Portal:Current events/2025 March 31

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • War crimes in the Gaza war
    • The bodies of fourteen aid workers killed on March 23 are recovered from a mass grave in southern Gaza. One body had previously been recovered and one more is believed to remain buried. Of the sixteen workers, nine are members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, six are civil defense workers, and one is a UN agency employee. (CNN)
• 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 IRGC 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)
• The Caribbean guilder becomes legal tender in Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which will co-circulate alongside its predecessor, the Netherlands Antillean guilder, until 1 July 2025. (NOS)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Myanmar earthquake
  • The Myanmar government 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 in an explosion at a coal mine in Degaña, Asturias, Spain. (BBC News)
• Three people are killed in a multiple-vehicle collision involving a bus and a car near Heathrow Airport in Greater London, England. (The Independent)

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 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)
• China–United States relations, Hong Kong–United States relations
  • The United States announces sanctions on six Chinese and Hong Kong officials, including head of the national security office Dong Jingwei, accusing them of "transnational oppression and undermining Hong Kong autonomy". (DW)
• Moldova–Russia relations
  • The Moldovan foreign affairs ministry expels three Russian diplomats and declares them personae non gratae after accusing the Russian embassy in Chișinău of helping Alexandr Nesterovschi, a pro-Russia politician convicted of corruption, 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

• 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)