Portal:Current events/2010 March 8
March 8, 2010 (Monday)
- The corpse of former President of Cyprus Tassos Papadopoulos, which had been stolen in December 2009, is found at a cemetery in Nicosia. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (Miami Herald)
- Irish Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen resigns from politics after seeking medical advice. (RTÉ) (The Irish Times)
- New York politician Eric Massa resigns after admitting to sexual harassment. (The Times)
- A strong earthquake in Turkey kills dozens. (BBC)
- Female poet Simin Behbahani says the government of Iran has issued her with a "travel ban" after confiscating her passport at Tehran International Airport as she was about to travel to France. (BBC)
- Interpol issues "red notices" for 16 more individuals in connection with the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, bringing to 27 the number of people wanted for the assassination. (Ha'aretz) (Ynetnews) (RTÉ) (Reuters India)
- The French Navy, supported by European Union aircraft and vessels, seizes 35 suspected pirates in 4 mother ships and 6 little boats off the coast of Somalia in the EU's most successful mission. (BBC)
- German Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger says the Vatican has built a "wall of silence" in response to the country's child sexual abuse controversy of recent months. (BBC)
- Nine people go on trial charged with terrorism and links to al-Qaeda in Belgium. (The New York Times) (euronews) (Al Jazeera) (France24)
- Middle East:
- Israel announces the construction of 112 new Jewish homes for the occupied West Bank territory despite the freeze on new settlements initiated in November 2009. (RTÉ)
- Quartet on the Middle East representative Tony Blair meets leader of the Arab League Amr Moussa and concludes there is "no hope" for Palestinians without an independent state. (Arabnews)
- A Pakistani Taliban car bomb attack on a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building in Lahore kills at least 11, wounds 60. (BBC)
- 12 people — 10 civilian passengers and 2 policemen — die in two separate roadside bombs in Badghis Province, Afghanistan. (BBC) (Reuters)
- Parliament approves President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's budget for 2010/11. (Reuters)
- Togolese police fire tear gas at street protesters who dispute Faure Gnassingbé's presidential election triumph. (BBC)
- French police shoot tear gas at protesters at oil company Total S.A.'s headquarters in Paris. (Al Jazeera)
- Members of Parliament from Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan refuse a body scan in the USA, and return home. (Dawn)
- President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta begins his two-day first official state visit to Ireland by meeting Taoiseach Brian Cowen, urging the country to continue providing economic support as a priority nation and receiving an honorary doctorate from University College Dublin. (RTÉ) (The Irish Times) (Philippines News)
- Chilean looters return £1.3 million ($2million) of stolen goods, according to the government. (The Daily Telegraph)
- New research based on a previous study indicates climate may be responsible for Scotland having more and Africa having fewer people with red hair. (The Daily Telegraph)
- Tibet Governor Padma Choling announces to the National People's Congress that China will decide Tenzin Gyatso's reincarnation as Dalai Lama. (The Daily Telegraph)
- Plans by the Scottish Maritime Museum (SMM) to scrap City of Adelaide/HMS Carrick, one of the world's oldest clippers built in Sunderland in 1864, are postponed in the hope that enough money can be raised to send her to Australia. (BBC)