Portal:Current events/2010 March 23

March 23, 2010 (Tuesday)

A fire tears through a combined residential and office building in Calcutta, India, killing 24 people, including two who leapt to their deaths. (Sky) (LBS)
United States issues new warnings of Al-Qaeda threat to attack ships off coast of Yemen (Yahoo News)
5,000 people at a rally in the town of Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir vow to wage a holy war to "liberate" the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir from India on 70th anniversary of resolution to seek independence separately from India (Reuters India)

Middle East:
- Five people are injured by shell fragments resulting from Israeli air raids on a building in the Gaza Strip, in response to ten rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip since Thursday. (Haaretz) (Al Jazeera)
- An Israeli soldier (tank crew member) dies due to "friendly fire" aimed at three people thought to be infiltrating a border fence, who turned out to be Palestinian civilians crossing the border in search of employment. (euronews) (BBC) (The New York Times)
- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tells a lobby group in Washington, D.C., United States, that "Jerusalem is not a settlement" and that Israel has a "right" to build there. (The Jerusalem Post) (Al Jazeera)
- The United Kingdom announces it is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of twelve cloned British passports in the assassination of senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (BBC) (Haaretz) (Voice of America) (Al Jazeera)
- British MP George Galloway announces the foundation of the first annual University of Palestine in Lebanon. (The Daily Star)
Irish cabinet reshuffle:
- Taoiseach Brian Cowen reshuffles his cabinet. (RTÉ) (BBC) (TV3) (The Irish Times)
- Cowen also re-assigns responsibilities between government departments and changes the titles of some departments. (The Irish Times)
- Tony Killeen is appointed Minister for Defence following Willie O'Dea's resignation last month. (The Clare Herald)^{[permanent dead link]} (The Clare People) (Limerick Leader)^{[permanent dead link]}
- An extra ministerial role is given to the Green Party, a member of the government coalition. (Taiwan News)
- Brian Lenihan, Jr. retains his role as Minister for Finance in spite of recent health problems. (Reuters)
- The Opposition reacts negatively to the changes, calling it "a game of musical chairs". (The Press Association) (Irish Examiner)
Nigerian cabinet reshuffle: Acting President Goodluck Jonathan picks new ministers after firing all members of his cabinet last week. (BBC)
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir threatens to expel international observers for the first general elections in the country in 21 years, after they called for a delay to deal with "logistical" problems. (The Guardian) (Al Jazeera)
Libya releases 214 Islamist inmates in what is described as "a historic event". (BBC)
88-year-old Heinrich Boere, a former member of the Nazi SS, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1944 murder of three Dutch civilians after six decades of legal wrangling. (BBC) (RTÉ) (The Times)
Four German pensioners aged 61 to 80 are found guilty of kidnapping their own financial adviser from his home and driving him 450km (280 miles) to southern Bavaria, with the ringleader and his accomplice being jailed. (BBC)
United States President Barack Obama signs the health care reform bill into law. (BBC) (New York Times) (IOL)
A man in Nanping, China, stabs and kills eight children, and wounds another five at an elementary school. (BBC) (The Times) (China Daily)
China says Google is "totally wrong" to stop censoring its search results. (China Daily) (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
A Turkish ship is hijacked by Somali pirates more than 1,000 miles away from the coast of Somalia and closer to India. (BBC) (Xinhua) (AP)
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is shown on its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California, United States. (Xinhua)
Burma's High Court refuses to accept a lawsuit by the National League for Democracy against the ruling State Peace and Development Council for what they allege are unfair and discriminatory election laws. (AP) (Al Jazeera)
Zimbabwe's finance minister Tendai Biti is involved in a car crash. (BBC)