Portal:Current events/2012 March 26

Current events of March 26, 2012 (2012-03-26) (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• An Afghan police officer shoots and kills two British military personnel before being gunned down. (AP via Google News)
• A Tibetan protester self-immolates during a protest in the Indian capital New Delhi, ahead of a visit by the Chinese president Hu Jintao. (Times of India)
• Colombian forces kill 32 FARC rebels in the latest government offensive. (Al Jazeera)
• Somali pirates hijack an Iranian-owned cargo ship with 23 crew in waters off the Maldives - the first hijacking in such territory. (AFP via Google News)
• Syria responds to a peace plan proposed by envoy Kofi Annan to end the violence in the country. (IOL)

Business and economy

• Oil is discovered in Kenya by London based Tullow Oil. (BBC)

Disasters

• One person is killed and several homes destroyed in a wildfire outbreak in Jefferson County, Colorado. (AP via Google)
• One person is killed, three people declared missing, and three people rescued after a sailboat sinks off the southwestern coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. (CBC)

International relations

• A Tibetan activist sets himself on fire at a demonstration in India's capital New Delhi ahead of a visit by the President of China Hu Jintao later in the week. (AP via ABC News America)
• Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Cuba to begin his three day visit to the country. (Reuters)
• The United States and China agree to co-ordinate their responses if a proposed North Korean rocket launch commences. (BBC)

Law and crime

• Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, is placed under formal investigation in France over alleged involvement in a prostitution ring. (BBC)
• The BBC's Panorama alleges that a company owned by News Corporation recruited a pay-TV "pirate" to hack a rival's secret codes then post the details online. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• Campbell Newman is sworn in as the new Premier of the Australian state of Queensland following a landslide victory in Saturday's election. (The Courier-Mail)
• Macky Sall, former Prime Minister under Abdoulaye Wade's administration, is elected President of Senegal. (BBC)
• In the wake of the Cash for Access scandal British Prime Minister, David Cameron publishes details of Conservative Party donors who have had dinner with him at 10 Downing Street. (BBC)
• Fuel tanker drivers belonging to the Unite union in the United Kingdom vote overwhelmingly to take strike action in a dispute over terms and conditions. (BBC)

Science

• Canadian filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron becomes the first person in fifty years to visit the Challenger Deep, the deepest point on earth in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger. (BBC)

Sports

• Six South African rugby players from the Motherwell Rugby Club are feared dead after being swept out to sea from Port Elizabeth. (BBC)