News headlines in May 2011, page 31

Building on historical relationships, Malawians have set their sights on strengthening trade and investment relations with India in sectors as diverse as agriculture, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

Pakistan authorities announced they would let the United States interrogate the widows of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, provided their countries of origin grant permission to do so.

The temperature is 10 degrees below freezing and the wind is like a hurricane, threatening to sweep away the unwary from the treacherously slippery mountain slope that has been home to Suzanne Al Houby and 39 other iron-willed women for almost a fortnight.

Brazilian and international environmental organisations and peasant farmer movements are taking aim at the forestry industry once again, this time accusing transnational corporation Stora Enso of illegally profiting from the production of wood pulp in the state of Bahia.

The world must follow a greener path to economic growth--a transition that is possible without fundamentally restructuring price structure, according to Rae Kwon Chung, Director of the Environment and Development Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani defended Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) amid scathing criticism from the world community that the spy agency had aided and abetted Osama bin Laden, who was hunted down and killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan May 1.

The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world's poor, including Indonesian market vendor Lia Romi. But it's a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as Glencore.

The new economic development guidelines to be put in effect over the next five years in Cuba, published Monday by the Communist Party, include reforms allowing the sale of real estate and cars and a possible loosening of restrictions on travel abroad by Cubans.

'I want to request the resignation of the Secretary (Minister) of Public Security. We want a message today from the president, showing that he did hear us,' said poet Javier Sicilia before a crowded square overflowing with demonstrators who participated in a four-day-long March for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico.

Amid high-level U.S. congressional delegations to evaluate developments in Iraq, a growing number of voices here, from both the Barack Obama administration and members of Congress, are concerned about a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country by December 2011 — a deadline set forth in the supposedly inviolable Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments back in 2008.