Portal:Current events/2018 March 28
March 28, 2018 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Terrorism in the United Kingdom
- The Sentencing Council for England and Wales issues new guidelines increasing the penalties for terrorist offences. (The Financial Times), (The Law Gazette), (Sentencing Council for England and Wales) (The Times of India)
- A report by Max Hill QC, an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, reviewing the police response to the March 2017 Westminster attack, concludes that the arrests of 12 people cleared of involvement were appropriate, as was the questioning of them on their religious beliefs. (The Guardian)
- Terrorism in Italy
- Italian counter-terror police arrest Elmahdi Halili on suspicion of planning attacks with knives and lorries, attempting to recruit terrorist attackers, and creating the first piece of Islamic State propaganda in Italian. (The Local)
- Libyan Crisis (2011–present)
- United States Africa Command announces that a March 24 airstrike in Ubari, Libya, killed Musa Abu Dawud, who was a wanted alleged senior member of al-Qaida. (Stars and Stripes)
- Iraqi insurgency (2017–present)
- Iraqi authorities announce the arrest of alleged senior Islamic State member Saab Abdullah al-Issawi in a military-supported airdrop in Anbar. (Iraqi News)
- Somali Civil War (2009–present)
- A car bomb near an International Committee of the Red Cross office wounds three people in Mogadishu, Somalia. (Anadolu Agency)
- Terrorism in Greece
- An anarchist group claims responsibility for a bombing outside a courthouse in Athens, Greece, on March 24. (eKathimerini)
Business and economy
- Conviviality PLC, owner of Wine Rack and Bargain Booze, announces it has been refused investment to stave off bankruptcy and will likely enter administration. (The Guardian)
- The United Arab Emirates, with help from Korea Electric Power Corp., completes construction of the first reactor complex at the Barakah nuclear power plant 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Ruwais. The complex is the first Arab nuclear power plant. (The Mercury News)
Disasters and accidents
- Shutdown of Gran Turismo 6 Online Servers
- A partially-constructed building collapses onto a truck in Jacobs, Durban, South Africa, killing at least three people and hospitalising six more. (News 24), (Eyewitness News)
- A tank containing ethyl acetate explodes in a port in Livorno, Italy, killing two people. (The Local)
- California Highway Patrol search and rescue operations continue off the Californian coast for three children missing following a crash which killed five of their relatives. Their car drove out of a seaside unbarricaded parking lot and off of a 75-foot cliff into the sea on March 26. (KGW 8 News)
- Caribbean Airlines Flight 523
- U.S. Federal Judge Michael P. Shea of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford, Connecticut awards an injured passenger US$272,000 against Caribbean Airlines over the July 2011 airliner crash in Guyana. (The Washington Post)
- A New Zealand light aircraft pilot Rod Vaughan claims that his plane was brought down at Waihi after colliding with a drone. If true, it would be the first such incident in the country. (Stuff)
International relations
- China–North Korea relations
- The governments of China and North Korea both confirm that North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un met with China's paramount leader Xi Jinping in Beijing during the past four days. China states that North Korea is "committed to denuclearization" and willing to hold a summit with the United States. (Reuters)
- Reactions to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
- Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, himself the victim of a September 2004 poisoning, calls for military action to be considered against Russia. (Sky News)
- Poland–United States relations
- Poland signs a deal with the United States to buy a US$4.75 billion Patriot missile system. (BBC)
- Poland in the European Union
- Polish environment minister Henryk Kowalczyk says Poland alone should decide the fate of the protected Białowieża Forest, ahead of a European Court of Justice ruling on whether additional logging allowed by the Polish government at the UNESCO world heritage site breaches European Union rules. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- Crime in Italy
- A judge in Catania, Italy, upholds the seizure of a Proactiva Open Arms ship that brought migrants to Sicily after refusing to hand them over to the Libyan Coast Guard. (The Libya Observer)
- Crime in the United Kingdom
- English judge Christine Henson fines St. Michael's Hospice in St. Leonards, at East Sussex, over the July 2015 fire in which three residents died. (BBC)
- Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
- Police investigating the attack say they believe the Skripals were poisoned at Sergei Skripal's home. (Sky News)
- History of autonomous cars
- Claims emerge that Uber had disabled Volvo's collision avoidance technology in the self-driving car involved in a fatal accident in Arizona. (Bloomberg)
- Uber reaches an out-of-court settlement with the victim's family. (Reuters)
- Crime in Qatar
- Mubarak al-Ajji, named on a Qatari official list of wanted terrorists, wins second place at a government-sponsored triathlon and is photographed at the medal ceremony. (The Week)
- Crime in Canada
- A court in Quebec City accepts guilty pleas to six murders and six attempted murders tendered by Alexandre Bissonnette on March 26 and lifts restrictions on reporting the pleas after he passes a psychiatric evaluation. The charges relate to the January 2017 Islamophobic shooting at a mosque that Justin Trudeau described as a terrorist attack. (The South China Morning Post)
- Crime in China
- A Chinese court sentences Zhang Zhongsheng, the former Vice Mayor of Lüliang, Shanxi, to death. Zhongsheng was convicted of accepting bribes totaling 1.04 billion yuan (US$160 million). (The South China Morning Post)
- Aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting
- The trial of Noor Salman, widow of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, hears closing arguments. Jurors begin deliberations. During the trial it was revealed that Mateen's father was an FBI informant. (CNN)
- Cyberattacks
- Computers at Boeing are infected with the WannaCry ransomware. (The Seattle Times)
- French left-wing activist Stephane Poussier receives a one-year suspended term for praising the death of a policeman in a terrorist attack. (The Times of Israel)
Politics and elections
- 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
- Clara Ponsatí i Obiols, fugitive ex-Minister of Education of Catalonia, hands herself over to Police Scotland. She appears before court and is released on bail. (The Guardian) (BBC)
- The Spanish National Police Corps arrest the two Mossos d'Esquadra and Asia History academic, Josep Lluís Alay, who accompanied Puigdemont in the van at the moment he was detained in Germany amid a crime of concealment. On 28 March were released. (El País)
- Egyptian presidential election, 2018
- On the final day of the election, Egypt's National Election Authority says it will fine abstaining voters. (The Egypt Independent)
- Cabinet of Donald Trump
- U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he is replacing David Shulkin as Secretary of Veterans Affairs and will nominate Ronny Jackson, who is currently the President's Physician, to fill the position. (USA Today)
- Officials with former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva say shots were fired at two of his reelection campaign buses. (The Guardian)
- Human rights activist Malala Yousafzai returns to her native Pakistan for the first time since being shot in October 2012 to meet with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. (BBC)
Science and technology
- Australian Aboriginal languages
- The linguistics journal Diachronica publishes Australian research implying that a tracement of the country's indigenous languages can be made back to a single, common language known as Proto-Australian, which was spoken around 10,000-years ago. (BBC)
- Giant-impact hypothesis
- Research published in the journal Science Advances implies the Earth may have had water earlier than thought, and that terrestrial water could have survived the impact that created the Moon, the event which was previously hypothesised to be responsible for our planet's water. (New Scientist), (Science Advances)
- Galaxy formation and evolution
- Research published in the journal Nature implies the existence of a galaxy that appears to contain no dark matter, dubbed NGC1052-DF2. If confirmed it would be the first such galaxy discovered. (BBC), (Nature)