News headlines in March 2014, page 14

ST.AUGUSTINE, Florida, Mar 04 (IPS) - Providing water for our still growing human population is reaching crisis levels. Water is vital for agriculture, energy production and industrial processes worldwide. Floods and droughts in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the United States accompanied unprecedented typhoons and winter storms. While none could be linked directly to climate change, the debate surfaced. Mainstream media started covering these issues more broadly.

KIEV, Mar 04 (IPS) - Crimea could remain under Russian control indefinitely as the current crisis - described by some politicians as Europe's gravest since the end of the Cold War – threatens to turn into a "frozen conflict", experts say.

WASHINGTON, Mar 04 (IPS) - A familiar clutch of hawks have taken wing over the rapidly developing crisis in Ukraine, as neo-conservatives and other interventionists claim that President Barack Obama's preference for diplomacy over military action  invited Russian aggression.

WASHINGTON, Mar 04 (IPS) - The failure of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians could lead to a significant shift in public opinion in the United States regarding Israel's future, according to a new poll released Monday.

WASHINGTON, Mar 03 (IPS) - A third of U.S. organic farmers have experienced problems in their fields due to the nearby use of genetically modified crops, and over half of those growers have had loads of grain rejected because of unwitting GMO contamination.

Mar 03 (IPS) - Vegetable growing is flourishing in Cuscatlán, the smallest department in the tiny country of El Salvador, with the help of a national programme to promote family agriculture and lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 03 (IPS) - As the debate about a future global development agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 gathers pace, there is broad agreement that gender equality and women's empowerment are crucial components.

LUSAKA, Mar 03 (IPS) - David Mubita has long been known in the family as a fool for starting trouble. The latest was getting circumcised secretly and nearly cast out by Grandfather Ndumwa. But Mubita may turn out to be the wisest in the family.

Mar 03 (IPS) - Budget constraints in Washington and obstinacy at the highest levels of the African Union (AU) have combined to dangerously delay a possible U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to sources close to negotiations currently underway in New York.

ROME, Mar 03 (IPS) - Until the late 1970s, only 16 countries had abolished the capital punishment for all crimes. Today, abolitionist nations are the overwhelming majority. More than two-thirds of nations, over 150 of the 193 members of the United Nations, have now rejected the death penalty or do not carry out executions.