good yield three years ago, Kantabai Chavan and her husband Baban decided to try a new strategy.

The rains were kind to Cambodian farmer Tep Van last year, when the monsoon season doused his land with enough water to soak his fields and grow his precious rice crop. But he’s not sure he can count on the same luck this year.

The world’s poorest citizens must struggle for more democratic governance and demand that their leaders fulfill their duties and responsibilities if their countries are to graduate from the group of 48 least developed countries, say civil society representatives.

On the face of it, a rapidly rising population among the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) spells the usual doom about adequate resource distribution. But the least developed are also among the youngest in the world - and well channelled, they can be a valuable asset, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) head Babatunde Osotimehin told IPS.

There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden planned the attacks of September 11, 2001, just as there was no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the pretext used for the 2003 US attack on Iraq. Osama applauded 9/11, but that falls under freedom of speech, writes Johan Galtung, Rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University and author of "The Fall of the US Empire--And Then What?".