| - The shortest living person, He Pingping, dies in Rome due to unknown complications at the age of 22. (BBC)
- Catholic sex abuse cases:
- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu launches an inquiry into how plans for hundreds of new homes in East Jerusalem were announced.(Al Jazeera)
- The Georgian television station Imedi sparks panic throughout Georgia by broadcasting a fake news item about a supposed invasion of Russian troops and the murder of President Mikheil Saakashvili. (RIA Novosti)
- New Zealander Peter Bethune, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who captained the Ady Gil when it crashed with the MV Shonan Maru 2 and sank, encounters coastguards, police and protesters as he arrives on the Japanese mainland. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Fighting in Somalia's capital Mogadishu has killed 60 people since March 10. (Reuters)
- Afghanistan:
- At least 6 people, including three security personnel, die and more than 16 others are wounded after a suicide bomber tries to enter a government building, is stopped by police and detonates himself in Swat, Pakistan. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Reuters)
- Association Mutual Aid and Solidarity AF447 seeks equal compensation for Air France Flight 447's French familes after Brazilian judge Mauro Nicolau Junior awards NZ$1.6 million for dead state prosecutor Marcelle Valpacos Fonseca; French insurer Axa will appeal. (The New Zealand Herald) (Reuters)
- Peruvian President Alan García orders funding for a Tsunami-warning system. (The New Zealand Herald)
- Taoiseach Brian Cowen begins his state visit to the United States in Chicago, announcing to the world his scheme that will allow senior citizen tourists aged 66 and above to travel free on Iarnród Éireann in the Republic of Ireland. (RTÉ) (Chicago Sun-Times) (The Times of India)
- Sport:
- 450,000 are left without power in the Northeastern United States as high winds topple power lines and trees. A crane collapses at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, injuring one. (New York Times) (Press of Atlantic City)
- U.S. President Barack Obama proposes sweeping changes to education law which would rework the No Child Left Behind program. (New York Times)
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| - The 2010 Indian Premier League starts under "heavy security" in DY Patil Stadium Navi Mumbai. (BBC) (The Guardian)
- Madagascar's disaster officials say at least 14 people have died and 32,000 have been affected by Tropical Storm Hubert. (Miami Herald) (AJC)
- Nine suicide bombing attacks on the Pakistani military kill more than 350 people in Lahore. (ABC News)
- Middle East:
- Pope Benedict XVI is "distraught" by news alleged of child Sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses in Germany, according to Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, as the church also faces paedophilia scandals in Ireland, Austria, and the Netherlands, while Pope Benedict defends clerical Celibacy, calling it a symbol of "full devotion" and of "giving oneself to God and to others." (BBC) (AFP) (The New York Times) (RAINews24) (CNN)
- Karl Rove appears on British television to promote Waterboarding and speaks of his pride that "we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists", saying these techniques were "appropriate". (BBC) (The Hindu) (RTÉ) (The Guardian)
- The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) alleges the Egyptian interior ministry manipulated the legal system to target blogger Wael Abbas who posted videos of police corruption and abuse online and has been jailed for six months for "providing a telecommunications service to the public without permission". (BBC)
- Irish authorities release three of the seven Muslims they detained over an alleged plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. Vilks says he has not been put off the idea of visiting Ireland by the threat. (BBC) (RTÉ) (Irish Independent)
- Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor instructs residents to leave the war zones of Mogadishu after at least 50 of them are killed in three days of violence. (BBC)
- Security is increased in Bangkok, Thailand, ahead of anti-government protesters by the "red shirts" over the coming days. (Thai News Agency) (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
- The United Nations Special Rapporteur to Burma Tomas Quintana calls for investigations into War crimes and Crimes against humanity perpetrated against Burmese civilians. (AFP) (DailyIndia.com)
- Darfur peace talks are threatened by new violence as Sudanese army steps up military operations against a major Darfur rebel faction. (Voice of America)
- Russia signs a nuclear reactor deal with India which will see it build 16 nuclear reactors in India. (BBC)
- Taoiseach Brian Cowen departs for the United States ahead of his Saint Patrick's Day engagements with President Barack Obama. (RTÉ) (ABC News) (The Washington Post) (The Irish Times)
- Eleven rare Siberian tigers—of which only an estimated 300 remain in the wild—die of Malnutrition after living in little cages and eating chicken bones at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in Liaoning. (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Times)
- American photographer Jill Sonsteby from Jacksonville, Florida captures a Zebra putting its head inside the mouth of a Hippopotamus and surviving at Zürich Zoologischer Garten. (BBC)
- Margaret Thatcher, in a rare moment of publicity since her withdrawal from public life, puts her weight and "heavy heart" behind a campaign by Combat Stress for the mental health of ex-servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Sahil Saeed's father returns to the United Kingdom from Pakistan to work with police there on his son's case. (Sky News)
- The award-winning Hardcore porn director Anna Arrowsmith is selected as a Liberal Democrat candidate for Gravesham in Kent to fight the 2010 general election. (Sky News) (Mirror) (BBC) (The Times) (The Guardian) (Mail Online) (Belfast Telegraph) (Argus) (New Kerala)
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| - The Kyzyl-Agash dam in Kazakhstan bursts, killing at least 35.(AFP)
- Two children are prevented by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver from enrolling in a Catholic school in Boulder, Colorado, United States because their parents are Lesbians. (The Straits Times)
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) intervenes after a school in Mississippi bans Same-sex relationships and cancels its prom (leavers' dinner) due to the desire of a female student to bring her girlfriend and wear a Tuxedo, while one of her teachers tells her "she had to remember where she was". (BBC) (CNN)
- Israeli authorities plan thousands more homes in settlements in East Jerusalem since Palestinian leaders terminated talks earlier this week due to this issue. (The Guardian)
- Israel apologises for the timing of the announcement during a visit by the Vice President of the United States, calling it a "grave error", a "mistake" and a "failure" and promising it would not happen again. (Gulfnews)
- British freelance journalist Paul Martin, the first Western journalist to be arrested by Hamas, is released but deported after no evidence is found to convict him of a crime in court. (The Times) (CBC)
- More than 30,000 Greek workers stage their third general strike against the government. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (RTÉ)
- Hundreds of angry women dressed in black march though the streets of Abuja and Jos following the recent massacre in Nigeria. (BBC)
- More than 20 civilians die during the second day of conflict between Somali government troops and opposition forces in Mogadishu. (Al Jazeera)
- The Gambia arrests people, including former fisheries minister Antouman Saho, without telling them why. (BBC)
- Former President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Ejup Ganić is released on Bail on "stringent" conditions by the British High Court. (Al Jazeera)
- As Sebastián Piñera is inaugurated as the new President of Chile, new aftershocks of the February earthquake—6.9 and 6.7 magnitude—strike 140 kilometres (87 mi) south of Valparaíso. (BBC) (MercoPress)
- Afghanistan: Five civilians, including four children, die in an explosion, while two construction contractors, including one from South Africa, are shot dead. (Reuters)
- Turkey recalls its ambassador to Sweden and cancels the Turkey - Sweden summit planned for March 17 after the Riksdag votes in favour of calling the Armenian Genocide a Genocide. (Armenian Weekly) (Deutsche Welle) (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) (RTÉ) (Reuters)
- Sahil Saeed is "found" in Pakistan. (The Daily Telegraph)
- Ivory Coast and Chelsea F.C. striker Didier Drogba is named African Footballer of the Year. (BBC)
- The Duke of Edinburgh, on a trip to Exeter, Devon with Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, asks a female Sea cadet if she works at a Strip club before concluding that it is "probably too cold for that anyway". (The Daily Telegraph) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Pink Floyd win their court battle with EMI, paving the way for individual tracks of their music to be removed from online music services. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Guardian)
|
| - Interreligious riots in Jos, Nigeria:
- Britain, France and the EU support U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's condemnation of Israeli expansion of settlements in occupied territory. (BBC)
- Burma's newly announced second law relating to the 2010 general election bars anyone with a criminal conviction from participating in a political party, effectively barring Aung San Suu Kyi. (Al Jazeera) (Straits Times) (CNN)
- Three men are detained in relation to the theft of the corpse of former Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos. (BBC)
- Australia and Indonesia sign an agreement to combat People smuggling. (news.com.au)
- Dulmatin, the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings, is confirmed dead in a police raid in Pamulang, Jakarta, by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a state visit in Australia. (ANTARA News) (CNN) (BBC)
- Aid worker Alicia Gamez, captured in Mauritania in 2009 by a group affiliated with Al Qaeda and taken to Mali, is released. (BBC) (IOL) (Houston Chronicle) (CNN)
- Boris Berezovsky is awarded £150,000 in England's High Court and wins his libel case in relation to the 2006 poisoning to death of Alexander Litvinenko. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (Sky News)
- A man wrongly accused of being child murderer Jon Venables goes into hiding after becoming the target of a hate campaign on the internet. (The Daily Telegraph)
- The birth of a live elephant at Taronga Zoo is hailed as a "miracle" that will "completely rewrite the elephant birth textbooks" after he was thought to have died inside his mother's womb. (BBC)
- Forbes magazine publishes its 2010 list of of billionaires, replacing Bill Gates with Carlos Slim as the world's wealthiest person. (Forbes)
|
| - The United States Department of State issues an apology for Department spokesman P.J. Crowley's personal comments, which described Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's comments on the Minaret controversy in Switzerland as "lots of words, not necessarily a lot of sense". (BBC)
- Roman Catholic child sexual abuse investigation: The Dutch Catholic Church apologises and the country's religious leaders request an independent inquiry. A monastery head in Salzburg admits abuse of a boy more than four decades ago. The brother of Pope Benedict XVI admits physically disciplining students at a school in Germany before corporal punishment was banned in 1980. (BBC)
- Prince Ernst August of Hanover, husband of Caroline, Princess of Hanover, is fined €200,000 by a court in Hildesheim for assaulting a hotelier on Lamu Island in 2000. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (IOL) (ABC News)
- The first witnesses appear before the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (RNZI) (Solomon Times)
- A Uyghur man is sentenced to 16 months imprisonment for spying on a Uyghur community in Sweden and passing information to China. (Malaysia Star) (Press Trust of India) (BBC)
- Seven people are arrested in Ireland — five in Waterford and two in Cork — over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish artist Lars Vilks. (RTÉ) (BBC) (CNN)
- 186 members of the 245-seat Rajya Sabha of the Sansad in India vote in favour of a bill giving one third of available seats in the national parliament and state legislatures to women. One member votes against, several parties boycott the vote and seven MPs are suspended after expressing their disagreement. (BBC) (Times of India) (CNN)
- The Northern Ireland Assembly votes — 88 votes in favour to 17 Ulster Unionist Party against — in favour of the devolution of justice. (BBC) (RTÉ)
- Israel grants permission to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton to visit Gaza after denying permission to other international politicians. (RTÉ)
- Israel approves the construction of 1,600 new houses, a central park and other facilities near the Orthodox Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem. (Ha'aretz) (BBC) (The Irish Times)
- The Christian Association of Nigeria says the Nigerian Army ignored warnings before the recent massacre of civilians near Jos. (BBC) (Afrik.com)
- Following several decades of "official denial", Japan confirms it permitted nuclear-armed United States vessels to pass through its ports using its Cold War "secret treaties". (BBC) (The New York Times) (The Washington Post) (People's Daily Online) (Japan Today)
- A national strike by taxi drivers causes disruption across Ireland, stopping work at the country's three main airports, closing Dublin's O'Connell Street completely and blocking other streets as the High Court orders protesters to leave their sit-in at Commission for Taxi Regulation headquarters. (RTÉ) (The Irish Times) (Ireland Online)
- The first use of a Biocontrol agent against a weed in the European Union is approved — the Japanese insect Aphalara itadori will be released at trial sites in England to combat invasive Japanese knotweed. (BBC)
- Burma's military junta announces the first law relating to the 2010 general election, concerning the election commission. (Bangkok Post) (The Times) (Al Jazeera)
- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrives in Canberra for his "symbolic" three-day visit to Australia. (ABC News) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (The Australian) (The Age)
- First President of Rwanda Dominique Mbonyumutwa's son objects to the removal of his father's corpse from the Democracy Stadium in Gitarama, saying it defies a court ruling. (BBC)
- Dublin's Tallaght Hospital blames "systemic and process failures" for more than 57,000 X-rays taken between 2005 and 2009 not being reviewed by medical professionals and admits at least two patients received incorrect treatment, one of whom has since died and the other who is receiving cancer treatment. (RTÉ) (The Irish Times) (Ireland Online)
- Sir Nicholas Winton and Denis Avey are presented with the new British Hero of the Holocaust medal by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (Daily Telegraph)
- Pink Floyd take legal action against EMI. (BBC) (Boston Globe) (ABC News)
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