Portal:Current events/2009 March 4
March 4, 2009 (Wednesday)
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez orders the nationalization of United States-based food company Cargill. (CNN)
- A riot at a prison near Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, kills at least 20 inmates and injures seven others. (AP via IHT)
- Gordon Brown becomes the United Kingdom's fifth Prime Minister to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. (BBC)
- President Nicolas Sarkozy and eight other top French politicians receive death threats. (BBC)
- China plans to increase its military budget by 14.9% in 2009. (Xinhua News)
- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meet in the West Bank. (BBC)
- President Asif Ali Zardari says Pakistan will not negotiate with the "extremist Taliban and terrorists." (BBC)
- The International Committee of the Red Cross warns of an impending humanitarian crisis in northeastern Sri Lanka as civil war continues. (BBC)
- Independent Television reports a loss of £2.7 billion for 2008 and will cut 600 jobs. (BBC)
- The International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for a five-year campaign of violence in Darfur. (CNN)
- Ukraine's Security Service raids Naftogas's headquarters in Kiev. (Sky News)
- British-Norwegian cruise line Fred Olsen's cruise ship Balmoral escapes a Somali pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden. (USA Today)
- The Netherlands' Safety Board finds that Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crash-landed near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport because of a faulty altimeter. (CNN)