News headlines in March 2011, page 27

Russia and the Ukraine have been warned they are lagging behind the rest of the former Soviet bloc in introducing a simple and inexpensive health measure that has stopped child mental retardation across the region.

Surgery saves the lives of millions of people around the world, but only a tiny percent of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where a shortage of skills, supplies and infrastructure can turn easily treatable accidents and illnesses into lifelong disabilities and even death.

Heightened tension on Saturday after a blast at a nuclear facility in Fukushima, 150 kilometres north of Tokyo, eased off after the government reported that the danger had been overstated.

Japan’s reputation as a world leader in disaster management is facing a crucial test as the country scrambles to deal with the massive destruction caused by a strong earthquake on Friday that has left mounting deaths in the densely populated northeast.

For Namibia's capital city, the goal of sustainable water and sanitation is a major challenge for the 21st century.

The current rise in agricultural prices, which now overshadows the increase seen in 2008, highlights the contribution that Brazil could make towards curbing the growing hunger and inflation that are threatening the world once again.

Rarely, if ever, has a post-World War II U.S. president been beset by so many foreign policy challenges and uncertainties in one key geo-strategic region at the same time.

Companies from Brazil and India -- whose bilateral trade flow rose nearly threefold in the last three years -- are starting to diversify and complement their business dealings in order to strengthen the two emerging powers' economic presence in the world, in a kind of new two-way 'route to the Indies'.

Postwar Angola is keen to expand irrigation for much-needed development, Namibia is prioritising clean drinking water and sanitation, while Botswana wants to preserve the integrity of the world-renowned Okavango Delta for tourism.

Al-Qaeda is targeting Muslim Americans for recruits to terrorism and the community must do more to combat radicalisation, a U.S. politician has said as he opened hearings in Washington that have been criticised as a witch hunt.