Portal:Current events/2018 March 30

March 30, 2018 (2018-03-30) (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Terrorism in Pakistan
  • A bomb targeting police in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, kills three people and injures five others. (Geo News)
• Syrian Civil War
  • A roadside bomb in Syria kills one British and one U.S. soldier with five more coalition personnel being injured. It is the first death of a British soldier fighting ISIL. (The Telegraph)
  • The government of Turkey rejects the government of France's offer to mediate in the conflict between Turkish armed forces and Kurdish YPG militia in Syria. (BBC)
• 2018 Land Day incidents
  • On Land Day, the start of a planned six-week protest at the Israeli-Gazan border involving tens of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli forces kill 16 Palestinians and wound over 1,100 others as tens of thousands of protestors approach the border fence. (The Times of Israel), (Reuters)
• Terrorism in Italy
  • In the latest in a series of raids, Italian authorities detain 19-year-old Ilyass Hadouz in Fossano on suspicion of pro-ISIL extremism. (Euronews)
  • National counter-terror prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho states that an estimated 50 people have returned to Italy after fighting with the Islamic State. (ANSA)
• Aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting
  • A United States court jury in Florida finds the widow of Omar Mateen not guilty of assisting her husband in the June 2016 attack that killed 49 people. (CNN)
• Terrorism in Germany
  • Police in Germany announce that earlier this week they detained four Syrian nationals on suspicion of arson and attempted murder over a Turkish Muslim mosque firebombing in Ulm. Police say the attack "may have been politically motivated". (The Local)

Disasters and accidents

• A bus carrying migrant workers from Myanmar catches fire near Bangkok, Thailand, killing twenty people and injuring one other. (Evening Standard)
• Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom is evacuated after a bus catches fire outside the main terminal. (The Telegraph)
• A hot air balloon hits a tree near Sydney, Australia, wounding 16 people. (Sky News)
• An overloaded bus carrying migrants from Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan crashes into a light pole on the Igdir-Kars highway in Turkey and catches fire. A second bus hits some of the ejected passengers, killing at least 17 people and wounding 36 others. (The Times of Israel)
• An overloaded bus explodes a tyre and crashes near Bhanjyang, Nepal, killing at least two people and wounding dozens of others. A riot follows. (ABC)
• The government of Russia declares a state of emergency in Volokolamsk over toxic hydrogen sulphide fumes leaking from a dump at at least ten times permitted concentrations. (BBC)

International relations

• Russia and weapons of mass destruction
  • The Russian military announces a second test of its most advanced nuclear ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, from a base in Plesetsk. President Vladimir Putin claimed in his March 1 state of the nation speech that the new nuclear arsenal will be impossible for U.S.-engineered technology to intercept. (ABC News) (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Politics and elections

• Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoes a bill that would have demoted all communist-era military officers who served between 1944 and 1990 to private. (Deutsche Welle)

Law and crime

• Alcohol licensing laws of Ireland
  • The government of Ireland lifts a 90-year ban on the sale of alcohol on the religious holiday of Good Friday. (BBC)
• Reactions to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
  • The Putin administration gives the government of the United Kingdom one month to reduce its diplomatic missions' sizes to mirror those of the Russian ones in Britain. (The Telegraph)
  • The government of Russia expels 59 diplomats from 23 nations and may also take retaliatory action against four other countries. (Reuters via Geo News)
  • The government of Russia claims that United Kingdom police searched an Aeroflot Airbus jet at Heathrow Airport arriving from Moscow. The Metropolitan Police deny searching the aircraft. (Sky News)
• The government of Ukraine states that it expelled two Iranians earlier this year for attempting to buy a Kh-31 missile in Kiev, in violation of United Nations sanctions. (The Daily Beast)
• Senegalese Judge Malick LaMotte sentences Khalifa Sall, mayor of Dakar, Senegal, to a five-year term for fraud. (BBC)
• Protestors take to the streets in Faisalabad, Pakistan, following the rape and murder of a local university student. (Geo News)
• Illegal immigration to the United States
  • Mexican federal police and migration agents find 136 migrants in a locked truck abandoned near a freeway in Veracruz. Without water or food, the people from the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, including dozens of minors, were en route to the United States. (Reuters)
• Immigration to the United States
  • The Trump administration through the United States Department of State publishes a 60-day notice of request for public comment, proposing to collect social media identities from nearly everyone who seeks entry into the United States. (The Indian Express)
• Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, detained in Syria on suspicion of beheading hostages for Islamic State, claim their right to a fair trial has been breached by the government of the United Kingdom stripping them of citizenship. (Sky News)
• Four suicide bombers attack Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing five people with thirteen others wounded. (Daily Post)
• Terrorism in the United States
  • Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland sentences Maryland resident Mohamed Elshinawy to a 20-year term for financing ISIS. (AP via Fox News)
• U.S. sportswear brand Under Armour states that the personal details (including user names, email addresses and scrambled passwords) of about 150 million users of the MyFitnessPal application were compromised in one of the biggest hacks in history. (The Guardian)
• The Lansing, Michigan, Catholic Diocese's insurance company files a civil suit against Rev. Jonathan Wehrle, former pastor of St. Martha's Catholic Church in Okemos, a Lansing suburb, for the embezzlement of more than $5 million from his parish. Wehrle already faces six criminal counts for using embezzled funds to pay for home construction (appraised for much more than a $1 million), maintenance, and purchases. (Lansing State Journal), (AP via ABC News), (Lansing State Journal²)

Science and technology

• Suicide among LGBT youth
  • Journal of Adolescent Health publishes research form the University of Texas at Austin implying that transgender youths have a much lower risk of suicide when they are permitted to use their own chosen names. (Eureka Alert!), (Journal of Adolescent Health)
• Chinese space program
  • Updated predictions suggest that the derelict Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will fall back to Earth over the weekend. (CNET)

Sports

• International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (ESPN)

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March 2018

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