News headlines in March 2015, page 8

Mar 17 (IPS) - Journalists, activists, hip hop artists and a United States diplomat were rounded up by police at a pro-democracy event on Sunday in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sponsored in part by the U.S. government. Security forces charged them with threatening stability, according to a government spokesperson.

NEW YORK, Mar 17 (IPS) - An internal war is roiling the administration of President Ernest Bai Koroma with the Vice President, Samuel Sam-Sumana, at dead center. The VP, expelled last week from the ruling All People's Congress (APC), is said to be forming a rival political movement from his home district in Kono, the country's raw diamond capital, and an election decider.

KINGSTON, Mar 17 (IPS) - Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart' the region's fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 17 (IPS) - As the long drawn-out Syrian military conflict passed a four-year milestone over the weekend, the New York-based Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) summed it up in a striking headline: 4 years, 4 vetoes, 220,000 dead.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Mar 17 (IPS) - As soon as the truck carrying Israeli dairy products entered Ramallah's city centre it was surrounded by Palestinian activists who proceeded to remove and trash almost 20,000 dollars' worth of mainly milk and yoghurt.

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 17 (IPS) - In the wake of the fire that destroyed more than 34,000 hectares of forests, some of them ancient, in Argentina's southern Patagonia region, the authorities will have to put out flames that are no less serious: the new socio-environmental catastrophe that will emerge from the ashes.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 16 (IPS) - An internal United Nations expert report released Monday by the non-governmental organisation AIDS-Free World reveals serious contradictions in the U.N.'s reporting of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 16 (IPS) - Governments must do more to address the impacts of forced disappearances of women, according to an international justice report released Monday.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 16 (IPS) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on Monday, appointed an independent panel of experts to examine new information that has emerged from the investigation into the death of former U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. 

SENDAI, Japan, Mar 16 (IPS) - Women play a critical role in reducing disaster risk and planning and decision-making during and after disasters strike, according to senior United Nations, government and civil society representatives.