Russian Parliament for approval to use armed forces in Ukraine. He receives unanimous support. The Council also demands for President Putin to recall the Russian Federation ambassador to the United States. (RT)(CNN)(BBC News)(Associated Press)
US President Barack Obama warns Russia, saying that any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be "deeply destabilizing," and that "the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine." (CNN)
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province kills at least ten people. (BBC News)
The Pakistan Taliban announces a one-month ceasefire aimed at reviving peace talks. (Reuters)
Kunming station massacre
A group of knife-wielding terrorist suspects attacks people at the
Kunming Railway Station in the city of Kunming in Yunnan province, south-western China. At least 29 people are killed and 130 others injured. (xinhuanet.com)(BBC News)
Arts and culture
An entry on the documentary film Fuck causes offence after the Wikipedia website features it prominently on its home page. (The Houstonian)
Proposals to change the automatic trade union affiliation with the UK Labour Party are passed at a special party conference vote by 86% to 14%. (BBC News)
Alabama's oldest hotel, the Mentone Springs Hotel - built in 1884 and listed on the register of historical places - burns to the ground. (Chattanoogan)
Ukrainian frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy reportedly confirms that the ship never defected to Russia as reported in Russian media. (Ministry of Defence of Ukraine)
The Lithuanian and Polish presidents call for NATO treaty Article 4 consultations on the basis that Russia is executing military maneuvers in Kaliningrad, close to the borders with Lithuania and Poland. (Lithuania Tribune)
RTÉ, the Irish national broadcast service, is jammed inexplicably with strange and repetitive messages, provoking confusion and debate. (Independent)
Business and Economy
People's Republic of China to impose limiting conditions on a proposed merger of Microsoft and Nokia. (Bloomberg)
Microsoft founder Bill Gates regains the top spot as the world's richest person, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of global billionaires. (BBC News)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a press conference, saying that “force isn’t needed right now” after deploying roughly 16,000 troops to Crimea. (Reuters)
Russia's UN ambassador says to the UN Security Council that Ukraine's fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych requested Russian soldiers in the strategic Crimea region "to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order," contradicting the president's own comments last week. (Times of India)
Vladimir Putin orders troops near the Ukraine border to return to their bases with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the military exercises a "success". (Telegraph)
A New Yorkgold and gold futures trader files a lawsuit against the international banks involved in the twice-daily teleconferences that set the price of that metal. (Reuters)
Italy releases 2m euros to save the ancient city of Pompeii after flooding causes walls to collapse. (BBC News)
Law and crime
A New Jersey judge has ruled that the parents of their 18-year-old daughter do not have to pay for her college education after the teen filed a lawsuit against them seeking support and alleging abuse. (CBS)
UN Envoy Robert Serry is ordered to leave Crimea at gunpoint after being threatened by 10–15 armed men. (AP)
Saying she cannot be part of a network that "whitewashes the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin", Washington-based anchor Liz Wahl resigns on-air from the Russian government-backed news channel RT. (The Guardian)(CNN)
Sarbanes-Oxley to protect the employees of privately owned companies that contract with public companies, in a case involving a group of mutual fund entities. (SCOTUSBlog)
Two members of the protest band Pussy Riot are left with chemical burns and head injuries after being attacked by a group of people in a McDonald's. (AFP via Google News)
A statue of Iset, daughter of King Amenhotep III who was the grandfather of Tutankhamun and ruler of Ancient Egypt around 3,350 years ago, has been unearthed by a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists. The statue, which depicts Iset alone without her father, is the first of its kind ever discovered. (GMA News)
Business and economy
Staples Inc. plans to close 225 store locations and cut $500 million from its budget, citing low sales and internet competition. (Boston Globe)
The Ministry of Transport of Vietnam orders local airports and airlines to tighten their security, after the Malaysian plane vanished, on the first level of a three-level security alert system. (Thanh Nien News)
Irish fruit firm Fyffes and U.S. rival Chiquita agree to combine, creating the world's largest banana company in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.07 billion. (BBC News)
threshold of votes political parties need in elections to gain representation in the Knesset from 2 to 3.25% is passed unanimously as the entire opposition boycotts the vote. (Al Jazeera)
International Charter on Space and Major Disasters meaning international space agencies join an "unprecedented" search for the Malaysian airliner which disappeared over an ocean Saturday. (Al Jazeera)
A crowdsourcing search effort after the vanished airliner finds a silhouette in the water of similar size and shape to the lost plane. Also, a Chinese satellite sights sizable pieces of debris. (CNN)(news.com.au)
Fiji's Health Department confirms that eleven people have died and over 10,000 people have been infected in an outbreak of the type three strain of dengue fever. (ABC Online)
An executive board member of the European Central Bank, Benoît Cœuré, says that the ECB is determined to secure the continued decline in real interest rates in the months ahead. (Reuters)
Rescue crew continue to search for victims in the explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem, which killed 8 and injured more than 70. (NBC)
Voters go to the polls in Slovakia with partial results showing that Prime MinisterRobert Fico and businessman-turned philanthropist Andrej Kiska are likely to be the two contenders in the second round. (AP)
The Israeli Air Force launches several air strikes on Syrian military sites, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding seven others, in retaliation for a bombing that wounded four of its troops in the Golan Heights. (BBC News)
Toyota is ordered to pay $1.2 billion to settle charges that it lied to United States safety investigators and the public about deadly accelerator defects. (AFP via Google News)
2014 Kabul Serena Hotel attack: Four suspected Taliban members attack the luxurious Kabul Serena Hotel, killing at least nine people, including four foreigners. (Yahoo! News)
Suicide bombers attack a police station in the city of Jalalabad resulting in at least 11 deaths and 22 people being injured. (Reuters)
Gunmen attack a police headquarters north of Baghdad and suicide bombers strike across Iraq killing 25 people and injuring dozens. (AP via Washington Post)
Clashes erupt in Tripoli, Lebanon, between Syrian regime supporters and detractors, leaving three dead. (Time)
A barge carrying nearly a million gallons of oil collides with a ship in Galveston Bay on the coast of the US state of Texas causing an oil spill. (AP)
Eighteen people are still missing after a landslide Saturday in Oso, Snohomish County, in America's Washington state that has claimed at least three lives. (Yahoo! News)
Olexander Turchynov orders Ukrainian forces to withdraw from Crimea. (BBC News)
40th G8 summit scheduled to be held in the Russian city of Sochi will not take place because of Russia's actions in Crimea. (BBC News)
Law and crime
Post-coup unrest in Egypt
:
A court in
Mohammed Morsi to death for a range of offenses including murdering a policeman and attacks on people and property. It is the largest mass death sentence handed down in recent history anywhere in the world. (BBC)(The Independent)
A Chinese court jails a man for 18 months after he applied for permission to protest on the anniversary of the
The U.S. District Court in Manhattan finds that the trustee of MF Global may proceed with a lawsuit against former executives thereof, including former CEO Jon Corzine. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
A bus in
Tak Province, Thailand, plunges into a ravine, killing 30 people and injuring 22. (BBC News)
2014 Oso mudslide
:
The death toll has risen to 16 with an additional 8 bodies located and scores missing. (AP via Washington Post)
Health
The
World Health Organisation estimates that air pollution contributed to seven million deaths in 2012. (The Telegraph)
Law and crime
Garda phone tapping scandal
:
parliamentary committee. Callinan had also been involved in controversy over the recent surveillance/bugging of GSOC. (BBC)(The Journal)
As Callinan goes, details emerge that the national police have been involved in phone tapping since the 1980s: the Irish Government establishes an inquiry into the matter. (BBC)
A former Garda is found to have perverted the course of justice on two occasions and admits having cocaine for sale or supply. (RTÉ News)
A letter titled "Recordings of Telephone Conversations made and retained in Garda Stations" is leaked revealing that Callinan mentioned the telephone tapping to the Department of Justice more than two weeks ago and that the Attorney General knew on 11 November 2013. (The Journal)
The Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson confirms that British law enforcement agencies have threatened to close the newspaper over its role in publishing global surveillance information obtained from U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden. (The Irish Times)
Garda phone tapping scandal in the Republic of Ireland
:
Alan Shatter fights for his political survival in front of the Republic's parliament when he faces questions about yesterday's revelations of decades-long nationwide bugging. (The Guardian)
Justice minister Alan Shatter corrects the parliamentary record, admitting he was wrong to insult whistleblowers. (The Journal)
The trial of two men suspected of IRA membership collapses, the first court case to be averted by this week's events in the Republic. (Irish Independent)
Transport minister Leo Varadkar, whose remarks against his colleague Shatter directly preceded this week's events, speaks out, confirming he has "difficulty getting [his] head around it at the moment". (The Journal)
A Turkish court lifts the ban on Twitter imposed by the government after a user spread allegations of corruption. (BBC News)
Moscow-based aluminum producer, is right in its objections to new rules proposed by London Metal Exchange concerning the use of LME controlled warehouses. (Bloomberg)
Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest serving death row inmate, is freed from a Japanese prison and granted a retrial after serving 48 years. (Washington Post)
It is announced publicly that, three months ago, doctors at the
Utrecht, Netherlands, successfully implanted a 3-D printed skull (most of it), from Australian company Anatomics, in a medical first, into an unnamed female patient. (NBC)
The journal Science publishes that an international team of scientists have for the first time successfully replaced one of the sixteen chromosomes of the genome of a yeast cell with a synthetic DNA chromosome. (BBC News)
A study finds that Cuvier's beaked whale is capable of diving to a depth of 3.2km and staying under water for 137 minutes, both records for a mammal. (News.com.au)
South Korea sends the remains of 437 Chinese soldiers that fought during the Korean War back to be buried in China as a gesture of friendship and healing between the two countries. (Yonhap News Agency)
rising tensions between the two neighboring countries. (CNN)
A suicide bomber kills three soldiers at a Lebanese army checkpoint in the border town of Arsal close to the Syrian border. (Time), (Reuters)
International relations
2014 Crimean crisis
:
Foreign Minister of Russia, says that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine. (Reuters)
Law and crime
The first same-sex marriages take place in the United Kingdom after they were given the legal authority to proceed in England and Wales from midnight UTC. (BBC News)
