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Mar 30, Furious inhabitants of Palermo attacked French occupation
force in the "Sicilian Vespers." The Mafia appeared in Sicily to
revolt against French rule after a drunken soldier attacked a young
woman on her wedding day.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(MC, 3/30/02)
1298 Mar 30, Duke Vytenis
joined with Riga and its archbishop against the Livonian order.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1422 Mar 30, Ketsugan, a Zen
teacher, performed exorcisms to free the Aizoji temple.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1423 Mar 30, Lithuania and
Poland reached an agreement at Kezmark with Emperor Sigismund, who
agreed to recall Sigismund Kaributa from Poland.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1492 Mar 30, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews from Spain. Jews
numbered about 80,000 and it was estimated that about half chose to
convert. [see Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/98)(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1533 Mar 30, Henry VIII made
Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer had advised Henry
that his 1509 marriage to Catherine of Aragon was null and void
because she had previously married Henry’s late brother Arthur, even
though that marriage was ever consummated.
(PCh, 1992ed, p.177)
1603 Mar 30, Battle at
Mellifont: English army under Lord Mountjoy beat the Irish.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1719 Mar 30, Sir John Hawkins,
author of the first history of music, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1767 Mar 30, Jonas Kristupas
Glaubicas, one of the founders of the Vilnius school of baroque
architecture, died.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1814 Mar 30, Britain and allies
marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1820 Mar 30, Anna Sewell,
English novelist, was born. Her "Black Beauty" has become the
classic story about horses.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1822 Mar 30, Congress combined
East and West Florida into the Florida Territory.
(AP, 3/30/97)(MC, 3/30/02)
1840 Mar 30, "Beau" Brummell
(b.1778), English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent,
died of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. In 2005 Ian
Kelly authored the biography “Beau Brummel: The Ultimate Dandy.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell)(WSJ,
5/7/06, p.P9)
1842 Mar 30, Crawford
Williamson Long (1815-1878) of Jefferson, Ga., utilized ether the
first time to remove a tumor from the neck of his patient, Mr. James
M. Venable.
(AP,
3/30/97)(www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/crawford-long.html)
1842 Mar 30, Elisabeth Viglee
Le Brun (b.1755), French artist, died in Paris. She had served as
the portrait painter to Marie Antoinette.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_%C3%89lisabeth_Vig%C3%A9e_Le_Brun)(Econ,
2/20/15, p.76)
1850 Mar 30, Charles Dickens
published the first issue of his magazine “Household Words.”
(Econ, 9/10/11,
p.95)(www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/hw.html)
1853 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh
(d.1890), Dutch artist, was born in Zundert, Neth. His work included
“The Drawbridge and Sunflowers in a Vase,” and “Harvest in
Prevance,” which was done both in oil and as a watercolor. The
watercolor sold in 1997 for $14.7 mil. He produced an estimated 900
paintings and 1200 drawings but sold virtually none of them. In 1997
it was reported that more than 100 of his paintings and drawings
might be fakes. 300 of his canvasses were painted in the last 15
months of his life.
(AAP,1964)(WUD,1994, p.606)(SFC, 6/26/97,
p.A21)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HN, 3/30/98)
1855 Mar 30, First election in
Territorial Kansas. Some 5,000 "Border Ruffians" invaded the
territory from western Missouri and forced the election of a
pro-slavery legislature.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed the
Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War. It guaranteed the integrity
of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern
Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube. The Black Sea was
neutralized, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all
nations. In 2010 Allen Lane authored “Crimea: The Last Crusade.”
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)(Econ,
10/2/10, p.89)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of
Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1864 Mar 30, Skirmish at Mount
Elba, Arkansas.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1867 Mar 30, US Secretary of
State William H. Seward signed an agreement with Russia’s Baron
Edouard de Stoeckl to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2
million, two cents an acre, a deal roundly ridiculed as "Seward's
Folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar
bear garden."
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/01)(Reuters, 5/24/11)
1870 Mar 30, The 15th Amendment
to the US Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of
race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
(HN, 3/30/98)(AP, 3/30/08)
1870 Mar 30, Texas was the last
Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1880 Mar 30, Sean O'Casey (d.
1964), Irish playwright, was born. "It is my rule never to lose me
temper till it would be detrimental to keep it."
(AP, 3/17/00)(HN, 3/30/01)
1883 Mar 30, Jo Davidson,
American sculptor, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1885 Mar 30, Russian troops
inflicted a crushing defeat on Afghan forces at Ak Teppe despite
orders not to fight. In the Panjdeh Incident Russian forces seize
the Panjdeh Oasis, a piece of Afghan territory north of the Oxus
River. Afghans tried to retake it, but were finally forced to allow
the Russians to keep Panjdeh, and the Russians promised to honor
Afghan territorial integrity in the future.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjdeh_incident)(http://tinyurl.com/y2fzk4xm)
1902 Mar 30, Roberta Brooke
Russell (d.2007) was born in Portsmouth, NH. In 1953 she married
millionaire Vincent Astor (d.1959) and became a major philanthropist
following his death.
(SFC, 8/14/07, p.B5)
1909 Mar 30, The Queensboro
Bridge, the first double decker bridge, opened and linked the New
York boroughs of Manhattan and Queens.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1912 Mar 30, The Treaty of Fez
was signed. Sultan Abdelhafid made Morocco a French protectorate,
resolving the Agadir Crisis of July 1, 1911.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fez)
1916 Mar 30, Pancho Villa
killed 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1919 Mar 30, Gandhi announced
resistance against Rowlatt Act.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1921 Mar 30, Countess of
Sutherland, English great land owner, multi-millionaire, was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1925 Mar 30, Stalin supported
rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1926 Mar 30, Feliks E.
Dzerzjinski (48), Lithuanian organizer (KGB), died. Felix
Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the communist secret police, the
Cheka.
(MC, 3/30/02)(WSJ, 10/15/02, p.D6)
1930 Mar 30, David Staple,
joint president of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland,
was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1930 Mar 30, In Germany
Heinrich Brüning (1885-1970) became chancellor and continued to
1932.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Br%C3%BCning)(Econ, 4/29/17,
p.57)
1931 Mar 30, In Scottsboro,
Ala., 9 young black men were indicted for rape. By the end of April
all were tried, convicted and sentenced to death, except for one age
13, who was sentenced to life in prison. The US Supreme Court later
overturned the convictions, but they were convicted at a 2nd trial,
even though one of the accused said no rape had occurred. Five
convictions were overturned in 1937 after one alleged victim
recanted her story. Clarence Norris received a pardon before his
death in 1976. In 2013 Alabama’s parole board approved posthumous
pardons for the “Scottsboro Boys” during a hearing for three black
men whose convictions were never overturned.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)(SFC, 11/22/13, p.A15)
1935 Mar 30, Britain and Russia
agreed on treaties intended to curb the power of the Reich.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1936 Mar 30, Britain announced
a naval construction program of 38 warships. This was the largest
construction program in 15 years.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1937 Mar 30, Warren Beatty,
American actor and director, was born in Richmond, Va., as Henry
Warren Beaty. His older sister became famous as actress Shirley
MacLaine (b.1934). In 2010 Peter Biskind authored ”How Warren Beatty
Seduced America.”
(SSFC, 1/10/10, Books p.F1)
1940 Mar 30, The Japanese set
up a puppet government called Manchuko in Nanking, China.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, Graeme Edge, rock
drummer (Moody Blues-Your Wildest Dreams), was born in England.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Edge)
1941 Mar 30, The U.S. seized
Italian, German and Danish ships in 16 ports.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The German Afrika
Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against
British forces in Libya.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1942 Mar 30, SS murdered 200
inmates of Trawniki labor camp.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1944 Mar 30, The U.S. fleet
attacked Palau, near the Philippines.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1944 Mar 30, Gobbledygook was
coined by US Rep. Maury Maverick, a Texas Democrat, in a memo
banning "gobbledygook language" at the Smaller War Plants
Corporation. It was a reaction to his frustration with the
"convoluted language of bureaucrats." However, the first time the
new word was seen by the average person was on May 21, 1944. That
day, he wrote a long article for the New York Times magazine,
explaining how he invented the word, and giving readers many
examples of how the new word could be used.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbledygook)(NYT,
5/21/1944, p.SM11)
1944 Mar 30, 781 British
bombers attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, A Soviet cable was
intercepted that referred to an agent named Ales, later suspected of
being Alger Hiss. The intercepted cables were classified as part of
the “Venona Project” released in 1996. The US began releasing the
coded Venona cables in 1995. They implicated 349 US citizens and
residents as Soviet helpers. In 1999 John Earl Haynes and Harvey
Klehr published "Venona," the story of the Soviet infiltration of
Washington.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)
1945 Mar 30, 289 anti-fascists
were murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark, Dortmund.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, The Soviet Union
invaded Austria during World War II.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1946 Mar 30, The Allies seized
1,000 Nazis who were attempting to revive the Nazi party in
Frankfurt.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1949 Mar 30, Friedrich C.R.
Bergius (64), chemist (brown coal, Nobel 1931), died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1950 Mar 30, President Truman
denounced Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor
invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr.
John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1953 Mar 30, Einstein announced
a revised unified field theory.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1954 Mar. 30, Canada's first
subway line opened in Toronto.
(CFA, '96, p.42)(HN, 3/30/98)
1957 Mar 30, Tunisia and
Morocco signed a friendship treaty in Rabat.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1959 Mar 30, Dalai Lama
(b.1935), Tenzin Gyatso, having fled the Chinese suppression of a
national uprising in Tibet, crossed the border into India. India
granted him political asylum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1959)
1961 Mar 30, The UN adopted its
Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. It included language that
prohibited the chewing of coca leaves. It became effective on Dec
13, 1964.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs)(SFC,
1/19/11, p.A2)
1961 Mar 30, P.J. Melotte,
discovered Jupiter's 8th satellite, Pasiphae, died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1962 Mar 30, M.C. Hammer,
[Stanley Kirk Burrell], rapper (Hammer Time), was born in Oakland,
Ca.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, Tracy Chapman, US
singer, songwriter (Freedom Now, I Got a Fast Car), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, John Glenn
withdrew from the Ohio race for U.S. Senate because of injuries
suffered in a fall.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1964 Mar 30, The original
version of the TV game show "Jeopardy!" premiered on NBC. Merv
Griffin (1925-2007) created the TV game show “Jeopardy.” He sold the
rights for the show to Coca-Cola for $250 million in 1986. The show
was hosted by Art Fleming until 1975. It resurfaced in syndication
in 1984 with Alex Trebek as host.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/15/07, p.D12)(AP,
3/30/08)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik
Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He
stayed in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat, race
horse, triple crown (1973), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1970 Mar 30, The musical
"Applause" with Lauren Bacall opened on Broadway. It was based on
the movie "All About Eve."
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.7)(AP, 3/30/07)
1972 Mar 30, Hanoi launched its
heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ in the Easter
offensive. 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers under the command of
General Vo Nguyen Giap wage an all-out attempt to conquer South
Vietnam. The offensive is a tremendous gamble by Giap and is
undertaken as a result of US troop withdrawal, the strength of the
anti-war movement in America likely preventing a US retaliatory
response, and the poor performance of South Vietnam's Army during
Operation Lam Son 719 in 1971. The Communist Easter invasion in
South Vietnam was defeated.
(WSJ, 10/5/98,
p.A21)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1973 Mar 30, Ellsworth Bunker
resigned as US ambassador to South Vietnam. He was succeeded by
Graham A. Martin.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1975 Mar 30, As the North
Vietnamese forces moved toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese
soldiers mobbed rescue jets. Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap masterminded the
North Vietnamese victory. Da Nang fell as 100,000 South Vietnamese
soldiers surrender after being abandoned by their commanding
officers.
(SFEC, 4/9/00,
p.C16)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1976 Mar 30, Israel killed 6
Palestinians protesting land confiscation.
(www.balad.org/index.php?id=138)
1979 Mar 30, Northern Ireland
spokesman Airey Neave, a leading member of the British parliament,
was killed by a bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army
(INLA) in the House of Commons car park in London.
(AP, 3/30/99)(AP, 2/8/10)
1979 Mar 30, Anthrax spores
leaked from a secret germ-warfare plant and spread over Sverdlovsk
(Yekaterinburg), Russia. Over the course of 2 months at least 105
people died of anthrax poisoning. [see Apr 2] Reports did not emerge
until October.
(WSJ, 10/11/01,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_Anthrax_leak)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church
celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1981 Mar 30, John W. Hinckley
Jr. shot and wounded Pres. Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C.,
hotel. Press Sec. James Brady took a bullet as did Secret Service
agent Tim McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas
Delahanty.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.2)(HN, 3/30/02)(AP, 3/30/08)
1985 Mar 30, Workers at
cemeteries in Colma, Ca., joined striking East Bay graveyard
employees.
(SSFC, 3/28/10, DB p.42)
1985 Mar 30, In Virginia Jens
Soering (b.1966), the son of a Germany diplomat, stabbed to death
the parents of his girlfriend, Derek (72) and Nancy Haysom (53). In
court, Jens Soering claimed that Elizabeth Haysom (b.1964) was the
murderer and he wanted to spare her the death penalty by confessing.
(SFC, 7/7/10,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Soering)
1986 Mar 30, Actor James Cagney
(86) died at his farm in Stanfordville, N.Y.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1987 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh's
"Sunflowers" was bought for $39.85 million. The Vincent van Gogh
painting “Sunflowers” was presented by art teacher Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker at a 1901 Paris exhibition. It sold in 1987 for $40.3
million to the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Co. and was reported
in 1997 to be a possible fake. Van Gogh’s letters refer to only 6
paintings of sunflowers, and the Yasuda painting is a seventh.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D4)(HN,
3/30/98)
1987 Mar 30, The movie
"Platoon" won four Academy Awards, including best picture; Paul
Newman was named best actor for "The Color of Money," Marlee Matlin
won best actress for "Children of a Lesser God."
(AP, 3/30/97)
1988 Mar 30, US House
Democratic and Republican leaders said that they had agreed in
principle on a package of about $50 million to aid the Nicaraguan
rebels.
(http://tinyurl.com/n6uak)
1988 Mar 30, An attorney for
the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart said the televangelist would return to the
pulpit, defying national Assemblies of God church officials who had
suspended him for at least a year for "moral failure."
(AP, 3/30/98)
1989 Mar 30, "The Heidi
Chronicles" by Wendy Wasserstein won the Pulitzer Prize for drama;
in the journalism category, the Anchorage Daily News won the public
service award for its reports on alcoholism and suicide among native
Alaskans.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1990 Mar 30, Idaho Gov. Cecil
Andrus vetoed a highly restrictive state abortion measure, saying
the bill gave a woman and her family no flexibility in cases of rape
and incest.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1990 Mar 30, Harry Bridges
(b.1901), Australian-born SF labor activist, died.
(SFC, 7/27/01, p.A19)
1991 Mar 30, Patricia Bowman, a
resident of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped
hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward
Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate. Smith was later
acquitted at trial.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee,
Wisc., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak
Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1992 Mar 30, "The Silence of
the Lambs" won five Oscars at the 64th annual Academy Awards,
including best picture, best actress for Jodie Foster and best actor
for Anthony Hopkins.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1992 Mar 30, Debra Chasnoff
(1957-2017) won an Oscar for her documentary “Deadly Deception:
General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment,” an expose of
GE’s production of nuclear weapons. Chasnoff came out as a lesbian
by thanking her female partner, Kim Klausner.
(SSFC, 11/12/17, p.C1)
1993 Mar 30, Washington
attorney Robert Altman went on trial in New York City, charged with
wrongdoing in connection with the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International (BCCI). He was later acquitted.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1993 Mar, 30, Richard
Diebenkorn (b.1922), SF Bay Area artist, died. He moved between
figuration and abstraction when the two modes were widely thought to
be inimical. In 2012 his 1971 painting “Ocean Park #48” fetched
$13.5 million.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Diebenkorn)(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB
p.36)(SFC, 10/9/97, p.E1,6)(Econ, 11/24/12, p.69)
1993 Mar 30, Israeli
authorities barred West Bank Palestinians from entering Israel after
two traffic police officers were shot to death.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1994 Mar 30, The Clinton
administration announced it was lifting virtually all export
controls on non-military products to China and the former Soviet
bloc.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1994 Mar 30, Serbs and Croats
signed a cease-fire to end their war in Croatia while Bosnian
Muslims and Serbs continued to battle each other.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1995 Mar 30, Pope John Paul II
issued the 11th encyclical of his papacy in which he condemned
abortion and euthanasia as crimes that no human laws could
legitimize.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1995 Mar 30, In Japan Takaji
Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was seriously
wounded by a masked gunman. Two months later a police officer
confessed to the attack. He was a member of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult
and said that he was ordered to carry out the attack. The confession
was kept secret until anonymous newspaper accounts warned of a
cover-up in 1996.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A1,6)
1995 Mar 30, Tens of thousands
of Rwandan refugees, fleeing violence in Burundi, began a two-day
trek to sanctuary in Tanzania.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1996 Mar 30, In the NCAA
basketball finals, Kentucky beat Syracuse, 76-67.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-20)
1996 Mar 30 The space shuttle
Atlantis narrowly avoided having to make an emergency landing when
its cargo-bay doors wouldn't open at first to release built-up heat.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1996 Mar 30, The El Bethal
Church in Satartia, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 30, Funeral services
were held in Bethesda, Maryland, for former senator and secretary of
state Edmund Muskie.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1996 Mar 30, Hezbollah
guerillas fired 30 Katyusha rockets across the Lebanon border into
northern Israel. Israel responded by shelling 15 Shiite Muslim
villages. Israel contended that responsibility for the attacks lies
with Lebanon and Syria, which occupies Lebanon with 35,000 troops
and exercises dominion over government decisions.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/14/96, p.A-10)
1996 Mar 30, Tamil rebels
mounted suicide attacks on a naval convoy and killed a crew of ten.
35 rebels were killed and six of their vessels were sunk off the
island nation’s northeast coast.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 30, The Olympic torch
was lit in Greece and began its journey to the games in Atlanta,
USA. The games will run 17 days from 7/19-8/4.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1997 Mar 30, The reigning
champion Lady Vols of Tennessee won their fifth NCAA women's
basketball title by defeating Old Dominion, 68-59.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1997 Mar 30, In Cambodia a
grenade attack at a political rally killed 10 and wounded over 100
as opposition leader Sam Rainsy led some 200 members of his Khmer
Nation Party in front of the National Assembly.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.A18)
1997 Mar 30, In South Africa
Celeste Nurse (18) woke up in the maternity ward of a Cape Town
hospital to find her three-day-old baby had vanished from her cot.
In 2016 a South African woman was convicted of kidnapping the baby
(Zephany Nurse) and raising her for 17 years before an astonishing
coincidence reunited the girl with her biological family. On August
15, 2016, the kidnapper (51) was sentenced to ten years in prison.
(AP, 3/10/16)(Reuters, 8/15/16)
1998 Mar 30, The Univ. of
Kentucky beat the Utah Utes 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio
for the NCAA men’s basketball finals. It was Kentucky’s 7th national
title.
(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona
nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White
Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls,
Mont., it was reported that $100 million would be distributed
amongst 1000 employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta
Gilmore led a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not
divvy out profits to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1998 Mar 30, In Algeria some
123 people including 58 civilians and many children were reported
killed in the west and south in the last 3 days.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Armenia Prime
Minister Robert Kocharian led the runoff vote with 60%.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Britain the
Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for
$570 million. However, BMW was later successfully outbid by
Volkswagen AG
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)(AP, 3/30/08)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and will oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26
elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia it was
reported that oil pipeline sabotage had spilled 1.5 million barrels
of crude over the last decade.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 30, In Romania Prime
Minister Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as
mayor of Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, In Somalia Ali
Mohamed Mahdi and Hussein Mohamed Aidid agreed to a joint
administration for Mogadishu after 7 years of fighting. 30 people
were killed as rival clans clashed in Kismayu.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, A Syrian-Iraqi
Health week started. Health Minister Iyad Shatti arrived in Iraq
from Syria with 12 trucks of food and medicine.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A9)
1999 Mar 30, A jury in Oregon
hit Philip Morris with an $81 million verdict for damages in the
lung cancer death of Jesse Williams who died of lung cancer after
smoking Marlboros for four decades. $821,000 was for compensatory
damages and the rest for punitive damages. The Supreme Court threw
out the verdict in October 2003, saying it should be reviewed by
lower courts to ensure it was not unconstitutionally excessive. In
2007 the Supreme Court rejected the original $79.5 million punitive
payout, but declined to lay down numerical limits for such damages.
By 2008 damages due to interest reached $143 million. In 2009 the
Supreme Court decided not to a challenge by Philip Morris.
(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 2/24/07,
p.76)(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A8)
1999 Mar 30, Olusegun Obasanjo,
pres. elect of Nigeria, met with Pres. Clinton and vowed to build
democracy.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Yugoslav leader
Slobodan Milosevic insisted that NATO attacks stop before he moved
toward peace, declaring his forces ready to fight "to the very end."
The US called the offer "woefully inadequate." NATO moved to step up
the air war and Serbian forces continued unopposed in Kosovo as
refugees streamed out. NATO answered with new resolve to wreck his
military with a relentless air assault.
(AP, 3/30/00)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Tanzania arrested
a former Rwanda army officer suspected in the killing of 10 Belgian
peacekeepers in 1994. The officer was freed Mar 29 by a UN war
crimes tribunal.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, Russia’s Alexei
Yagudin won his third title in the World Figure Skating
Championships; Canada’s Elvis Stojko finished second, and American
Michael Weiss was third.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In the midst of
the 2000 presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore broke with
the Clinton administration, saying he supported legislation to allow
six-year-old Elian Gonzalez to remain in the country while the
courts resolved his custody case.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In Colombia a
truck bomb exploded in Cachipay. 4 people were killed and at least
14 were injured.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A21)
2000 Mar 30, In Japan Mount Usu
erupted on Hokaido following 22 years of dormancy. Evacuations from
Date, Sobetsu and Abuta preceded the eruption.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka an
air force plane leased from a Ukrainian company crashed and 36
military personnel were killed along with 4 Russian crew members.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E4)
2000 Mar 30, In Uganda 80 more
bodies were unearthed in Rushojwa. This brought the doomsday sect
body count to 724.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A16)
2001 Mar 30, The Bush
administration suspended a late Clinton rule that directed federal
agencies to assess whether prospective contractors had violated
federal laws.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, A Bruce Rozet, a
landlord-developer, admitted to taking part in a $3.4 million fraud
scheme against HUD and agreed to pay $10.2 million in fines and
penalties.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, Top environment
officials from North, Central and South America ended two days of
talks in Montreal without a consensus agreement on global warming. A
statement signed by 26 ministers from Latin American and Caribbean
countries faulted a decision by the United States to reject the 1997
Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 3/30/02)
2001 Mar 30, In Indonesia 2
human rights defenders and their driver were killed in Aceh province
after leaving the police station in Simpang Tiga Alue Pakuk.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 30, Israeli Arabs
observed Land Day with peaceful marches. Israeli soldiers shot to
death 6 Palestinians and wounded over 100.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 30, Macedonia declared
a successful conclusion to their offensive against ethnic Albanian
insurgents.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2002 Mar 30, The United States
joined other U.N. Security Council members in adopting a resolution
calling on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities,
including Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat headquarters was under
siege.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2002 Mar 30, The Angola
government and Unita signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement. The
deal carved up the nation’s diamond mines among officials in Luanda
and the rebels.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 30, It was reported
that a massive dust storm spread from northwest China to South
Korea. It was largest recorded since records began 130 years ago.
Trans Pacific winds carried the dust clouds west.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A20)
2002 Mar 30, Britain’s Queen
Elizabeth (b.1900), the Queen Mother, died at age 101 in her sleep
at Royal Lodge, Windsor. In 2009 William Shawcross authored “Queen
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother: The Official Biography.”
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A3)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 9/19/09,
p.97)
2002 Mar 30, In Kashmir
suspected Islamic militants exchanged fire with Indian police in
Jammu and 10 people were killed.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A17)
2002 Mar 30, A suicide bomber,
Mohannad Salahat (22), struck in Tel Aviv and 32 people were
injured. Israeli troops sealed Arafat in his Ramallah compound.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/1/02, p.A1)(SFC,
7/24/02, p.A14)
2003 Mar 30, In the 12th day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom an Iraqi general, captured by British forces
in southern Iraq, was pressed to provide information. A British TV
correspondent covering the war in Iraq died after apparently falling
from a hotel roof.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, Students in China
staged a rare state-sanctioned protest as hundreds of thousands
around the world staged another day of rallies denouncing the US led
war in Iraq.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, tens of thousands of protesters marched upon the U.S.
Embassy chanting "America Imperialist, No. 1 terrorist!"
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Netanya,
Israel, Rami Ghanem (20), a Palestinian suicide bomber, exploded
near the London Café and at least 30 people were injured. The
Islamic Jihad called the attack "Palestine's gift to the heroic
people of Iraq."
(SFC, 3/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, President Bush
agreed to do what he had insisted for weeks he would not: allow
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly and
under oath before an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, AT&T
officially began to offer phone calls via the Internet (VOIP) in 2
state, New Jersey and Texas.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.B1)
2004 Mar 30, Alistair Cooke
(b.1908), television host and author, died in NYC at age 95. His
books included "Alistair Cooke's America" (1972).
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.89)
2004 Mar 30, In Bolivia an
angry miner with dynamite strapped to his chest blew himself up
inside Congress, also killing two police officers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, British police
raids in London led to the arrest of 8 men and the seizure of half a
ton of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound used in the Oklahoma
City bombing.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Cuba arrested
Carlos Ahumada, a Mexican businessman, wanted in Mexico for his role
in a graft scandal involving Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Ahumada was soon deported to Mexico.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 30, French PM
Jean-Pierre Raffarin was spared the ax despite a massive local
election defeat, but ordered to form a new government to push ahead
with unpopular social and economic reforms.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Iraq a suicide
bombing outside the house of a police chief killed the attacker and
wounded seven others. Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier died in a bomb
blast, and Spanish soldiers and Iraqi police quelled a riot by
jobseekers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Myanmar's military
government said it will take the first step on a self-proclaimed
"road to democracy" by reconvening a constitutional convention that
was suspended eight years ago.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Philippine
officials reported the arrest of 4 Muslim extremists in the brutal
al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group. They were found with a stash of
TNT targeted for terror attacks on trains and shopping malls in the
Philippine capital. A suspected Muslim extremist told police
interrogators he planted TNT in a television set on a ferry that
caught fire last month, killing more than 100 people
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Serbian lawmakers
awarded salaries, legal fees and other financial perks to former
President Slobodan Milosevic and fellow Serbian war crimes suspects
being tried by a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, A boat carrying
107 people sank during the crossing from Somalia to Yemen and only
four other people, including two crew members, were rescued.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka
gunmen stormed the home of a Tamil parliamentary candidate who was
allied to a renegade rebel leader, killing the candidate and one of
his relatives.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Uzbekistan
gunfire and explosions resounded in Tashkent as government forces
battled for hours with suspected Islamic militants after two more
suicide attacks. Officials claimed 20 terrorists and three police
died in the fighting.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2005 Mar 30, The US Bureau of
Economic Analysis final estimate of inflation adjusted GDP indicated
3.8% growth for the 4th quarter of 2004.
(www.bea.gov/bea/dn1.htm)
2005 Mar 30, The US Supreme
Court ruled that federal law allows people 40 and over to file age
bias claims over salary and hiring even if employers never intended
any harm.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Fred Korematsu
(86), who'd challenged the World War II internment policy that sent
Japanese-Americans to detention camps, died in Larkspur, Ca.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Robert Creeley
(b.1926), US poet, died in Odessa, Texas.
(SFC, 4/1/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 30, Under heavy
protection, First Lady Laura Bush visited the capital of
Afghanistan, where she talked with Afghan women freed from Taliban
repression and urged greater rights.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Inmates of
Barbados' lone prison set fires and battled guards and each other
for a second day, leaving one prisoner dead and eight injured.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Toronto,
Canada, a massive blaze ravaged a plastics factory in the city's
west-end, closing a section of a major highway and keeping
firefighters on the scene for hours as they struggled to contain the
six-alarm blaze.
(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, In India shops
kept their shutters down as striking traders said they would step up
their protest against a new value-added tax (VAT) due to take effect
on April 1.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Iraq two US
soldiers died in separate clashes. A car bomb exploded in western
Baghdad, killing one person and injuring at least six others. Gunmen
also opened fire on a truck carrying faithful near Hillah, 60 miles
south of Baghdad. One person was killed.
(AP, 3/30/05)(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, Dutch bank ABN
Amro announced a 6.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion) bid for the 87
percent of Italian bank Antonveneta it does not already own, the
second foreign offer for an Italian bank in as many days.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, Nepalese Finance
Minister Madhukar Shumsher Rana and Pakistan's Minister of State for
Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar concluded two days of talks by
signing an agreement to boost trade and investment. Pakistan offered
Nepal five million dollars in trade credits and talks on a free
trade agreement after the first meeting of senior economic officials
of the two countries in a decade.
(AFP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, The UN-backed
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report was released. It identified
24 main ecosystem services, most of which are found in forests.
(www.maweb.org/en/article.aspx?id=58)(Econ,
9/25/10, SR p.6)
2006 Mar 30, Pres. Bush arrived
in Cancun, Mexico, for 2 days of North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) talks with Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Mexico’s Pres.
Fox.
(Reuters, 3/30/06)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, The Bush
administration said that it is filing a trade case against China
before the World Trade Organization in a dispute involving auto
parts from the US and other nations.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, The Massachusetts
top court said gay couples can’t marry in Massachusetts if they are
from US states where same-sex unions are prohibited.
(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, US Major League
Baseball began its investigation into alleged steroid use by Barry
Bonds and others.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2006 Mar 30, The Translational
Genomics Research Institute announced that researchers have
identified a genetic cause for epilepsy, which could lead to the
development of medicines to treat epilepsy and autism.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In eastern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants killed a district chief and
three of his staff in an ambush. In the south rebels killed a police
commander and his brother.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers
reported in the journal Science that record levels of greenhouse
gases may be trapping heat above the ice sheets of Antarctica.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers in
Australia's Outback launched a test flight of a supersonic jet
designed to fly 10 times faster than conventional airplanes.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Australia's remote
northwest shore was lashed by 80 mph winds as Cyclone Glenda made
landfall. There were no immediate reports of substantial damage.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A cruise boat
carrying some 130 people capsized in calm Gulf waters only a few
hundred yards off the Bahrain coast. 58 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A11)(AP, 4/2/07)
2006 Mar 30, China said it
would spend 1.2 billion dollars cleaning up the Songhua River
following a major chemical spill last year that contaminated water
supplies for millions of people.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was appointed chairman of the
consortium building a strategically vital gas pipeline linking
Russia's vast reserves with German markets, and awarded a salary of
about $300,000.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Germany's
metal-working sector was hit by a second consecutive day of strikes
as members of the giant IG Metall union applied more pressure for a
five-percent pay rise.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In western
Guatemala 4 people were killed and 12 others were injured in an
explosion at a home-based fireworks factory.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Iraq Jill
Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was set
free nearly three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush
that killed her translator. She said she had been treated well.
Assailants in speeding cars gunned down a police commando as he was
leaving his house in south Baghdad, and drive-by shooters killed a
lawyer as she got out of a taxi in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, John McGahern
(71), Irish writer, died in Dublin. His stark depiction of love and
despair in repressive rural Ireland made him one of his country's
most acclaimed fiction writers.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/books/31mcgahern.html)
2006 Mar 30, In Jamaica Portia
Simpson Miller (60) became Jamaica's prime minister and first female
head of government.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.42)(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Japan and the US
pledged to work together to defend intellectual property rights amid
concern in both countries about piracy in rapidly growing China.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Palestinian
militant killed four Israelis in a suicide bombing in the West Bank,
weeks after being released from a Palestinian prison.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, The EU, Russia,
the UN and the US warned the Hamas-led Palestinian government that
it must recognize Israel and seek peace talks if it wants to be
guaranteed continued aid.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Russian-American
crew and Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s 1st astronaut, lifted off in a
Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft to dock with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 30, Russia's
natural-gas monopoly OAO Gazprom said that Belarus must pay European
rates for its gas, an apparent bargaining ploy to win control over
its neighbor's gas pipeline system and one that could stir trouble
between the allies.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Spain's lower
house of parliament approved a divisive proposal to grant greater
autonomy to Catalonia and boost the wealthy region's tax collecting
and judicial powers.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In southeast
Turkey violent protests by thousands of Kurdish demonstrators left
at least 20 hurt as protesters hurled firebombs and police opened
fire to disperse the crowds.
(AP, 3/3006)
2006 Mar 30, In the UAR hours
after a human rights group blasted the United Arab Emirates for what
it called wanton abuses of Asian workers, the country's labor
minister said a law in the works will give laborers the right to
form trade unions and bargain collectively.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Uganda a fire
destroyed a school dormitory in Kabarole where the children had been
reading by candlelight, killing at least 10 of the students.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, Uruguay said it
will repay $630 million to the IMF ahead of schedule, clearing all
its 2006 obligations to the agency in a sign of the country's
improving economic health.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2007 Mar 30, President Bush
went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he apologized to
troops for shoddy conditions in outpatient housing.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Pentagon
released a transcript in which Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi
national of Yemeni descent, told a military hearing at Guantanamo
that he was tortured into confessing that he was involved in the
bombing of the USS Cole.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A military judge
at Guantanamo Bay said the prison sentence of David Hicks (31), an
Australian detainee who pleaded guilty to providing material support
for terrorism. would be limited to seven years under terms of a plea
bargain. Marine Corps Judge Col. Ralph Kohlmann said all but nine
months would be suspended. The deal required his silence about
alleged abuse.
(AP, 3/30/07)(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, The Food and Drug
Administration said it had found melamine, a chemical used to make
plastics, in samples of Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat
gluten used as an ingredient in the wet-style products.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Bush
administration, facing heavy pressure to deal with soaring trade
deficits, said it is imposing economic sanctions against China to
protect American paper producers from unfair Chinese government
subsidies.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, It was reported
that shark overfishing has led scallops to decline because their
predators, mainly rays, aren’t being eaten.
(WSJ, 3/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Man Group PLC, the
world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, said it plans to
split off its brokerage business, making it an independent company
through an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Lombard,
Illinois, Hubert D. Thompson (28), a former Michigan State football
player, hurled James Malone (66) to his death from a 3rd floor
apartment balcony. In 2009 an Illinois judge ruled Thompson not
guilty by reason of insanity and ordered him confined to a mental
institution. Thompson was once the nation’s top-rated defensive end
prospect. He was ejected from the 2000 Citrus Bowl for fighting with
a Florida offensive lineman.
(SFC, 9/11/09,
p.A9)(http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Lombard.standoff.Hubert.2.336248.html)
2007 Mar 30, Leaked extracts of
a UN report said Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods
and storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef
will be devastated by 2030.
(AFP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Bangladesh 6
top Islamic militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb
attack in southern Bangladesh were hanged. Bangladesh officials said
bird flu has spread to five more farms in central and northern
districts.
(AP, 3/30/07)(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A protest by air
traffic controllers forced the suspension of flights from Brazilian
airports, stranding thousands of travelers across the country.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Canada Menu
Foods Income Fund, maker of the tainted pet foods at the center of
this month's massive recall, said it is no longer using a Chinese
supplier of wheat gluten after US officials found the chemical
melamine in some of the recalled products.
(Reuters, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In El Salvador
Maria Julia Hernandez (b.1939), a renowned human rights activist,
died of a heart attack. She had aided victims of El Salvador's civil
war.
(AP, 3/31/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
2007 Mar 30, A French architect
claimed to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great
Pyramid of Khufu was built. Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3D
technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the
massive stones to the apex was contained 10-15 meters beneath the
outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid.
(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A leading German
retailer said that it will pay $117.5 million to compensate a Jewish
family for real estate that was taken by the Nazis and eventually
resold to the firm. The Jewish Claims Conference said it will use an
unspecified amount of the money from KarstadtQuelle AG to fund
programs for Holocaust victims, and give the rest to heirs of the
Wertheim family, which was been seeking compensation for 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Guinea a
motorized wooden boat crowded with passengers and merchandise
capsized offshore from Conakry, drowning at least 46 people and
possibly dozens more.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, One of the 15
British service members held captive in Iran appeared on the
government's Arabic-language TV and said he apologized "deeply" for
entering Iranian waters without permission.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, The radical cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the US, following one of
the country's bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq's troubles
and calling for a mass demonstration April 9, the fourth anniversary
of the fall of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Islamic countries
pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council urging a
global prohibition on the public defamation of religion, a response
largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a
Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A video
purportedly showing the beheading of a drug cartel hit man appeared
on video-sharing Web site YouTube, and its makers called on Mexicans
to kill more members of the gang.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Mar 30, Nepal's seven
ruling political parties and the country's former Maoist rebels
agreed to form a joint government, the latest step in ending a
decade of civil war.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Pakistan
fighting between local and foreign militants near the Afghan border
killed 52 people.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Somalia
insurgents shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu and mortar
shells slammed into a hospital in the worst fighting seen here in
more than 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities
arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane
while flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In an
unprecedented show of support to empower the physically and mentally
impaired, 80 countries signed a UN convention enshrining the rights
of the world's 650 million disabled. 19 more ratifications are
needed before the convention comes into force.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A Vietnamese court
sentenced a dissident Catholic priest to eight years in prison for
anti-government activities after a dramatic trial in which the
defendant shouted denunciations of the ruling Communist Party. A
judge at Thua Thien Hue Provincial People's Court in central Vietnam
sentenced Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly on charges of disseminating
anti-government documents and communicating with pro-democracy
activists overseas.
(AP,
3/30/07)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9Mzp-61fU)
2007 Mar 30, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said demand for human organ transplants far
exceeds supply, fueling a growth in "transplant tourism" to
developing nations where organs can be bought.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2008 Mar 30, The Pritzker jury
announced French architect jean Nouvel (62) as the winner of the
2008 Pritzker Prize.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 30, Leading doctors
urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high
cholesterol after hearing full results of a failed trial of Vytorin.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, British Airways
cancelled another batch of flights as it struggled to cope with a
massive backlog of luggage at London Heathrow airport's new
multi-billion-pound Terminal 5.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65),
whose experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were
adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in
New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA,
a French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28
billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding
three competitors.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr offered to pull his fighters off the streets of
Basra and other cities if the government halts raids against his
followers and releases prisoners held without charge.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Israel pledged to
remove 50 West Bank roadblocks as part of a package to improve
everyday life for Palestinians after US Sec. of State Rice met with
Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, and Palestinian PM Salam
Fayyad.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, In Syria Iraq
refused to endorse the final declaration of the Arab summit because
it did not condemn terrorism in the country, a divisive end to a
gathering marred by disputes and boycotts.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, The Vatican said
Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in number of adherents. It
recently put the Roman Catholic number at 1.13 billion. Others
estimated Muslims to number around 1.3 billion.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A8)
2008 Mar 30, Zimbabwe's
opposition said it had won the most crucial election since
independence, but President Robert Mugabe's government warned
premature victory claims would be seen as an attempted coup.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2009 Mar 30, President Barack
Obama said that neither General Motors nor Chrysler has proposed
sweeping enough changes to justify further large federal bailouts,
and demanded "painful concessions" from creditors, unions and others
as their price for survival. Driving home the point, the White House
ousted the GM Chairman Rick Wagoner as it rejected GM and Chrysler's
restructuring plans. Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief
operating officer, became the new CEO. Board member Kent Kresa, the
former chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman
Corp., was named interim chairman of the GM board.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Pres. Obama signed
legislation setting aside over 2 million acres as protected
wilderness.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 30, An “Open Cloud”
manifesto was published. IBM and other tech companies issued a
statement of principles that called for keeping cloud computing
services as open as possible.
(www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090329_463505.htm)
2009 Mar 30, Intel released
Nehalem, its new superfast chip for servers.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.73)
2009 Mar 30, Findings were
presented for an experimental combo pill, to prevent heart attacks
and strokes, indicating it as effective as nearly all of its
components taken alone, with no greater side effects. The study
tested the Polycap, an experimental combo formulated by Cadila
Pharmaceuticals of Ahmedabad, India.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself
up inside a police headquarters in Kandahar, killing nine people and
wounding eight. A roadside bomb killed three police in the eastern
province of Paktia.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Argentina’s health
minister acknowledged that the country was in the middle of a dengue
fever epidemic with nearly 8,000 people infected. Neighboring
Bolivia had about 51,000 cases reported, while Brazil counted some
40,000 cases.
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46371)(SSFC,
4/19/09, p.G3)
2009 Mar 30, Downtown Sydney,
Australia's largest city, was plunged into chaos during the late
rush hour when a power cut blacked out traffic lights, caused
gridlock on the roads and left tens of thousands of buildings in
darkness. The blackout exposed a flaw in the city's terrorism
warning system.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Banking officials
meeting in Colombia said Argentina and China have tentatively agreed
to swap $10 billion worth of their currencies to enable South
America's second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade
between the nations.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, The French
government banned companies that get state funding from issuing
stock options to top managers and limited some other forms of
compensation in an effort to quell public anger over executive pay.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 30, Hungary’s ruling
Socialist Party nominated economy minister Gordon Bajnai (b.1968) to
become the country’s next prime minister.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A14)
2009 Mar 30, In Lahore,
Pakistan, a group of gunmen attacked the Manawan Police Training
School and rampaged through it for hours, throwing grenades, seizing
hostages and killing 7 police and 2 civilians before being
overpowered by Pakistani security forces in armored vehicles and
helicopters. Six militants were arrested and 8 others died in the
8-hour battle. A suicide car bombing killed four soldiers in Bannu
district.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AFP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Malaysia's
national car maker Proton and Detroit Electric, a Dutch-based
company, signed a $555 million deal to make zero emission electric
cars that they said would be more powerful that any existing model.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Northern
Ireland suspected IRA dissidents and their supporters hijacked cars
in working-class Catholic areas in a coordinated effort to block
roads and threaten police stations.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Fishermen in the
Philippines accidentally caught and soon ate a megamouth shark, one
of the rarest fishes in the world with only 40 others recorded to
have been encountered. The 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) 13-foot
(4-meter) megamouth died while struggling in the fishermen's net off
Burias island.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Qatar Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi stormed out of an Arab summit after
denouncing the Saudi king and declaring himself "the dean of Arab
rulers."
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia PM Putin
pledged over $1 billion in state support to its ailing car industry
in a bid to avoid heavy job losses and potential social unrest.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B2)(http://tinyurl.com/csyby9)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia Sergei
Protazanov, a newspaper employee in a Moscow suburb, died one day
after being beaten near his home in the in the town of Khimki.
Protazanov had been compiling an issue that included reports on
alleged falsifications in local mayoral elections.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka 26
rebels were killed in a sea battle off Chalai. Four boats belonging
to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were sunk in the battle,
which lasted about four hours before dawn. A leader of the Sea
Tigers, the rebels' naval wing, was among the dead while one
government sailor died and three were wounded.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Thailand's prime
minister avoided his office, as thousands of protesters calling for
his resignation surrounded the seat of government for the fifth day
and ignored police warnings to disperse.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2010 Mar 30, Pres. Obama signed
into law the final changes to the sweeping medical plan approved by
lawmakers last week, along with reforms in college student loan
programs.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, A US federal court
ruled that the US patents held by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA genes
are unsustainable as a matter of law.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/y8camvj)
2010 Mar 30, San Francisco City
Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the escrow firm Rehab Financial Corp.
after learning the company had abruptly shuttered its Huntington
Beach office and drained accounts holding city funds. The suit
accused the company of misappropriating several million dollars from
SF and at least a dozen other California cities.
(SFC, 4/1/10, p.C2)
2010 Mar 30, A gunman sprayed
bullets from a moving vehicle into a crowd in southeastern
Washington, killing four and wounding at least five others, before
leading police on a chase into neighboring Maryland. Three people
were arrested in the drive-by shooting.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 Mar 30, Chevron said the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled in favor of
its claim against Ecuador related to past operations of its Texaco
unit. The tribunal ruled that Ecuador’s courts delayed rulings on a
contract dispute and awarded Chevron about $700 million as of Dec
22, 2006. A separate case over a $27 billion pollution claim
remained pending.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 30, Jaime Escalante
(b.1930), a Bolivia-born math teacher in East Los Angeles, died. The
1987 film "Stand and Deliver," starring Lou Diamond Phillips, was
based on the story of his success teaching math to inner-urban kids.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.C6)
2010 Mar 30, In western
Afghanistan 5 civilians have been killed after their van hit a bomb
planted in the road outside Herat.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Australian media
groups and sports bodies signed a code of conduct aimed at ending
years of disputes and boycotts over press coverage of major sporting
events.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Canada’s PM
Stephen Harper told US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton that its
military mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 30, In Quebec, Canada,
the world's leading industrial nations (G8) called for stronger
action against Iran over its nuclear program and the United States
said it was confident China would agree on the need for sanctions.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Google Inc said
its mobile services have been partially blocked in China for two
days, while searches on its Chinese-language site became erratic,
about a week after the company shut its mainland Chinese portal and
rerouted Web searches to a Hong Kong site.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Ecuador
journalist Emilio Palacio, facing a 3-year prison sentence for
defamation, accused President Rafael Correa of orchestrating his
prosecution as a warning that critics of the government will be
severely punished.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Amnesty
International said Europe had its first year without executions in
2009. But the London-based organization said the spell was recently
broken by the execution of two men in Belarus.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Britain's media
watchdog, the Press Complaints Commission, upheld a complaint
against a blog written by a journalist in what was its first-ever
move to censure a newspaper or magazine over comments by a blogger.
Former BBC journalist and commentator Rod Liddle was censured over a
blog in which he said that young Afro-Caribbean men carried out the
"overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London. The blog which
was published in December on the website of right-wing weekly
magazine The Spectator.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In India
Paramhamsa Nityananda (32), a Hindu holy man with thousands of
followers across India, resigned as head of Dhyanapeetam (knowledge
center) after police began investigating his role in a sex scandal.
On April 21 Nityananda, who claims to have devotees in 33 countries,
and an aide Nithya Bhaktananda, were nabbed in the northern state of
Himachal Pradesh on charges including obscenity and hurting
religious sentiments.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)(AFP, 4/21/10)
2010 Mar 30, An Indian naval
spokesman said Somali pirates may be holding several dhows carrying
an estimated 100 Indian sailors they have seized over the past five
days.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Iran's state
television reported that its intelligence agents mounted a
"complicated" cross-border mission and freed an Iranian diplomat
kidnapped in 2008 by gunmen in northwestern Pakistan. Heshmatollah
Attarzadeh and his Pakistani bodyguard were driving over a narrow
bridge in Peshawar on Nov. 13, 2008 when two gunmen blocked their
way with a car and opened fire.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Japan’s government
approved a plan to halt the privatization of Japan Post, the world’s
biggest bank, and increased the amount of deposits it can take from
a customer to 20 million yen. The government will retain a stake of
over one-third, giving it veto power.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.77)
2010 Mar 30, In northern Mexico
dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks
targeting two army garrisons, touching off firefights that killed 18
attackers in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Mar 30, Russia's Pres.
Medvedev signed an order formally implementing UN Security
Council-approved sanctions against North Korea. The sanctions were
passed in June by the Security Council, which includes Russia.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Serbia's
parliament approved a declaration condemning the 1995 Serb massacre
of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, in a bid to distance the country
from past warmongering under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, The International
Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, said Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir has long been working to ensure next month's
elections are rigged, making the eventual winner illegitimate.
(AFP, 3/31/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Switzerland
scientists cheered the historic crash of two proton beams at the
CERN Large Hadron Collider.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 30, Vietnam and the
United States signed a pact described as a key foundation for
development of peaceful atomic power in the communist country.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Zimbabwe 13
legislators from both parties in the coalition government were not
allowed to enter the Chiadzwa diamond district. They spent 2 days
waiting for clearance.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2011 Mar 30, President Barack
Obama set an ambitious goal to cut US oil imports by a third over 10
years, focusing on a source of anxiety for Americans as high
gasoline prices threaten economic recovery.
(Reuters, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, US officials
revealed that the CIA has sent small teams of operatives into
rebel-held eastern Libya while the White House debates whether to
arm the opposition. The British government said Libyan Foreign
Minister Moussa Koussa had arrived in Britain from Tunisia and
resigned.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, In Chicago final
demolition began for the Cabrini Green public high-rises. The
complex, dating back to the 1940s, at its peak housed 13,000 people
in 23 high-rises.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A8)
2011 Mar 30, The Ohio
Legislature pass a bill severely limiting union rights for 350,000
public workers. Gov. John Kasich was expected to sign it this week.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A8)
2011 Mar 30, It was reported
that GE has calculated a corporate tax bill for 2010 that adds up to
zero, in spite of robust profits of $14.2 billion worldwide, via a
creative series of tax referrals and revenue shifts. This was,
indeed, the second year running that the company—which has an
enormous, and famously nimble, 975-employee tax division, led by
former Treasury official John Samuels—paid nothing in US taxes.
(http://tinyurl.com/69odvgp)
2011 Mar 30, A new study in the
journal Conservation Letters by an American and Canadian research
team suggested that the discovery of more than 100 dead dolphins on
Gulf of Mexico shores likely reflects only a small fraction of the
total killed by the BP oil spill last year.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Ministers from
around the Asia-Pacific region signed a non-binding framework
agreement to tackle smuggling networks and humanely process the
large numbers of migrants moving through the region.
(AFP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Britain said it
has expelled five Libyan diplomats loyal to Moammar Gadhafi's regime
because of their intimidation of opposition supporters and their
potential threat to the UK's national security.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, China executed 3
Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking. Sally Ordinario-Villanueva,
Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain were arrested separately in 2008
carrying packages of at least 4 kilograms of heroin.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/4oluzcf)
2011 Mar 30, China ordained a
new Catholic bishop approved by the Vatican for the first time since
ties between the sides soured last year. Paul Liang Jiansen was made
bishop of the southern city of Jiangmen.
(AP, 4/11/11)
2011 Mar 30, Cuban state media
said the government has authorized state banks to offer credit to
farmers and small-business owners.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 30, Former President
Jimmy Carter left Cuba without gaining the release of Alan Gross, a
US government contractor jailed the past 16 months.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Egypt's military
rulers issued an interim constitution under which the transitional
administration will run the country until elections allow power to
be returned to an elected government.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Ethiopia's
government said it plans to build a hydroelectric power dam along
the Blue Nile River despite objections from Egypt and Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, In Guatemala Juan
Ortiz Lopez, a reputed top drug trafficker, was captured in a joint
operation involving the government and the US Drug Enforcement
Administration. A US federal indictment was unsealed in Florida
charging Ortiz with two counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, In Guatemala three
men were publicly lynched by a mob after being accused of stealing a
truckload of coffee in the town of La Democracia. Police said some
3,000 people were involved in the lynching.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Hong Kong said it
had passed laws to comply with UN sanctions against Iran, two months
after 20 shipping firms in the city were accused of having links to
Tehran's weapons buildup.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, An Israeli
aircraft attacked a pair of Palestinian militants riding on a
motorcycle in the Gaza Strip, killing one and wounding the other.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Italy’s Premier
Silvio Berlusconi promised to evacuate the thousands of North
African migrants who have overwhelmed the tiny Italian island of
Lampedusa, earning cheers from residents exasperated by the
arrivals.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, In Ivory Coast a
spokesman for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo called for a cease-fire as
rebel forces backing Alassane Ouattara, the internationally
recognized winner of the disputed election, advanced toward the
capital from two different directions. Choi Young-jin, the top
United Nations envoy in Ivory Coast, told French radio that as many
as 50,000 soldiers, police and members of the security force have
abandoned Gbagbo in recent days.
(AP, 3/30/11)(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 30, Japan weighed a
series of creative solutions to its unfolding nuclear disaster, from
draping reactors with special fabric to sending in military robots
to do the risky work. TEPCO said 4 of the 6 Fukushima Dai-ichi
nuclear plants were damaged beyond repair. UN nuclear agency
officials said that readings outside the exclusion zone of the Japan
nuclear disaster showed radiation exceeding recommended evacuation
levels by the agency.
(AP, 3/30/11)(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A4)
2011 Mar 30, Kosovo's
Constitutional Court said that the newly elected multimillionaire
businessman Behgjet Pacolli must step down from his post as
president because his election violated the country's constitution.
Pacolli said he would abide by the court's decision.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Libya's government
warned that it would sue any international company that concluded
energy deals with rebels who control some of the country's oil
infrastructure. Rebels retreated from the oil port of Ras Lanouf
along the coastal road leading to the capital Tripoli after they
came under heavy shelling from ground forces loyal to leader Moammar
Gadhafi. Coalition aircraft sank 5 government ships blocking the
supply of humanitarian aid to Misrata.
(Reuters, 3/30/11)(AP, 3/30/11)(Econ, 4/2/11,
p.42)
2011 Mar 30, Malaysia's main
Christian grouping rejected a government attempt to settle a
protracted row over seized shipments of Malay-language Bibles,
calling instead for the right to freely practice its religion.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, A prominent
Mexican businessman accused of luring poor girls to his home was
sentenced to 13 years on child pornography charges in a case that
tarnished the reputations of a state governor and another
businessman. Jean Succar Kuri, a legal US resident, was extradited
to Mexico in 2006. Targeted by an investigation in Mexico in 2003,
Succar fled to the United States but was arrested during a traffic
stop in Arizona in February 2004 and extradited two years later. On
Aug 31 a judge extended Kuri’s prison term to 60 years.
(AP, 3/31/11)(AP, 9/1/11)
2011 Mar 30, Myanmar made way
for a nominally civilian government after almost half a century in
power, as the junta was disbanded and a new president talked of a
"changing era."
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 10 people in the town of Swabi.
(AFP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 30, Peru received a
first shipment of the Incan artifacts taken from the mountain
citadel of Machu Picchu a century ago. Yale University returned 366
pieces, after a lawsuit and personal lobbying of the US president.
The pieces were among some 4,000 adventurer Hiram Bingham took
beginning in 1911 from what has become Peru's leading tourist
attraction.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 30, Russia’s Pres.
Medvedev ordered government ministers to vacate their seats on the
boards of state firms.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.57)
2011 Mar 30, Syrian President
Bashar Assad blamed "conspirators" for a wave of dissent against his
authoritarian rule, but he failed to lift the country's despised
emergency law or offer any concessions in his first speech since the
protests began nearly two weeks ago.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Thailand mobilized
its only aircraft carrier to rescue thousands trapped on the
storm-swept resort island of Koh Samui after severe flooding across
the south killed 15.
(AP, 3/30/11)(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 30, Thailand
confiscated two tons of African elephant tusks worth millions of
dollars being smuggled through a Bangkok port. This was the
country's largest ivory seizure.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 30, In Yemen hundreds
of thousands of anti-government protesters packed the streets of
several cities to demand the president's ouster and denounce a
munitions factory blast that left at least 100 people dead.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2012 Mar 30, The US government
agreed with Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania
to cut red tape and speed up consideration for wind farms in the
Great Lakes.
(SFC, 3/31/12, p.A5)
2012 Mar 30, Lottery
ticket-holders in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland each selected the
winning numbers for the world record-breaking $640 million Mega
Millions jackpot. The jackpot rose to $656 million as more sales
were totaled.
(AP, 3/31/12)(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A7)
2012 Mar 30, In Florida two
people were fatally shot and 12 others were wounded when gunmen
opened fire on mourners at a funeral in Miami.
(SSFC, 4/1/12, p.A7)
2012 Mar 30, In Ohio Jessica
Rae Sacco (21) was found dead in her apartment in Urbana. She had
been stabbed, suffocated and dismembered in a bathtub before some of
her remains were taken across the state line to Kentucky. 5 people
were soon arrested including her on-and-off boyfriend. Matthew
Puccio (25) was among five people charged in connection with the
death of Sacco. Puccio said he met her through Facebook while
looking for new friends and that he met two of his alleged
accomplices at a library just three days before the killing.
(SFC, 4/2/12, p.A5)(AP, 4/8/12)
2012 Mar 30, Four giant
card-payment processors and large US banks that issue debit and
credit cards were reported hit by a data-security breach after
third-party services provider Global Payments Inc discovered its
systems were compromised by unauthorized access.
(Reuters, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, An Afghan
policeman shot to death nine of his fellow officers as they slept in
a village in Paktika province, an eastern Taliban stronghold. He
then took their weapons, piled them in a pickup truck and sped away.
A motorcycle bomb parked by the side of a road exploded, killing an
Afghan police officer and wounding another in Sangin district of
southwest Helmand province. A NATO service member died in a southern
roadside bomb explosion.
(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Afghanistan the
bodies of a boy (15) and a girl (12) were discovered in wasteland in
the Esfandi area of Ghazni province. They were killed in an acid
attack. Witnesses claimed it was because of their friendship.
(AFP, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, Australian artist
Tim Storrier won the 91st Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW
in Sydney for his painting “The Histrionic Wayfarer (after Bosch).”
The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most
prestigious art prizes.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Bangladesh police
arrested two school teachers on suspicion of staging a drama
containing blasphemous remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. Violence
erupted the next day as up to 7,000 Muslims shouted slogans and set
ablaze the house of the drama's director, who has fled the remote
area.
(AFP, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, Amnesty
International blasted a Brazilian verdict by an appeals court as
"outrageous" and called it an "affront to the most basic human
rights. The Superior Court of Justice ruled this week that a man
accused of having sex with three 12-year-olds couldn't be convicted
of rape because of extenuating circumstances, including the fact the
girls had previously worked as prostitutes.
(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In China two
Tibetan monks, identified as Tenpa Darjey and Chimey Palden, set
themselves on fire in the western city of Maerkang in the latest in
a wave of self-immolations protesting against Chinese rule.
(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, The UN refugee
agency warned that attacks by the renegade Lord's Resistance Army
were on the rise and forcing thousands of people to flee. Since
March 6, 13 new attacks were recorded in northwest CongoDRC,
displacing 1,160 people in the region.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Egypt dozens of
anti-military activists tore down a wall in central Cairo erected by
the military in December to end bloody clashes with protesters.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Fiji flash
flooding cut highways and forced evacuations, with residents
sheltering from rising waters on rooftops as authorities scrambled
to find rescue boats. The flooding left at least 5 people dead.
(AFP, 3/30/12)(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 30, Indonesian police
killed two suspected terrorists in a raid on the outskirts of
Jakarta. Anti-terror police confiscated a revolver, explosive
materials, several books about jihad and documents outlining a bank
robbery.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Mali Tuareg
separatist rebels and an allied armed Islamist group entered the
strategic town of Kidal, 1,000 km (620 miles) from the capital.
Embattled coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo asked for help to halt
advancing Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters. Panic spread
following the threat of financial sanctions by the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
(AFP, 3/30/12)(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Mauritius
President Anerood Jugnauth, who has been in open conflict with PM
Navinchandra Ramgoolam, said he was resigning to join the
opposition. Jugnauth will be replaced by Vice President Monique
Ohsan Bellepeau, who is in the same party as the PM.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Prosecutors in
northern Mexico said 8 people have been arrested for allegedly
killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual
sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death. The first
of the three victims was apparently killed in 2009, the second in
2010 and the latest earlier this month in Sonora state.
(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Nigeria
suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram used bombs and
gunfire to attack a police station and rob a bank in northeastern
town of Askira Uba, with four people feared dead.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Northern
Ireland IRA dissidents launched a violent protest against the
convictions of Brendan McConville (40) and John Paul Wootton (20) in
the March 9, 2009, killing of Constable Stephen Carroll. Masked men
hijacked and burned a van and two cars in Craigavon, the town
southwest of Belfast where Carroll was killed and McConville lived.
Police urged drivers to avoid the area.
(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Pakistan dozens
of militants attacked a paramilitary checkpoint overnight, killing
two soldiers and sparking clashes which left up to 21 of the
militants dead in the Orakzai tribal district. A US drone launched a
missile attack on a militant compound in North Waziristan, killing
four insurgents. The blast destroyed five shops including a bakery,
three grocery shops and a telephone kiosk.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Thousands of
Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops at Qalandia
checkpoint in the West Bank as hundreds more gathered by Jerusalem's
Old City to mark Land Day. This annual event commemorates the deaths
of six Arab Israeli protesters at the hands of Israeli forces during
mass demonstrations in 1976 against plans to confiscate Arab land in
northern Israel. Protester Mahmoud Zaqout (21) was killed at the
border in Gaza.
(AFP, 3/30/12)(SFC, 3/31/12, p.A3)
2012 Mar 30, Philippine police
rescued some 300 badly injured pitbulls and arrested seven South
Koreans after busting a massive online dog fighting syndicate at a
two-hectare farm in the city of San Pablo. 20 of the dogs needed to
be euthanized. 9 more were euthanized Apr 3 and dozens more are
likely to be because there are no facilities to rehabilitate them
and prevent them from reappearing in underground arenas.
(AFP, 4/1/12)(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Mar 30, A flare on Total's
Elgin platform off Scotland's east coast was extinguished,
diminishing the looming threat of an explosion. Total said it is
preparing to sink two relief wells to stop the gas leak at the North
Sea platform in parallel with a plugging operation.
(AFP, 3/30/12)(Reuters, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, Somali government
troops backed by African forces said they took control of one of the
Islamist rebellion's last strongholds, sparking intense clashes on
the outskirts of Mogadishu.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Sudanese troops
fought deadly battles with rebel fighters in the strategic village
of Talodi, close to the border with the newly independent south.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Fresh clashes
between Syrian soldiers and rebels erupted across many parts of
Syria as UN envoy Kofi Annan urged the government to lay down its
weapons first to immediately end the nation's yearlong crisis. The
Local Coordination Committees said 15 people were killed across the
country, including eight who died in the town of Quriya in the
eastern Deir el-Zour province. Thousands across the country held
demonstrations calling for Assad's ouster as they emerged from
mosques following Friday prayers.
(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, Venezuelan
regulators shut down four radio stations for allegedly operating
without licenses, including one run by a brother of Monagas
governor, Jose Briceno, on the outs with President Hugo Chavez.
Briceno's falling out came this month after the governor accused
National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello of trying to seize
control of the governor's office.
(AP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 30, In Yemen unmanned
US drones targeted al-Qaida positions inside Shabwa province killing
four militants. Al-Qaeda members sabotaged a southern gas pipeline
after eight people, including suspected Al-Qaeda members, were
killed in an air strike and a shooting.
(AFP, 3/30/12)(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Mar 30, Zimbabwe's
education ministry said it is investigating how school text books
donated by the U.N. children's agency wind up in the hands of
bookstores and street vendors.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Mar 31, In Kentucky riot
police used pepper spray in small amounts for crowd control as
thousands of rowdy fans swarmed into the streets near the University
of Kentucky campus, overturning cars and lighting couches ablaze
after a victory over cross-state rival Louisville in a Final Four
matchup.
(AP, 4/1/12)
2012 Mar 31, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb in the Gizab district of Uruzgan province killed two
local council members and an Afghan policeman.
(AP, 4/1/12)
2012 Mar 31, Millions of people
switched off their lights for Earth Hour in a global effort to raise
awareness about climate change that will even be monitored from
space. Newcomers to the Sydney-led initiative, now in its sixth
year, included Libya, Iraq and the International Space Station,
which will watch over the event as it rolls across the globe.
(AFP, 3/31/12)
2013 Mar 30, In Mississippi
nearly 50 people were arrested at a dogfight in Benton County
following a months-long investigation.
(SFC, 4/2/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 30, In Nevada a
freeway crash on I-15 killed five Southern California family members
and injured two others. On April 10 Jean Ervin Soriano (18), a
juvenile detention escapee, was charged with seven felony charges of
driving under the influence. He had a blood-alcohol percentage of
0.12, well above the Nevada legal limit of 0.08 percent.
(AP, 4/10/13)
2013 Mar 30, Phil Ramone
(1934), Grammy-award winning producer, died. He was a pioneer of
digital recording and produced what is regarded as the first major
commercial release on compact disc, “52nd Street,” which came out in
1982.
(SSFC, 3/31/13, p.A12)
2013 Mar 30, In Afghanistan US
special operations forces handed over their base in Nirkh district,
Wardak province, to local Afghan special forces.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, Officials said big
depositors at Cyprus' largest bank may be forced to accept losses of
up to 60 percent, far more than initially estimated under the
European rescue package to save the country from bankruptcy.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, Egyptian state
prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Bassem Youssef, a popular
TV satirist for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's
president.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, Egyptian police
detained 13 people including five lawyers, accusing them of
assaulting police in the city of Alexandria.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, In northern France
five young siblings, aged 2-10, died after a fire erupted in a home
in the town of Saint Quentin.
(AP, 3/31/13)
2013 Mar 30, Xabier Lopez Pena
(alias Thierry), a former leader of armed Basque separatist group
ETA, died from a stroke in a French hospital.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, Italy’s Pres.
Giorgio Napolitano named 10 outside experts to try to help end
political gridlock that has prevented the formation of a government
more than a month after inconclusive national elections.
(SSFC, 3/31/13, p.A5)
2013 Mar 30, Kenya's Supreme
Court upheld the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country's next
president. Protests led to clashes leaving 5 people dead.
(AP, 3/30/13)(SFC, 4/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 30, In Lebanon shells
from inside Syria exploded in 4 villages late today near the
northern border. Residents reported an unpleasant smell after the
strikes.
(AP, 3/31/13)
2013 Mar 30, In northern Mali
fighting Islamic extremists linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, or AQIM, attacked Timbuktu late today. Fighting continued
in to the next day.
(AP, 3/31/13)
2013 Mar 30, In Mauritius
rivers of water rose swiftly in a pedestrian underpass leading to
the waterfront and an underground car park in Port Louis. At least
11 people were killed in the flash flooding. The next day PM
Navinchandra Ramgoolam blamed climate change for the floods.
(AP, 4/1/13)
2013 Mar 30, In Mexico a bus
collided with a truck in Veracruz state and plunged over a cliff
killing 12 people.
(SFC, 4/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 30, North Korea warned
Seoul that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and
threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last
major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, In southern
Pakistan a man armed with a gun and grenades attacked a school in
Karachi during a prize distribution ceremony, killing its principal
and wounding six children before fleeing.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 30, Five South African
air force members died in the crash of a helicopter that was
patrolling in an anti-rhino poaching operation in Kruger National
Park.
(AP, 3/31/13)(SFC, 4/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 30, Syrian rebels
pushed into a strategic neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo
after days of heavy clashes, seizing control of at least part of the
hilltop district and killing Hassan Seifeddine, a pro-government
Sunni Muslim cleric captured in the fighting. Activists reported
violence in areas the southern province of Daraa, the suburbs of
Damascus and the northern regions of Idlib and Raqqa.
(AP, 3/30/13)
2014 Mar 30, In Albuquerque,
NM, a protest over recent police shootings turned to mayhem as
demonstrators clashed with riot police. Violent confrontations
between officers and residents have included 37 police shootings
since 2010, 23 of them fatal.
(SFC, 3/31/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 30, Marc Platt
(b.1913), Broadway dancer and the last surviving member of the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, died in Marin, Ca. His film work
included roles in “Tonight and Every Night” (1945), “Tars and Spars”
(1946) and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954).
(SFC, 4/1/14, p.C4)
2014 Mar 30, In southeastern
Afghanistan a Romanian serviceman was killed and five troops wounded
by a roadside bomb on the Kabul-Kandahar highway outside Qalat,
Zabul province. Romania has 1,029 troops serving in the NATO mission
in Afghanistan; 23 have been killed.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, A Bahrain court
sentenced 13 people to life in prison for attempting to kill a
policeman, attacking a police car and taking part in an illegal
protest in March, 2012. One person was sentenced to 10 years in jail
in the same case.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Belgium China’s
Pres. Xi Jinping received a royal welcome and an honorary knighthood
in Brussels at the start of a 3-day visit that will see him become
the first Chinese leader to visit EU headquarters.
(AFP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Brazil more
than 1,400 police officers and Marines rolled into a massive complex
of slums near Rio de Janeiro's international airport before dawn as
part of the "pacification" program that began in 2008 and is meant
to secure Rio ahead of not the World Cup and also the 2016 Summer
Olympics.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, British actress
Kate O'Mara (74), best known for her role in the 1980s soap opera
"Dynasty," died in a nursing home in southern England after a short
illness.
(AFP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In southern China
hundreds of protesters marched against a chemical plant and
environmental degradation. The Maoming city government called the
demonstration a "grave violation" by criminals causing chaos.
Residents were protesting the production of paraxylene, a chemical
used to make fabrics and plastic bottles at a plant run by the local
government and state-owned Sinopec Corp, China's biggest refiner.
(Reuters, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar 30, In China Phuntso
Wangye (b.1922), a veteran Tibetan Communist leader, died in
Beijing. He had founded the Tibetan Communist Party and later become
an outspoken critic of Beijing's hardline policies towards the
Himalayan region. His book “A Long Way to Equality and Unity” was
recently published in Hong Kong.
(Reuters, 3/30/14)(SFC, 3/31/14, p.C3)
2014 Mar 30, An Egyptian
soldier was killed when militants attacked the bus he was driving in
the town of Al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula.
(Reuters, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, France held a
second round of voting in local elections that are set to result in
a breakthrough by the far right and trigger a reshuffle of the
beleaguered Socialist government. 155 towns swung to the
center-right UMP and the far-right National Front claim 11.
(AFP, 3/30/14)(Reuters, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Iraq attackers
sprayed with bullets a group of troops manning a checkpoint near
Mosul killing 7 soldiers. A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle
packed with explosives on a major bridge in Ramadi killing 7 people.
Parts of the al-Houz bridge fell into the Euphrates river. Two
police officers were killed by a roadside bomb that exploded near
their car in Tikrit. A bomb explosion at the entrance of an out-door
market killed 4 shoppers and wounded nine others in Baghdad's suburb
of Youssifiyah.
(AFP, 3/30/14)(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, Japan and North
Korea started high-level government talks for the first time in more
than a year that were expected to focus on abductions of Japanese by
North Korea decades ago.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Kenya a man
died after an explosive device he was assembling blew up in a
residential area of Nairobi. Police looked for three other men who
were seen running out of the apartment after the blast.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, Myanmar began its
first census since 1983. Those who identified themselves as Rohingya
were not counted.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Nigeria 21
detainees, reportedly suspected Boko Haram insurgents, were killed
during an attempted jailbreak after one inmate reportedly
overpowered a guard and seized his weapon.
(AP, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar 30, The Philippines
filed a case against China at an arbitration tribunal in The Hague,
subjecting Beijing to international legal scrutiny over the
territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
(Reuters, 3/31/14)
2014 Mar 30, The Seychelles
transferred nine Somali pirates to serve the remainder of their jail
sentences back home, taking the total transferred to more than 90.
(AFP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Taiwan hundreds
of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the streets around
Parliament to voice their opposition to a trade pact with China.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, Thais voted for
half of the country's 150-seat Senate in a key test for Yingluck
Shinawatra's troubled government.
(AP, 3/30/14)
2014 Mar 30, In Turkey violent
feuds broke out in local elections for village and neighborhood
leaders, leaving 6 people dead in the village of Yuvacik, Sanliurfa
province, and 2 dead in the southern city of Hatay. PM Erdogan’s AK
Party led the polls with 46%, retaining control of the two biggest
cities Istanbul and Ankara and increasing its share of the national
vote.
(AP, 3/30/14)(Reuters, 3/31/14)(SSFC, 4/6/14,
p.A4)
2015 Mar 30, In San Francisco
an indictment, filed on March 25, was unsealed and charged Carl
Force (46), a special agent with the DEA, and Shaun Bridges (32), a
special agent with the US Secret Service, with stealing digital
currency during the investigation of the Silk Road online
marketplace and its founder Ross William Ulbricht. On Oct 19 Force
was sentenced to 6½ years in federal prison and ordered to pay
$340,000 in restitution to the government.
(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A8)(SFC, 10/20/15, p.C2)
2015 Mar 30, In Florida a
church van ran through a stop sign, crossed all four lanes of a
rural highway and crashed into in a canal, killing 8 people and
injuring ten.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Maryland one
cross-dressing man was killed and another injured as they mistakenly
crashed a stolen Ford Escape into a police cruiser at the National
Security Agency at Fort Meade.
(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 30, In eastern
Afghanistan a roadside bombing in Ghazni province killed 7 people,
all members of the same family.
(AP, 3/31/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Bangladesh
blogger Oyasiqur Rhaman (27) was hacked to death by three men in
Dhaka. Two of the attackers, students at madrassas, were caught near
the scene.
(AP, 3/30/15)(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, In Belgium
thousands of demonstrators and trade union activists protested
against austerity measures for a second day.
(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, China’s government
said nearly 70 "illegal" courses have been closed, seemingly
enforcing a decade-old ban for the first time.
(AFP, 3/31/15)
2015 Mar 30, Gambia sentenced
three soldiers to death after a secret trial in which they were
convicted of participating in a December 30 attempted coup. Three
other soldiers received life sentences.
(SFC, 4/2/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, Germany said that
the euro zone would give Athens no further financial aid until it
has a more detailed list of reforms and some are enacted into law,
adding to skepticism over plans presented last week.
(Reuters, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Gibraltar a
family of four, including a six-week-old baby girl and her
four-year-old sister, were found dead in a flat in the tiny British
territory.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In eastern India a
bus driver lost control of his vehicle on a sharp curve on a
mountain road and plunged into a gorge, killing at least 11 people
in Garhwa district of Jharkhand state.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, Iran's
Revolutionary Guard said a US drone strike killed two of its
advisers near the Iraqi city of Tikrit on March 23, where a major
offensive is underway against the Islamic State group. The US said
its coalition conducted no airstrikes in the area during the time of
the incident.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Iraq a pair of
car bombings in a Baghdad suburb killed at least 11 people and
wounded dozens, hours after the arrival of UN Secretary General, Ban
Ki-moon, for talks with the Iraqi officials.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Israel a
Jerusalem court found Ehud Olmert (69), former premier (2006-2008),
guilty of corruption in a retrial of allegations he received
envelopes of cash from US businessman Morris Talansky while trade
and industry minister in the early 2000s.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, An Israeli
committee approved controversial plans for eventual construction of
2,200 Palestinian homes in occupied east Jerusalem, in the largest
such project since 1967.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Malaysia three
editors of the Malaysia Insider news website were arrested on
suspicion of violating the country’s Sedition Act and Communications
and Multimedia Act. The next day two executives of the Malaysia
Insider were arrested.
(SFC, 4/1/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 30, The Maldives'
Parliament passed a law that strips people serving prison sentences
of their political party memberships, a rule critics say is designed
to oust jailed former President Mohamed Nasheed from politics.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In northern Mali
an international Red Cross worker was killed and a local colleague
wounded when the aid truck they were driving came under fire, in an
attack claimed by the MUJAO jihadist group.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Mexico Jose
Guadalupe Reyes Rivera was arrested in a machine shop in Ciudad
Victoria in connection with the Aug 24, 2010, massacre of 72
migrants.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Mar 30, Myanmar peace
negotiators agreed the draft text of a historic nationwide ceasefire
agreement, as the country edged closer to ending decades of conflict
between ethnic minority groups and the government.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In southern Nepal
a wild rhino charged into the outskirts of Hetauda city, killing a
woman (61), injuring several others and chasing panicked people
through the main market and a hospital.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Niger militants
tried to attack the town of Bosso, just over the border with
Nigeria. Troops from Niger and Chad intervened, killing 47 militants
and destroying several of their vehicles and mortars.
(AP, 3/31/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Nigeria some
2,000 women protesting against the conduct of elections in Rivers
state were teargassed as they tried to register their complaints
with electoral officials.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In northeastern
Nigeria 8 suspected Boko Haram fighters were killed during fighting
in Gombe and Bauchi states.
(AFP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, Peru's Congress
sacked PM Ana Jara over alleged spying against lawmakers, reporters,
business leaders and other citizens.
(AFP, 3/31/15)
2015 Apr 1, In South Sudan 3
staff members of the UN World Food Program disappeared while
traveling in a convoy from Malakal to distribute food to Melut,
Upper Nile state. UN food operation in some parts of the country
were soon suspended.
(SFC, 4/23/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, Spanish police
arrested 12 people suspected of belonging to an anarchist group
called Coordinated Anarchists Groups, and were suspected of sabotage
offenses and planting explosive devices.
(AP, 3/30/15)
2015 Mar 30, In Uganda Joan
Kagezi, a prosecutor in the trial of about a dozen men facing
terrorism charges, was shot and killed in Kampala.
(SFC, 4/1/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, In Yemen warships,
believed to be from Egypt, shelled a column of Houthi fighters and
troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh as they tried to
advance on the southern port city of Aden. In the north an air
strike killed 45 people at the Al-Mazrak camp in Hajja province.
Warplanes carried out a fifth night of air strikes around Sanaa.
(Reuters, 3/30/15)(AFP, 3/30/15)
2016 Mar 30, Pres. Obama
commuted the prison sentences of 61 drug offenders including more
than a third serving life sentences.
(SFC, 3/31/16, p.A6)
2016 Mar 30, The Obama
administration announced a new partnership with 41 energy companies
that have agreed to voluntarily reduce methane emissions from
natural gas operations to help combat climate change.
(SFC, 3/31/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 30, US Deputy
Secretary of Defense Robert Work said the United States has told
China it will not recognize an exclusion zone in the South China
Sea.
(Reuters, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, A Bangladeshi
court issued arrest warrants for former PM Khaleda Zia and 27 other
opposition party leaders on accusations they instigated an arson
attack on a passenger bus during an anti-government protest last
year.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Burundi Jacques
Bihozagara, a former Rwandan ambassador to France and Belgium and an
ex-government minister, died in a jail where he was being held on
suspicion of spying, adding to cross-border tensions that have
increased dangerously in recent months. He had been held on
espionage charges since December.
(Reuters, 3/31/16)
2016 Mar 30, Central African
Republic's newly elected president Faustin Archange Touadera (58)
took the oath of office.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, The Colombian
government said it will announce the start of peace negotiations
with the country's second-biggest guerrilla group, the left-wing
ELN, broadening the push to end a half-century conflict.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, The Czech
government approved a Defense Ministry plan to send up to 35
instructors to Iraq to train pilots for Czech-made planes. The
deployment still needed approval by Parliament.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, An Egyptian court
sentenced 23 supporters of Mohamed Morsi to lengthy prison terms
over a violent protest against the Islamist president's ouster in
2013.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, President Francois
Hollande abandoned plans to strip French nationality from people
convicted of terrorism.
(Reuters, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Hungary
hundreds of teachers across the country walked out of class for one
hour, demanding changes to official policies, including cutting
bureaucratic tasks, greater choice in textbooks, more funds for
education and reducing students' mandatory school time.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In central India
Maoist rebels killed at least 7 paramilitary soldiers by blowing up
their armored vehicle in Chhattisgarh state.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Indian giant Tata
Steel put its British business up for sale, sparking calls for the
government to intervene and safeguard thousands of jobs in the
crisis-hit industry.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Italian policed
arrested a nurse (55) on suspicion of murdering 13 elderly patients
in the intensive care ward where she had worked for decades. The
alleged murders all took place in 2014 and 2015, although she had
worked there for many years prior to that.
(Reuters, 3/31/16)
2016 Mar 30, Japanese
regulators approved the use of a giant refrigeration system to
create an unprecedented underground frozen barrier around buildings
at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant in an attempt to contain
leaking radioactive water. The system was switched on the next day.
(AP, 3/30/16)(AP, 3/31/16)
2016 Mar 30, Kuwait inked a
$2.93 billion contract with three South Korean firms for the
construction of the largest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import
facility in the oil-rich country.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Libya Fayez
Serraj, the head of a UN-brokered unity government arrived in
Tripoli with six deputies to set up a temporary seat of power in a
naval base despite threats from competing factions.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Lithuania, in its
annual report the State Security Department, said Russia continues
to pose a political and military threat.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Mali Souleymane
Keita, the top jihadist leader in the south of the country, was
transferred to Bamako following his arrest a few days earlier on the
Mauritanian border.
(AFP, 3/31/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Mongolia
thousands of demonstrators criticized foreign mining concessions and
demanded action to prop up the tottering economy. More than 2,000
demonstrators in Ulaanbaatar's Freedom Square also called for
parliament to be dissolved and a new government formed over alleged
corruption.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Myanmar Htin
Kyaw, a trusted aide to ruling-party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was
sworn in along with his two vice presidents and 18 Cabinet
ministers.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Northern Ireland
police arrested a 54-year-old Belfast man on suspicion of
involvement in the Irish Republican Army killing of two plainclothes
detectives in a dockside bar on Aug 26, 1987.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Pakistan
hundreds of radical Islamists who had rallied for four days in the
heart of Islamabad ended their demonstrations hours after the
government threatened to use force to disperse them. The Islamists
were protesting last month's hanging of a policeman who had shot and
killed a secular governor over his opposition to the country's
strict blasphemy laws.
(AP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Romania Ioan
Ficior (88), head of the Periprava camp in southeast Romania between
1958 and 1963, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes
against humanity. At least 103 prisoners died at the camp,
considered one of the country's worst, while he was in command.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Russia's RIA news
reported that around 20 Islamic State followers have been arrested
in Moscow trying to recruit new fighters for the group.
(Reuters, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, Syria’s President
Bashar al-Assad said that any transitional government should include
both the regime and opposition, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged
greater efforts to tackle the country's refugee crisis.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Syria
airstrikes hit near a school and a hospital east of Damascus killing
at least 23 people. A drone strike, likely by the coalition, killed
Abu al-Haija, a Tunisian commander summoned by IS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi from Iraq.
(AP, 3/31/16)(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Mar 30, In Yemen loyalist
forces pushed Al-Qaeda out of parts of Aden in a new drive against
the jihadists where the internationally recognized government is
based.
(AFP, 3/30/16)
2017 Mar 30, SpaceX launched
its first recycled rocket. The Falcon 9 hoisted a broadcasting
satellite into the sky from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(SFC, 3/31/17, p.C2)
2017 Mar 30, In Chicago five
people were killed in separate shootings in the South Shore area. A
drive-by shooting in the same area killed another two people.
(SFC, 4/1/17, p.A7)
2017 Mar 30, In Atlanta, Ga., a
fire caused a portion of I-85 to collapse. Basil Eleby was arrested
the next day in connection with the fire.
(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.A5)
2017 Mar 30, North Carolina’s
Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill rolling back the state’s “bathroom
bill” to end a yearlong backlash over transgender rights that has
cost the state dearly in various business projects, conventions and
sport tournaments.
(SFC, 3/30/17, p.A12)
2017 Mar 30, In Argentina port
workers in Greater Rosario suspended plans for a 24-hour strike
after a truck driver ran over and killed a protester.
(Reuters, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Ethiopia's
parliament approved a four month extension of a state of emergency
that was first imposed in October to quell nearly a year of
anti-government protests.
(AFP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, The European Court
of Human Rights (ECHR) accused Greece of failing to protect migrant
workers who had been subject to "forced labor" and shot at by
security guards when they protested over unpaid wages. It ordered
Athens to pay 16,000 euros each to the workers whose case had
triggered outrage across the country.
(Reuters, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Volkswagen AG said
it has agreed to pay $157.45 million to settle environmental claims
from 10 US states over its excess diesel emissions, as the world's
largest automaker looks to move past the scandal.
(Reuters, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved a plan to create
Israel's first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in more than
20 years despite international concern over the issue. Netanyahu
also ordered limitations on settlement expansion in territory
Palestinians claim for a state.
(AFP, 3/30/17)(AP, 3/31/17)(SFC, 3/30/17, p.A2)
2017 Mar 30, Italian police
arrested three Kosovans in the lagoon city of Venice after one was
caught on a phone intercept proposing they bomb the famed Rialto
bridge while others lauded the recent attack in London. A minor was
also detained.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, A Lithuanian
university says a scholar has discovered a missing copy of the
country's 1918 Independence Act in the archives of Germany's foreign
ministry in Berlin. The document was apparently sent in 1918 to
inform Germany it could no longer control the territory that was
occupied by German Empire troops. The original was kept in Kaunas
but disappeared in 1940 when Soviet Russia occupied the country.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Malaysia said it
has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in
exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's
capital.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, In Nigeria Boko
Haram jihadists raided the village of Pulka near border with
Cameroon and kidnapped 18 girls. Jihadists outside Dumba killed a
herdsman who had tried to escape after refusing to pay protection
money. They shot dead 50 of his cattle and took four women from his
family along with the rest of his herd.
(AFP, 4/1/17)
2017 Mar 30, In Pakistan a
suspected militant killed Saleem Latif, a lawyer from the country's
minority Ahmadi sect, over blasphemy allegations. Security forces
arrested the attacker following the killing in eastern Punjab
province.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, In Paraguay the
annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) opened
in Asuncion.
(Econ, 4/8/17, p.30)
2017 Mar 30, Philippine Pres.
Rodrigo Duterte unleashed an expletive-laden tirade against the
country's leading newspaper and TV network and threatened to
humiliate them and their owners, whom he accused of distorting news
of his anti-drug crackdown.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Visa requirement
between Russia and South Africa were scrapped allowing up to 90 days
of trouble-free travel.
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.53)
2017 Mar 30, South Africa’s
President Jacob Zuma late today fired the Finance Minister Pravin
Gordhan in a Cabinet reshuffle, intensifying a rift in the party
that took power after the 1994 end of white minority rule as well as
concerns about corruption at top levels of government.
(AP, 3/31/17)
2017 Mar 30, In Syria Russian
warplanes pounded rebel-held areas north of the city of Hama in an
escalation of air strikes, as government forces fought to reverse
the insurgents' biggest assault in months.
(Reuters, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, In southern
Thailand an army ranger was found shot dead. Five gunmen opened fire
at a police station in Narathiwat province, killing a policeman and
wounding three others in the latest killings in a region troubled by
violent Muslim separatism.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Uganda’s military
said Michael Omona, a key aide to warlord Joseph Kony has,
surrendered to Ugandan forces. A day earlier the US indicated it was
pulling out of the international manhunt for one of Africa's most
notorious fugitives.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, The UN refugee
agency said the number of Syrians who have fled their country after
six years of civil war has surpassed the 5-million mark.
(AP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Venezuela's
Supreme Court took over legislative powers from the
opposition-majority National Assembly, a dramatic tightening of
leftist President Nicolas Maduro and his allies' grip amid a
devastating economic crisis.
(AFP, 3/30/17)
2017 Mar 30, Zambia’s Pres.
Edgar Lungu said a Chinese bank will help finance the construction
of 2,000 homes for local military personnel who face a critical
shortage of housing.
(Reuters, 3/30/17)
2018 Mar 30, California Gov.
Jerry Brown pardoned five ex-convicts facing deportation, including
two whose families fled the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia four
decades ago. They were among 56 pardoned by Gov. Brown.
(AP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar 30, In Kentucky
hundreds of teachers called in sick to protest last minute changes
to their pension system. The state's pension system is at least $41
billion short of the money it needs to pay retirement benefits over
the next 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/18, p.A6)
2018 Mar 30, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber killed provincial council member Shahwali Hemat in
northeast Kunar province. A second person was also killed in the
explosion and another one was wounded. A daylong gun battle in
neighboring Badakhshan province left four civilians dead and another
eight wounded.
(AP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, Bulgaria's PM
Boyko Borissov said his country, the current chair of the European
Union presidency, will not expel Russian diplomats in response to a
nerve agent attack in England that the British government has blamed
on Moscow.
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, A Chinese court
sentenced Gao Chengyong (54), dubbed the country's "Jack the
Ripper," to death for the rape and murder of 11 women and girls over
the course of 14 years (1988-2002).
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, The Czech Republic
said it has extradited Russian citizen Yevgeniy Nikulin (29) to the
US where he is accused of hacking social networks including
LinkedIn.
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, Egyptian state
media reported that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has won a second
term with 96.9 percent of valid votes, raising a previous tally from
the preliminary count. An estimate of turnout was raised to 42.08
percent.
(AFP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, In southern France
a gunman shot and gravely wounded exiled Azeri journalist Rahim
Namazov and killed his wife near Toulouse. Namazov was an outspoken
critic of the Azeri political leadership and served time in prison
before seeking exile in France in 2010.
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, Air France staff
went on strike for the third time in a month, forcing the airline to
cancel a quarter of flights. Lawyers were also set to strike
nationwide against reforms that they say will over-centralize
France's court system.
(AFP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, A Greek lawyer
representing Maria Efimova, a Russian woman who blew the whistle on
alleged wrongdoing at Malta-based Pilatus Bank, said his client
fears for her life if she is extradited to Malta. Efimova was
identified by slain investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
as one of her sources. Galizia, killed in a car-bomb attack in Oct.
2017, had reported that the Maltese prime minister's wife was the
ultimate beneficiary of funds in a secret company in Panama,
including funds from Azerbaijan transferred through Pilatus Bank.
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, In Greece a man
(58), his daughter (23) and an unnamed accomplice were arrested late
today over the abduction of a man (47) and his sister (48), the
older suspect's cousins, beginning July 27 in the city of Serres.
The brother and sister, described as "cognitively impaired," were
held prisoner for over eight months near Thessaloniki and forced,
under threats of violence, to transfer large amounts to their
captors' bank accounts.
(AP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar 30, Irish pubs in
Ireland opened on Good Friday for the first time since a 1927 ban.
(SFC, 3/31/18, p.A2)
2018 Mar 30, Japan's SoftBank
Group Corp, in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange, agreed to
launch a $930 million Indian joint solar energy venture with Chinese
firm GCL System Integration Technology Co as part of its India solar
investment roadmap.
(Reuters, 4/2/18)
2018 Mar 30, Kosovo's PM Ramush
Haradinaj said he has fired his interior minister and the
intelligence chief for deporting six Turks without his permission.
(AP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, In northeastern
Nigeria four teenage girl suicide bombers killed two people in
multiple attacks in Maiduguri.
(AFP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar 30, International
Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach met with Kim Jong Un in
Pyongyang and said the North Korean leader is committed to having
his country participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the
Beijing Winter Games in 2022.
(AP, 3/31/18)
2018 Mar 30, Clashes erupted as
tens of thousands of Gazans marched near the Israeli border, leaving
at least 15 Palestinians dead and many more wounded in one of the
worst days of violence in recent years. Protesters were demanding
hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled or were
expelled during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948 be
allowed to return. Organizers said the six-week protest would run
until the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem around May
14.
(AFP, 3/30/18)(Reuters, 3/30/18)(Reuters,
3/31/18)
2018 Mar 30, In the Philippines
seven Roman Catholic devotees, including a woman, were nailed to
wooden crosses in a Good Friday reenactment of Jesus Christ's
suffering that was watched by thousands of spectators but frowned
upon by church leaders.
(AP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, Russia ordered new
cuts to the number of British envoys in the country, escalating a
dispute with the West over the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain.
Scores of foreign ambassadors streamed into the Russian Foreign
Ministry in Moscow to receive the notices given to 23 nations:
Albania, Australia, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Romania, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine.
(AP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, In Scotland Drue
Heinz (103), widow of the former head of the H.J. Heinz Co. and a
longtime patron of the literary arts, died in Lasswade.
(AP, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, A court in Senegal
sentenced opposition leader Khalifa Sall, a former mayor of the
capital Dakar, to five years in prison for embezzlement and
falsifying documents. Sall was arrested a year ago on suspicion of
embezzling 1.8 billion CFA francs ($3.40 million).
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, In western
Thailand a fire on a double-decker bus carrying migrant workers from
Myanmar killed 20 people early today in Tak province.
(AP, 3/30/18)(SFC, 3/31/18, p.A4)
2018 Mar 30, President Tayyip
Erdogan said Turkey has started preparations to clear northern
Syria's Ayn al-Arab, Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad regions from militants
up to the Iraqi border, adding that it would also clear militants
from Iraq.
(Reuters, 3/30/18)
2018 Mar 30, The UN Security
Council annnounced a new package of sanctions that targeted
smuggling at sea by North Korea. The UN blacklisted 27 ships, 21
shipping companies and one individual accused of helping North Korea
evade previous sanctions. The ships included five based in China, 15
North Korean ships and 12 non-North Korean ships.
(AP, 3/31/18)(SSFC, 4/1/18, p.A4)(Reuters,
4/3/18)
2019 Mar 30, Cities around the
world marked Earth Hour this night by turning off the lights in a
call for global action on climate change. Beginning in Sydney in
2007, Earth Hour has spread to more than 180 countries, with tens of
millions of people joining in. The UN headquarters in New York, the
pyramids of Egypt and Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue were among
top world monuments plunged into darkness for an hour to put the
spotlight on climate change and its impact on the planet.
(AP, 3/30/19)(AFP, 3/31/19)
2019 Mar 30, The US government
cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after President
Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending
migrants to the United States and threatened to shutter the
US-Mexico border.
(Reuters, 3/31/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Florida Yujing
Zhang (32), a Chinese woman, was held on charges of illegal entering
and lying to US agents. Court documents later alleged she told a
Secret Service agent she was a Mar-a-Lago member there to use the
pool.
(AP, 4/4/19)
2019 Mar 30, Illinois state
Trooper Gerald Ellis (36) was killed when a wrong-way vehicle struck
his squad car in Green Oaks. The driver of the other vehicle was
also killed.
(SSFC, 3/31/19, p.A7)
2019 Mar 30, Billy Adams (79),
Hall of Fame pioneer of rockabilly music, died in Westmoreland,
Tenn. His hits included "Rock, Pretty Mama" (1957).
(SFC, 4/4/19, p.C4)
2019 Mar 30, An Afghan
government official said flash floods have killed at least 32 people
across seven western provinces, destroyed homes and swept through
makeshift shelters that housed displaced families.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Afghanistan a
Taliban assault on a police checkpoint led to the deaths of four
students in eastern Ghazni province. 17 others, including 15
students and two teachers, were wounded when an explosion, likely
caused by rocket fire, hit the school in Andar district. Vice
president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum escaped unharmed after Taliban
ambushed his convoy while traveling form northern Balkh to
neighboring Zawzjan province. A security guard in the convoy was
killed, and two others wounded in the attack.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Australia two
Japanese teenagers were found dead in Lake McKenzie after being
reported missing from a school tour.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, China's Customs
Administration confiscated nearly 7.5 tons (6,803 kg) of ivory.
Since the start of the year, customs officers have seized a total of
8.5 tons (7,711 kg) of ivory products through 53 investigations.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 Mar 30, Egypt President
Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said he has raised the minimum wage to 2,000
Egyptian pounds ($115.74) per month from 1,200 ($69.27).
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, An Egyptian court
sentenced 18 suspected militants to life in prison for allegedly
forming a "terrorist cell" affiliated with the Islamic State group.
The Cairo criminal court sentenced another 12 defendants to 10 to 15
years on charges that include plotting attacks on the country's
Christian minority in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, French "yellow
vests" demonstrators staged their 20th week of anti-government
protests despite bans in hotspot areas, as banks called for an end
to violence against branches, cash machines and personnel.
(AFP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Authorities in
Iran worked to evacuate villages threatened by flooding in
southwestern areas as forecasters predicted more of the heavy rains
that have killed at least 45 people this week.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Israeli troops
shot and killed a Palestinian man near the perimeter fence early
today hours before a planned mass rally. Tens of thousands of
Palestinians rallied in heavy rain at the Israel-Gaza border to mark
the first anniversary of a new wave of protests, facing off against
Israeli tanks and troops massed on the fortified frontier. Four
Palestinians were killed at the Israel-Gaza border on the first
anniversary of the 'Great March of Return' demonstrations.
(AP, 3/30/19)(Reuters, 3/30/19)(Reuters, 3/31/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Italy the
US-based International Organization for the Family began a 2-day
congress in Verona. The organization defines family as strictly
centering around a mother and father. A coalition of civic groups
mobilized against what they see as a counter-reform movement to
limit LGBT and women's rights.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Mozambique
authorities said cholera cases among cyclone survivors have jumped
to 271, a figure that nearly doubled from the previous day.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Nicaragua at
least four people were hurt and 10 detained during a demonstration
calling for the release of prisoners, a day after President Daniel
Ortega's government and the opposition reached an agreement to
restore protest and press freedom rights while disarming
paramilitaries.
(AFP, 3/31/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Pakistan a bus
hit a rickshaw killing six schoolgirls and driver in the eastern
Bhakkar district of Lahore.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Pakistani
journalist Matloob Musavi was forcibly taken by masked men in
private and police vehicles in Karachi.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Philippine police
killed 14 suspected communist rebels after they opened fire during
raids in a central province. Rights groups countered that the men
were farmers and the latest victims of extrajudicial killings.
(AP, 3/31/19)
2019 Mar 30, Slovakia voted in
an election dominated by calls for change, with anti-corruption
activist Zuzana Caputova likely to be chosen as its first female
president a year after a journalist's murder sparked mass
anti-government protests.
(AFP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Spain police in
Barcelona arrested seven people during clashes with radical Catalan
separatists protesting against a political rally by Vox, a new
far-right party.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Thailand's King
Maha Vajiralongkorn revoked royal decorations that had been awarded
to ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a document
published in the royal gazette. The royal command was for Thaksin's
2008 corruption conviction and for fleeing the country to escape a
two-year prison sentence.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, In Turkey the
pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, said in a statement
that 53 people were detained in Istanbul overnight in the lead-up to
the March 31 municipal elections.
(AP, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, United Nations
officials said at least 746 people have been reported killed in
Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe since Cyclone Idai landed on March
14.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
2019 Mar 30, Pope Francis
started a two-day visit to Morocco. He said that problems of
migration would never be resolved by physical barriers but instead
required social justice and correcting the world's economic
imbalances. He also backed Moroccan King Mohammed VI's efforts to
spread a moderate form of Islam that promotes inter-religious
dialogue and rejects any form of terrorism or violence in God's
name.
(Reuters, 3/30/19)
