Gaza death toll climbs to 32,226 as 84 more Palestinians killed — Palestinian Health Ministry — ground.news: 5 media reports — 24 March 2024 (LINK)

Nearly 300 abducted schoolchildren in northwest Nigeria freed after over two weeks in captivity — ground.news: 102 media reports — 24 March 2024 (LINK)

Iran's currency hits record low — ground.news: 21 media reports — 25 March 2024 (LINK)

Brazilian police arrest suspects, including a federal lawmaker, his brother, a councilor on the Rio de Janeiro state audit court (TCE), and a former Rio police chief for the 2018 murder of black, openly gay and progressive Rio councilor Marielle Franco and her driver — ground.news main source: Reuters, 55 media reports — 24 March 2024 (LINK)

US fighter jets strike storage facilities in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen — ground.news: 37 media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Budget deal slashes U.S. funding for Palestinians' U.N. lifeline — washingtonpost — 23 March 2024 (LINK)

US condemns 'cynical' Russia and China veto of ceasefire deal; Israel to go into Rafah 'with or without US support' — The Guardian UK ● — 23 March 2024 (LINK)

Ukraine war briefing: day 759: fire breaks out at Russian oil refinery after drone attack — The Guardian UK ● — 24 March 2024 (LINK)

Putin suggests Ukraine was linked to deadly attack on Moscow-area concert hall where death toll 133: Zelensky says predictable — ground.news: 177 media reports — 23 March 2024 (LINK)

Russia says suspects in Crocus concert hall attack detained: The arrests were in the Bryansk region, 370 kilometers southwest of Moscow, after a car chase "not far from the border with Ukraine" — ground.news: 228 media reports — 23 March 2024 (LINK)

— The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated channels on social media.

CBS: This is the most deadly terror attack in Russia in years. The country was shaken by a series of deadly terror attacks in the early 2000s during the fighting with separatists in the Russian province of Chechnya.

In October 2002, Chechen militants took about 800 people hostage at a Moscow theater. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed the building, and 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters died, most of them from the effects of narcotic gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

— And in September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan in southern Russia, taking hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later and more than 330 people, about half of them children, were killed.

Hong Kong's new national security law comes into force — ground.news: 30 medias reports — 23 March 2024 (LINK)

WHO releases toolkit to empower health professionals through climate change — onegreenplanet — (LINK)

Communicating on climate change and health: Toolkit for health professionals: 22 March 2024 — WHO — (LINK)

Ukraine war: Blackouts hit across country after wave of Russian strikes: Ukraine says Russia trying to cause failure of country's energy system — BBC — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

E.U. leaders call for immediate pause leading to ceasefire in Gaza: U.S. pushing for a tougher U.N. Resolution emphasizing an "immediate and sustained cease-fire" in the Israel-Hamas conflict to aid hungry Palestinians — ground.news: 181 media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Finland to resume funding to UNRWA — ground.news: 16 media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Global water crisis fuelling more conflicts, UNESCO report warns — Al Jazeera — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

— Girls and women are the first victims of a lack of water, said the report, published by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), especially in rural areas where they have the primary responsibility of collecting supplies.

World Water Day: Shocking stories from the frontlines of the worldwide water crisis — euronews.com — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

CERN launches the White Rabbit Collaboration: White Rabbit, an open-source timing technology developed at CERN, has applications far beyond particle physics. — see_link — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

— White Rabbit is a technology developed at CERN, in collaboration with institutes and companies, to synchronise devices in the accelerators down to sub-nanoseconds and solve the challenge of establishing a common notion of time across a network. Indeed, at a scale of billionths of a second, the time light takes to travel through a fibre-optic cable and the time the electronics take to process the signal are no longer negligible. To avoid potential delays, the co-inventors of White Rabbit designed a new ethernet switch.

First used in 2012, the application of this fully open-source technology has quickly expanded outside the field of particle physics. In 2020, it was included in the worldwide industry standard known as Precision Time Protocol (PTP), governed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). CERN recently launched the White Rabbit Collaboration, a membership-based global community whose objective is to maintain a high-performance open-source technology that meets the needs of users and to facilitate its uptake by industry.

Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023 — nearly four times the increase of the previous year — NASA said, attributing the "significant jump" to a strong El Nino and a warming climate — ground.news: 15 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

The US sanctions Nicaragua's attorney general for "participating in unjust persecution of political prisoners and civil society". President Ortega has deported 222 political prisoners to the US, declaring them traitors — ground.news: 9 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

State Farm General will not renew policies on 30,000 houses and 42,000 apartments in California due to rising costs and outdated regulations, 9 months after announcing it will not issue new home policies in the state — ground.news: 36media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to protect musicians and other artists against AI — npr — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

Protests after Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi's chief minister, arrested over corruption claims — ground.news: 68 media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Kate, Princess of Wales, reveals she is having treatment for unspecified cancer, including preventive chemotherapy — ground.news: 700 reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Malaysia becomes second country, after Australian state of Victoria, to reject hosting 2026 Commonwealth Games owing to uncertainty over costs and insufficient funding offered — ground.news: 29 media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change, a new study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank finds — ground.news: 27 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

Taps have run dry across South Africa's largest city in an unprecedented water crisis after lightning strikes pumping station — ground.news: 59 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the first global resolution on artificial intelligence that encourages countries to safeguard human rights, protect personal data, and monitor AI for risks. The nonbinding resolution, proposed by the United States and co-sponsored by China and over 120 other nations, also advocates the strengthening of privacy policies — ground.news: 78 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

32 Chinese warplanes detected around Taiwan in one day — ground.news: 24 media reports — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

South Sudan closes schools in preparation for 45C heatwave — The Guardian UK ● — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

Profits on Russian assets should be used to buy weapons for Ukraine, German chancellor says, as EU leaders gather — The Guardian UK ● — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

The US sanctions Nicaragua's attorney general for "participating in unjust persecution of political prisoners and civil society". President Ortega has deported 222 political prisoners to the US, declaring them traitors — ground.news: 9 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

Nearly 5 million animals dead in Mongolia's harshest winter in half a century, IFRC says — ground.news: 20 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

Switzerland becomes first major economy to cut interest rates in surprise move — ground.news: 33 media reports — 21 March 2024 (LINK)

Fed holds rates steady but indicates three cuts coming sometime this year — ground.news: 114 media reports — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

State Farm General will not renew policies on 30,000 houses and 42,000 apartments in California due to rising costs and outdated regulations, 9 months after announcing it will not issue new home policies in the state — ground.news: 36media reports — 22 March 2024 (LINK)

Heavy fighting rages around Gaza's biggest hospital as Israel raids it for a second day — ground.news: 81 media reports — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

WHO documents over 400 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza since 7 October — The Guardian UK ● — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

Russia tortured and arbitrarily detained people in occupied country, creating 'climate of fear' and suppressing Ukrainian identity, UN report says — The Guardian UK ● — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

Electronic waste rising five times faster than documented e-waste recycling: UN — ITU — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

— Less than one quarter (22.3 per cent) of the year's e-waste mass was documented as having been properly collected and recycled in 2022, leaving USD 62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources unaccounted for and increasing pollution risks to communities worldwide.

Only seven countries in the world breathe safe air, says Swiss study: Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and New Zealand: Puerto Rico, Bermuda and French Polynesia also fell within safe levels — euronews — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

Pakistan and IMF reach preliminary deal to release $1.1 billion from bailout fund, IMF says — ground.news: 31 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Vietnam president Vo Van Thuong, 54, resigns after one year on the job, government says: the party said in a statement that "violations by Vo Van Thuong have left a bad mark on the reputation of the Communist party" — ground.news main source: AP, 48 media reports — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

— Days earlier, Vietnamese police said they arrested the former head of Central Vietnam's Quang Ngai province for corruption. He was previously supervised by Thuong as the provincial party chief.

Leo Varadkar,45, first openly gay Irish prime minister and party leader, to step down for "both personal and political" reasons after failure of referendum on redefining the family and role of women — ground.news: 10 media reports — 20 March 2024 (LINK)

An explosion in a coal mine in southwest Pakistan kills 12 miners while 8 are rescued: Balochistan province officials identified methane gas as the cause — ground.news: 41 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Putin hints at next stage of war as thousands of children evacuated from Russian border — independent.co.uk — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Russia has appointed Admiral Alexander Moiseev as acting navy chief, replacing Nikolai Yevmenov as head of Russia's navy, the state RIA news agency reported.

Around 9,000 children to be evacuated from Russia's Belgorod due to Ukrainian shelling

Russian soldiers loyal to Ukraine have claimed they destroyed an ammunition depot in the border village of Tetkino, in Kursk.

Nato is building its largest European military base southeast of Romania to bolster its capabilities in the Black Sea region.

Annual profits from forced labour amount to US$ 236 billion, ILO report finds: close to US$10,000 per victim and a 37 per cent rise in illegal profits since 2014 — ILO — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

— Total annual illegal profits from forced labour are highest in Europe and Central Asia (US$84 billion), followed by Asia and the Pacific (US$62 billion), the Americas (US$52 billion), Africa (US$20 billion), and the Arab States (US$18 billion). When illegal profits are expressed per victim, annual illegal profits are highest in Europe and Central Asia, followed by the Arab States, the Americas, Africa and Asia and the Pacific.

Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounts for more than two-thirds (73 per cent) of the total illegal profits, despite accounting for only 27 per cent of the total number of victims in privately imposed labour. These numbers are explained by the huge difference in per victim profits between forced commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of non-state forced labour exploitation — US$27,252 profits per victim for the former against US$3,687 profits per victim for the latter.

There were 27.6 million people engaged in forced labour on any given day in 2021. This figure translates to 3.5 people for every thousand people in the world. Between 2016 and 2021 the number of people in forced labour increased by 2.7 million.

After forced commercial sexual exploitation, the sector with the highest annual illegal profits from forced labour is industry, at US$35 billion, followed by services (US$20.8 billion), agriculture (US$5.0 billion), and domestic work (US$2.6 billion).

Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously approve second law that gives government more power to curb dissent — AP — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Rushed adoption of national security bill a regressive step for human rights in Hong Kong — UN Human Rights Chief(LINK)

Trump unable to get $464m bond in New York fraud case, his lawyers say — BBC — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Gangs unleash new attacks on upscale areas in Haiti's capital, with at least a dozen killed nearby — AP — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Pakistan and IMF reach preliminary deal to release $1.1 billion from bailout fund, IMF says — ground.news: 31 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

An explosion in a coal mine in southwest Pakistan kills 12 miners while 8 are rescued: Balochistan province officials identified methane gas as the cause — ground.news: 41 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Supreme Court green lights Texas law that allows state police to arrest migrants — ground.news: 223 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Brazil's Bolsonaro is indicted for first time over alleged falsification of his own vaccination data — ground.news: 121 media reports — 19 March 2024 (LINK)

Mahsa Amini's death in Iran custody was 'unlawful', says UN mission — Reuters — 18 March 2024 (LINK)
— ground.news: 22 media reports — (LINK)

False King Charles death story spread by Russian media outlets — The Guardian UK ● — 18 March 2024 (LINK)
— ground.news: 48 media reports — (LINK)

The European Council has agreed to increase its support to Ukrainian armed forces by €5bn ($5.44bn; £4.3bn), through a dedicated assistance fund — The Guardian UK ● — (LINK)

Chinese authorities accuse Evergrande of inflating revenues by $80bn — ground.news: 7 media reports — 18 March 2024 (LINK)

Bank of Japan ends negative interest rates, opting for first hike in 17 years — ground.news: 58 media reports — 18 March 2024 (LINK)