News headlines in April 2014, page 15

BERKELEY, Apr 02 (IPS) - Mexico is fighting obesity and accompanying diseases with a one-peso per litre tax on sugar-sweetened beverages that kicked in Jan. 1. France implemented its "cola tax" in 2012. Several U.S. states tax sugar-sweetened beverages, including Vermont, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. Illinois legislators are considering such a tax.

PITAL, Costa Rica, Apr 02 (IPS) - Olga Vargas, a breast cancer survivor, is back in the countryside, working in a forestry programme in the north of Costa Rica aimed at empowering women while at the same time mitigating the effects of climate change.

TUNIS/ADDIS ABABA, Apr 02 (IPS) - Ketsela Negatu is the son of an Ethiopian goat farmer living close to the country's capital, Addis Ababa, who refuses to follow in his father's footsteps. The 19-year-old has negative perceptions about the family profession after seeing the dim prospects a farming livelihood has offered his father. 

MANILA, Apr 02 (IPS) - After a year of futile diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the South China Sea disputes, the Philippines has risked permanent estrangement with China by pressing ahead with an unprecedented arbitration case before a United Nations court at The Hague, while ironing out a new security pact with the U.S.

KABUL, Apr 02 (IPS) - Ethnicities will be to the fore in the Afghan elections due Saturday this week, even though some promise appears that the young are beginning to break away from such loyalties.

WASHINGTON, Apr 01 (IPS) - The World Bank is aiming to double its lending to middle-income countries over the coming decade, in addition to expanding its overall commitments to some 70 billion dollars a year.

WASHINGTON, Apr 01 (IPS) - Major foreign assistance donors have once again delayed the release of a report meant to measure transparency, accountability and cooperation of aid effectiveness.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 01 (IPS) - When Western powers, led by the United States, decided to throw Russia out of the Group of 8 (G8) industrial nations, it was aimed at punishing and "isolating" President Vladimir Putin for his intervention in Ukraine and "annexation" of Crimea.

, Apr 01 (IPS) - Russia's state-run oil giant Rosneft wants to purchase a majority stake in the state-controlled company that owns all of Kyrgyzstan's civilian airports.

ALFAZ, Spain, Apr 01 (IPS) - History, not only law, matters: like how Crimea and Abkhazia-South Ossetia - basically Russian-Orthodox – became Ukrainian and Georgian, respectively.