Portal:Current events

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea
  • Pirates kidnap some crew members of a Danish-owned ship which they later abandon near São Tomé and Príncipe. (Al Arabiya)

Disasters and accidents

• Tornado outbreak of March 31, 2023
  • The Storm Prediction Center issues a high risk convective outlook, the first high risk issued in over 2 years, ahead of an expected severe weather outbreak across the Mississippi River valley in the United States. (Storm Prediction Center)
    • A large tornado causes catastrophic damage to the Little Rock, Arkansas metropolitan area, with 24 people injured. (KTHV-TV)
    • At least one person is killed and 28 others are injured when a suspected tornado causes the roof of a theater in Belvidere, Illinois, to collapse during a concert. (WIFR-TV)
• Indore stepwell collapse
  • At least 35 people are killed and 18 others are injured when a stepwell collapses during prayers at a Hindu temple in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. (BBC News)
• Four people are killed by avalanches in Northern Norway. (AFP via Barron's)
• More than a dozen people are injured in separate incidents after two trains derail during a storm in Switzerland. (AP)

Science and technology

• Italy's Data Protection Authority blocks ChatGPT on suspicion of breaching data protection rules and for failure to verify that its users are at least 13 years old. (Reuters)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Internal conflict in Myanmar
  • Eight people are killed by a bombing in a village in Chin State, Myanmar. (AP)
• Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Four people are killed and six others are injured by two roadside bombings targeting police in Lakki Marwat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (AP)

Disasters and accidents

• 2023 Fort Campbell mid-air collision
  • Two Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters collide over Fort Campbell in Kentucky, United States, killing all nine people on board. (BBC News)
• A collision between a Pwani University bus and a minibus in Naivasha, Kenya, kills 14 people. (AA)
• Fourteen people are killed and dozens of others are injured after a mine collapses in Northern state, Sudan. (Reuters)

Health and environment

• New Zealand records its first case of rabies in a human. A patient who had been in hospital since early March died from the disease, which did not spread further. (News24)

International relations

• Enlargement of NATO, Finland–NATO relations
  • Finland–Turkey relations
    • The Turkish Parliament unanimously votes to accept Finland's NATO application, becoming the last member to do so. (Al Jazeera)
• Iran–United States relations
  • The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules that the United States violated its 1955 friendship treaty with Iran when it allowed its domestic courts to freeze assets held by Iranian companies, but said that the ICJ does not have jurisdiction over the US$1.75 billion worth of frozen assets held by the Central Bank of Iran. Both countries claimed victory in the ruling. (Reuters)
• European colonization of the Americas
  • The Vatican officially repudiates the discovery doctrine, writing that the 15th-century papal bulls which promoted it were "manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities". (Al Jazeera)
• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Lawmakers from the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria walkout from the lower house of Austria's parliament during a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a protest against the violation of Austria's national principle of neutrality. (Al Jazeera)

Law and crime

• Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal
  • Indictment of Donald Trump
    • A grand jury in Manhattan, New York City, indicts former U.S. President Donald Trump regarding a hush payment he made while he was a candidate in 2016. (NBC News)
• The Lahore High Court rules that Pakistan's sion law is unconstitutional, on the grounds that the law violates free speech. (Al Jazeera)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Colombian conflict
  • ELN rebels launch homemade mortar shells at a military base in El Carmen, Norte de Santander, Colombia, killing nine soldiers and injuring nine others. (ABC News)

Disasters and accidents

• Thirty-one people are killed and more than 200 others are rescued after a sea vessel catches fire near an island in Basilan, Philippines. At least seven are still missing. (AP)
• Four people are killed after a deadly storm passes through Syria. (AP)

Health and environment

• 2020–2023 H5N1 outbreak
  • Chile detects its first case of H5N1 bird flu in a 53-year-old man. (Reuters)

International relations

• Brazil–China relations
  • Brazil and China sign an agreement to trade in their own currencies, ceasing the usage of the United States dollar as an intermediary. (The Straits Times)
• Burkina Faso–North Korea relations
  • Burkina Faso formally resumes diplomatic relations with North Korea after suspending them in 2017 over the country's nuclear weapons program. (Andolu Agency)

Law and crime

• Crime in the United Kingdom
  • Two people are shot dead in "targeted attacks" in Bluntisham and Sutton-in-the-Isle, Cambridgeshire. Three suspects are later arrested by Cambridgeshire Constabulary on suspicion of murder. (BBC News)
• Myanmar's ruling military junta dissolves the National League for Democracy, the political party of former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. (NHK)
• Prime Minister of Fiji Sitiveni Rabuka announces that the Media Industry Development Authority will repeal a controversial 2010 law which strictly controlled media in the country. (RNZ)
• Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter at The Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Yekaterinburg by Russia's Federal Security Service under charges of espionage. (RFE/RL)

Politics and elections

• Repeal of the 2002 AUMF
  • The U.S. Senate passes a bill to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) that allowed the past wars in Iraq, with a bipartisan majority of 66–30 votes. (Reuters)
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reshuffles the government's cabinet amid an increase in prices and shortages of food due to the severe economic situation the country, which was worsened by the recent earthquake. (AP via The Washington Post)
• UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announces that he has named his son Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan as the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince. City Football Group owner Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is also appointed as Vice President. (Al Jazeera)

Sports

• 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup
  • FIFA strips Indonesia of hosting this year's FIFA U-20 World Cup tournament after the Governor of Bali I Wayan Koster refused to host the Israel national under-19 football team. (The Guardian)
• 2022–23 NBA season
  • In basketball, the Sacramento Kings make the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2006, ending their 17-year playoff drought, the longest in NBA history. (USA Today) (KTXL)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War
  • Six Houthis and five Yemeni soldiers are killed during clashes in government-controlled Lahj Governorate, Yemen. (Xinhua)
• Fazil Mustafa, an opposition member of Azerbaijan's National Assembly, is shot multiple times outside his home in Baku by unknown assailants in an assassination attempt. Mustafa's condition is described as satisfactory, and his life is not reported to be in danger. (News.az)

Disasters and accidents

• Ciudad Juárez migrant center fire
  • Central and South American detainees at a migrant center in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, deliberately set fire to their mattresses, killing 38 people and injuring 28 others. (AP)
• Three people are killed, thirteen others are missing and 14 are rescued after a boat carrying Cameroonian migrants capsizes near Saint Kitts, Saint Kitts and Nevis. (AP)

Law and crime

• 2023 Lisbon Ismaili Centre stabbing
  • Two Portuguese women are killed in a stabbing attack at an Isma'ilism Shia religious centre in Lisbon, Portugal. Police shoot the suspect, an Afghan man, in the leg at the scene, before arresting him and taking him to a hospital. (BBC News)
• Killing of Hae Min Lee
  • Adnan Syed's murder conviction is reinstated by Maryland's appeal court, less than six months after Baltimore prosecutors presented new evidence in the 1999 fatal strangulation of Hae Min Lee. (Reuters)
• Clive Palmer sues Australia for AUD$296 billion over an iron ore project, over which his company, Mineralogy, had previously lost a lawsuit. (ABC News)

International relations

• Philippine drug war
  • President Bongbong Marcos announces that the country will suspend relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to the ICC's refusal to suspend its investigation of alleged crimes committed by the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte during the country's war on drugs. (Bloomberg)

Politics and elections

• 2023 Scottish National Party leadership election
  • The Scottish Parliament votes to elect Scottish National Party leader Humza Yousaf as First Minister of Scotland, becoming the first non-white and first Muslim to hold the position since it was created in 1999. (STV)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    • A Russian missile strike on Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, kills at least two civilians and injures 29 others. (Euronews)
  • The head of the Blagodarnensky District in Stavropol Krai, Russia, announces the death of Dmitry Lisitsky, commander of a battalion of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment who participated in the 2014 Battle of Ilovaisk. Ukraine says that he was killed in battle while pro-Russian sources say that he committed suicide. (Novaya Gazeta Europe)
• Afghanistan conflict
  • Six people are killed and several others are injured when a suicide bomber detonates himself near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Al Jazeera)

Disasters and accidents

• At least seven people are killed by a landslide in Alausí, Chimborazo Province, Ecuador. (BBC News)
• A train transporting hazardous materials derails near Wyndmere, North Dakota, United States, with 31 out of 70 train cars damaged. (KARE-TV)
• Eleven people are killed after a fire breaks out in a warehouse in Cang County, Hebei, China. (AP)
• Twenty people are killed and around 29 others are injured after a bus crashes and overturns in 'Asir Province, Saudi Arabia. (Al Jazeera)

International relations

• Foreign relations of Taiwan
  • Cross-Strait relations
    • Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou becomes the first Taiwanese leader to visit mainland China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, meeting with China's Taiwan Affairs Office deputy chair Chen Yuanfeng in Shanghai. Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party criticized this visit as "endorsing" China's position on Taiwan. (Al Jazeera)
  • Honduran President Xiomara Castro orders Taiwanese diplomats to vacate the country's embassy in Tegucigalpa within 30 days, one day after the country established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. (Reuters)
• Enlargement of NATO
  • Finland–Hungary relations
    • The National Assembly of Hungary votes 182–6 to approve Finland's accession to NATO, leaving Turkey as the last remaining NATO member to approve Finland's membership in the military alliance. (France 24)

Law and crime

• 2023 Covenant School shooting
  • Six people are killed in a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The suspect is later killed by responding police officers. (CNN)
• Burkina Faso suspends France 24 broadcasts after the news agency aired an interview with the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb earlier this month. The Burkinabé government accused France 24 of being a "mouthpiece for terrorists" and "hate speech", which the agency denies as "unfounded". (Reuters)
• One person is killed and five others are injured in a mass stabbing at a school in São Paulo, Brazil. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2023 Israeli anti-judicial reform protests
  • Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces a pause on his government's controversial judicial reform bill until April 30, the opening of the Knesset's summer session. (USA Today)
• 2023 Scottish National Party leadership election
  • Health and Social Care Secretary Humza Yousaf is elected as the new leader of the separatist Scottish National Party, defeating Finance Secretary Kate Forbes with 52.1% of the vote. (BBC News)
• The Iraqi Parliament passes 206–12 a series of amendments reducing the electoral districts in each governorate to one, ahead of local elections in November. Voting blocs and independent members who boycotted the vote claim the amendments make it more difficult for the opposition to get elected. (Al Jazeera)

Science and technology

• Censorship of TikTok, Censorship of Twitter
  • France bans the use of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and other apps on government employees' phones due to concerns relating to insufficient data security measures. (AP)
• Scientists discover lunar water samples in tiny glass beads from the Moon in studies published by the Nature Geoscience journal. (ABC News)

Disasters and accidents

• Merranean Sea migrant smuggling
  • At least 29 sub-Saharan Africans are killed when two boats sink off the coast of Tunisia. (France 24)
• Tornado outbreak of March 24–26, 2023
  • U.S. President Joe Biden approves an emergency declaration for the state of Mississippi following a storm that killed at least 26 people and caused significant damage, granting federal aid to affected areas of the state. Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, and Sharkey counties will be the main recipients. (Reuters)
• Two people are killed and another is missing after a fire breaks out on an oil tanker ship near West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. (Reuters)

Health and environment

• A pipeline leak causes an oil spill at Poole Harbour in Dorset, England, in which more than 200 barrels of reservoir fluids, including oil, leak into a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The RSPB reported sightings of oiled birds. (BBC News)

International relations

• China–Honduras relations
  • Honduras switches its formal diplomatic recognition of "China" from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2023 Cuban parliamentary election
  • Citizens in Cuba head to the polls to elect the members of the National Assembly. (Bloomberg via Yahoo! News)
• 2023 Turkmen parliamentary election
  • Citizens in Turkmenistan head to the polls to elect the 125 members of the Assembly. (MenaFN)
• 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after Gallant called on the government to pause discussions on a controversial judicial reform bill. (MSN)