Portal:Current events/2008 March 17

March 17, 2008 (Monday)

2008 United States presidential election:
- The Florida Democratic Party abandons plans to redo the Florida Democratic primary, 2008 using mail-in ballots. (AP via Google News)^{[permanent dead link]}
- Barack Obama gives a major speech addressing race and racial divisions in Philadelphia. (The New York Times)
UNMIK and NATO KFOR forces clashed with Serb protesters in North Kosovo resulting in over 150 wounded after arresting Serb lawyers and court officials who had taken control of a UN court. The clashes are part of ongoing unrest following Kosovo's declaration of independence. (BBC News)
A container ship pilot whose ship hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge resulting in an oil spill is charged with breaking United States pollution laws. (Reuters)
Subprime mortgage crisis:
- World stock markets decline sharply after the proposed sale of investment bank Bear Stearns to rival JPMorgan Chase. (BBC News)
- The United States dollar reaches a new record low against the euro, while petroleum price climbs to a new high. (BBC News)
- German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG issues a profit warning, and its shares fall by more than 10%. (BBC News)
- The price of gold rises above the £500 per troy ounce mark (£508.445/$1023.50/€649.511) for the first time in the a.m. London Gold Fixing. (LBMA)
- The price of gold reaches a record intraday high of 1034 US dollars per troy ounce. Stockcharts.com
2008 unrest in Tibet:
- Chinese security forces round up Tibetan dissidents in Lhasa. Qiangba Puncog, Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, says the official death toll from the unrest is 13 and calm is returning to the city. (BBC News)
- Indian politicians, including Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, express concern over the Chinese response to Tibetan protests. (BBC News)
2008 National People's Congress: Li Keqiang, Hui Liangyu, Zhang Dejiang, and Wang Qishan are approved by the National People's Congress as the new Vice-Premiers of the State Council. (People's Daily)
Iraq War:
- United States Vice President Dick Cheney visits Baghdad, three days before the fifth anniversary of the 2003 invasion. (BBC News).
- A suicide bomber kills at least 32 people and injures at least 50 near the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala. (BBC News)
Pakistan:
- The new Parliament convenes for the first time after the 2008 general election. (BBC News)
- President Pervez Musharraf signs the death warrant of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian man convicted of espionage and bombing. (BBC News)
Albanian Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu resigns over the 2008 Tirana explosions. (BBC News)
United Nations police are forced to retreat from Serb areas of Mitrovica after clashes with Serb protesters. At least 22 UN policemen and two Kosovo Force soldiers are injured. (BBC News)
David Paterson is sworn in as the new Governor of New York after the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. (BBC News)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party loses the 2008 municipal elections. (BBC News)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and half of her cabinet visit Israel in a move to upgrade bilateral relations (BBC News)
The trial of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, two former Serbian State Security Service officers and allies of Slobodan Milošević, starts at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. (BBC News)
Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony enters the Central African Republic, thus violating a ceasefire. (BBC News)
A suicide bomber attacks a NATO convoy in Gereshk in Helmand province of Afghanistan, killing three Afghan civilians. (BBC News)
World War II Royal Australian Navy warship HMAS Sydney is discovered off the coast of Western Australia after being missing for 65 years with the loss of all 600+ crew. (ABC News Australia)
A former Luftwaffe pilot reveals he may have shot down the airplane of French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry, thus killing him, on July 31, 1944. (BBC News)