Current events: 2025-03-31

[Wikipedia Current Events]

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Kharkiv strikes
    • Six Russian drones hit Kyivskyi district of Kharkiv, Ukraine, damaging several buildings and injuring three people. (Ukrainska Pravda)
• Middle Eastern crisis
  • The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy seizes two foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and is towing the vessels to the country’s Bushehr port, claiming they are part of a "fuel smuggling network". It is currently unknown what countries the vessels belong to. (Al Arabiya)

Business and economy

• Japanese restaurant chain Sukiya orders the temporary closure of almost all of its nearly 2,000 locations in the country after finding a rat and a cockroach in its food. (AP) (CBS News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Myanmar earthquake
  • The State Administration Council declares a period of national mourning in Myanmar to last until April 6 as the death toll from the earthquake last week rises to over 3,050 people. (AFP via Barron's)
• The recovery operation of the U.S. Army M88 vehicle that sank in Lithuanian swamps on Pabradė Training Area finishes after five days. Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda says that 3 out of 4 missing Americans are found dead, with the last person still missing. (DW) (LRT)
• Five people are killed and four are injured after an explosion at a coal mine in Degaña, Asturias, Spain. (BBC News)

International relations

• Australia–North Korea relations
  • The Royal Australian Air Force deploys a long-range maritime patrol aircraft P-8 Poseidon to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, to monitor illegal North Korean maritime activities in the Yellow Sea, including weapons shipments prohibited under international sanctions. (NK News)
• Brazil–Syria relations
  • Brazilian police arrest a Syrian consulate employee in Brazil after discovering over 600 smuggled electronic devices and other luxury goods valued at over US$700,000 in his diplomatic vehicle during a highway inspection in Ponta Porã. (G1)
• Moldova–Russia relations
  • The Moldovan foreign affairs ministry expels three Russian diplomats and declares them persona non grata after accusing the Russian embassy in Chișinău of helping a Moldovan pro-Russia parliament member escape to Transnistria. (DW) (The Kyiv Independent)
• Proposed United States acquisition of Greenland, Denmark–United States relations
  • Newly elected Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen rules out Greenland joining the United States while he is in office. (AP)

Law and crime

• 2025 Nepalese pro-monarchy movement
  • Supporters of former King of Nepal Gyanendra clash with riot police in Kathmandu, Nepal, leaving two people dead and several others injured. (AP)
• Killing of Zvi Kogan
  • A court in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, sentences three people to death for killing Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Kogan in 2024. A fourth accomplice who aided in the murder receives a life sentence. (AP)
• National Rally assistants affair
  • National Rally politician Marine Le Pen is convicted of embezzlement and banned from running for political office for five years, meaning she cannot stand in the next French presidential election. (France24)

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