According to a new analysis, the United States now ranks 41st in the world in terms of neonatal mortality, the death rate of infants less than one month old. The rate is higher in the United States than in, among others, Cuba, Slovakia, Croatia and all of Western Europe and Scandinavia.

A study published in the August issue of PLoS Medicine reports that neonatal death rates in the United States have decreased over the period, but at a slower rate than in 117 other countries.

Croatia has dropped an appeal against its emission target under the Kyoto Protocol, removing a major hurdle for the country's plan to join the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) by 2013, U.N. documents showed Thursday.

The withdrawal, in a letter from Croatia's environment ministry on August 4, means the Balkan state accepts the U.N's ruling over its greenhouse gas limit from 2008-2012, its dispute of which has banned Croatia from trading U.N-backed carbon units since November 2009.

An international team of scientists wants to ban the catching of eight species of Atlantic Ocean sharks and put a strict limit on the catch of two others to try to prevent population crashes.

Croatian authorities ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern Adriatic resort of Makarska on Saturday because of advancing forest fires, state radio reported.

The blaze near Makarska, 440 km (275 miles) south of Zagreb, started on Friday evening and has been fanned by a northerly wind reaching up to 150 kph (95 mph).

Six south-eastern European countries on Thursday agreed to boost cross-border conservation efforts in an area of the Balkans especially rich in wildlife. The governments of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia said they would create 13 new protected areas and extend nine others in the Dinaric Arc, an area which stretches from Trieste in Italy to Tirana in Albania.

To speed up membership talks with the eu, the Croatian government has agreed to suspend control over a no-fishing zone and allow eu nations to fish near its waters. Croatian prime

Europe continues to reel under forest fires that has up till now caused considerable damage to life, the environment and the economy. Experts have blamed the recent spurt in forest fire on global