U.S. President Barack Obama has announced plans to expand offshore energy exploration — specifying federal areas that were previously off-limits to oil and natural gas drilling.

Lawmakers in Serbia approved a referendum March 31 that condemned the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims near Srebrenica.

Controlling Afghanistan’s poppy production — and finding alternative means to support farmers whose crops are given up — have been ongoing themes, linked to larger questions of war strategy and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.

Twin railway attacks in central Moscow on March 29, which killed at least 38 people, point toward a renewed terror campaign originating from militant groups in the northern Caucasus region.

Two explosions have been confirmed in Moscow’s metro system, killing approximately 25 people at the Lubyanka metro station and reportedly 15 at the Park Kultury station. Dozens more are being reported as injured.

A South Korean patrol ship sank March 26 near the Northern Limit Line, the maritime border dividing the two Koreas.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government is looking to revitalize a stagnant economy with a record $92.3 trillion budget for fiscal 2010.

U.S. and Russian officials said March 24 that differences over a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) were nearly resolved, and a signing ceremony for a new agreement could be coming in Prague by early April. The new treaty would require both countries to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons by more than one-quarter (Russia’s holdings, subject to legacy system retirements, are depicted in the graphic above).

For the past few months, Venezuelans have been experiencing rolling blackouts related to weakening electricity infrastructure. The national electrical grid relies heavily on hydropower, and the Guri dam, in eastern Venezuela, is the heart of the system.

A Pashtun faction loyal to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar sought peace talks March 22 with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Hizb-i-Islami militant faction — the second-largest Pashtun Islamist group in Afghanistan — clashed recently with the Taliban (the much larger militant grouping) in Hekmatyar’s native Baghlan province.