News headlines in May 2011, page 4

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UNFPA Executive Director Dr Babatunde Osotimehin visited Nigeria last week to promote ‘Every Woman, Every Child’: a global health effort that Ban launched last September during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit in New York.

The Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, concludes a three-day visit to Tanzania on May 28. Singh arrived in Dar es Salaam from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he took part in the Second India-Africa Forum Summit, which began on May 20.

Despite notable successes in the battle against HIV and AIDS in China, discrimination against infected people remains rife here and critics continue to question the Chinese government over allocation of treatment funds.

Accused of being unfriendly towards journalists, Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich has surprised the world by starting an investigation for abuse of power against former president Leonid Kuchma over the murder of an opposition journalist in 2000.

'Every time we go in the water, someone discovers something that's never been seen before,' says Dr. Terrence Gosliner, leader of the ongoing 2011 Philippine Biodiversity Expedition.

After a government report confirmed major ethical violations in trials of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccines on Indian schoolgirls, senior doctors are calling for transparency in clinical trials conducted under private-public partnerships.

The sex scandal in the top couloirs of the IMF and the power struggle to find a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn has fascinated the Chinese. Rife speculations about political intrigues and shadowy deals behind the scenes have spilled into cyberspace and the usually restrained media.

Iceland’s national power company, Landsvirkjun, has announced that it intends to double its generating capacity over the next 15 years, with a blend consisting mostly of hydroelectric and geothermal plants but potentially using wind and tidal energy as well.

Although politicians seem to have put the peace process on ice, there are many different groups in Israel and the Palestinian territories that still believe in reconciliation. They call on the world not to believe in stereotypes. 'The minute you choose sides, you become part of the conflict.'

A coalition of Taiwan social activists has warned that the island country's democracy is now in a state of ''stagnation'' after three years of government under the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) administration of President Ma Ying-jeou.