Portal:Current events/2018 March 22

March 22, 2018 (2018-03-22) (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Somali Civil War (2009–present)
  • A car bomb blast in Mogadishu, near the Weheliye hotel in the Somali capital, kills at least 14 people and injures 10 others. Al-Shabab claims responsibility for the blast. (AP via MSN)
• The city government of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, experiences an outage on some official websites, caused by a ransomware cyberattack. (WRBL), (Fox 5)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Evacuations of 7,500 people from rebel-held Harasta, Eastern Ghouta begin. Rebels agree with the Syrian government and Russia for the displaced people to be exiled in Idlib Governorate. (The Guardian)

Business and economy

• Economic policy of Donald Trump
  • U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer tells a Senate panel that President Donald Trump has decided to "pause" tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the European Union, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and South Korea. (BBC)

Disasters and accidents

• 2018 Unipetrol explosion
  • Six people are dead after an explosion at a Unipetrol plant in Kralupy nad Vltavou, Czech Republic. (BBC)

International relations

• China–United States relations
  • U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on US$60 billion of Chinese goods, while also limiting China’s ability to invest in the U.S. technology industry. (The Washington Post)
• 2017–18 Qatar diplomatic crisis
  • Qatar's Interior Ministry releases a list of individuals and entities it says are linked to terrorism. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, who had demanded the list amid tensions with Qatar, welcome its release but criticise the time taken to prepare it. (Gulf News)
• Foreign relations of Poland
  • Poland's ruling Law and Justice proposes changes to planned judicial reforms in response to European Union criticisms the plans threaten judicial independence. The European Commission is threatening Poland with sanctions over the reforms. (Deutsche Welle)
  • Polish and U.S. authorities say the completion of the United States missile defense complex in Poland, part of a NATO project, will be delayed until 2020. (U.S. News)
  • Poland's ruling Law and Justice's Arkadiusz Mularczyk says Germany owes Polish victims of World War II a total of 1.984 trillion zloty (US$543 billion, 440 billion euros) in compensation. (The Times of Israel)
• Russia–Sudan relations
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin accepts an invitation to visit Sudan from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. (Africa News)

Law and crime

• Murder of Maria Ladenburger
  • Afghan immigrant Hussein Khavari is convicted of rape and murder in a case that provoked widespread discussion of refugee immigration to Germany. (BBC)
• Ukrainian crisis
  • Ukrainian MP Nadiya Savchenko is arrested in Parliament over an alleged plot to attack Parliament and overthrow the government. (BBC)
• Alleged Libyan influence in the 2007 French elections
  • In a statement to French investigating magistrates, ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy refutes corruption charges relating to alleged receipt of funding from the then President of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2007. (The Telegraph)
• An open letter from international politicians, activists, journalists, and academics demands an independent commission be formed to investigate the assassination of Brazilian human rights activist Marielle Franco and her driver. (The Guardian)
• Cow vigilante violence in India since 2014
  • An Indian court convicts eleven Hindus of murdering a Muslim man they discovered transporting a cow, sentencing them to life. It is the first successful prosecution of cow vigilantism violence in India. (BBC)
• A Peruvian court confirms it will consider a request to impose a travel ban on President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski if his resignation is confirmed by lawmakers, who are considering whether to accept it. Some politicians have vowed to resist the resignation in favour of instead impeaching Kuczynski. (The New Jersey Herald)
• Two men accused of an attempt to assassinate Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah die in a shootout with security forces. Two Hamas security personnel also die. (The Jerusalem Post)

Politics and elections

• Protests against Emmanuel Macron
  • People in 150 places across France take to the streets peacefully in a general strike to protest President Macron's economic reforms. Railways, airways, schools and power generation are affected. (Reuters)
• Cyprus dispute
  • Turkey announces it is to send a drilling boat to disputed waters claimed by both Cyprus and Northern Cyprus. (The Guardian)
• Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
  • Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, wounded when he came to the aid of the poisoned Russian dissidents, is discharged from hospital. (BBC)
  • British Prime Minister Theresa May calls the incident "part of a pattern of Russian aggression against Europe" and promises to raise the matter at an upcoming European Union summit. (BBC)
  • An inquest is opened into the death of murdered Russian exiled dissident Nikolai Glushkov in London. (The Independent)
  • The Court of Protection hears the Skripals are unable to communicate and may have suffered lifelong brain damage. It rules blood samples can be taken from the pair for analysis by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and grants the group access to medical records. (The Independent)
• Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  • John Dowd, the most senior lawyer advising U.S. President Donald Trump on allegations of Russian electoral interference, resigns. (BBC) (CNN)
• 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Jordi Turull fails in the first vote to become President of the Generalitat. The next session will be held on Saturday, March 24. (La Vanguardia)
  • Marta Rovira, Carme Forcadell, ex-president of the Parlament and Dolors Bassa, ex-member of the dismissed government who was in prison accused of sedition, resigns as Deptuy before the declaration in front of Supreme Court that will be held on March 23. (La Vanguardia)
• Politics of Peru
  • Peruvian Vice President Martín Vizcarra returns from Canada, where he is his nation's ambassador, in preparation to take over the Presidency. (CBC)
• Presidency of Donald Trump
  • U.S. President Donald Trump announces former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton will become his National Security Advisor, succeeeding the outgoing H. R. McMaster. (USA Today)

Science and technology

• Human genetics
  • DNA tests confirm Ata, an unusual six-inch-long mummy found in Chile in 2003, to be the remains of a newborn human with genetic mutations. (BBC)

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March 2018

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