News headlines in March 2011, page 28

It would have been hard for a teenaged Margaret Nnananyana Nasha to imagine that she would grow up to become one of the most powerful figures in Botswana's government.

Central America's security problems will be front and centre at a summit meeting between United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and leaders of seven countries, to be held Mar. 16 in the Guatemalan capital.

Despite regional initiatives that even include the eventual possibility of a ‘‘Cape- to-Cairo’’ free trade area, protectionist impulses have caused non-tariff barriers to spring up across Southern Africa.

Emotions are running high at the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin after Republican senators passed a revised version of a budget repair bill that will take away public workers' collective bargaining rights in an ad hoc session Wednesday night.

At least 29 people are reported to have been killed after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Japan, triggering a 10-metre-high tsunami along parts of the country's northeastern coastline.

Sixty-five years ago, six million Jews perished in concentration camps across Nazi Germany, while the rest of Europe watched silently. Today, says political journalist David Cronin, the world is again witnessing what he calls Europe's 'blood-soaked foreign policy' in the Middle East, where billions of Euros are enabling Israel's illegal and inhumane occupation of Palestine.

Afghanistan's historic Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban 10 years ago, will not be reconstructed despite claims the 1,500-year-old statues could be repaired, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) said Thursday.

World governments have spent an estimated $1.6 trillion dollars in 2010 on military operations, weapons, research and military aid, according the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). What would you do with this amount of money? By asking this thought-provoking question NGOs seek to strengthen the discussion about alternative ways for shifting and reallocating military spending in the run-up to the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS) on April 12.

The absence of more open social policies and real citizen participation are some of the concerns being debated in the run-up to the Sixth Congress of the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in April.

'Life is next to hell as we pass the entire day and night inside four walls of our houses. Militancy and the local male-dominated culture are the reasons for the women’s problems,' says Jabeena Bibi, 38, a resident of Khyber Agency, one of the seven tribal districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan.