OVER 200 DROWN IN SOUTH SUDAN FERRY ACCIDENT
Between 200 and 300 people are believed to have drowned in a ferry accident on the White Nile river, AFP reports an army spokesman as saying. The civilians were trying to flee from the town of Malakal where there is intense fighting, but the boat was overcrowded.
EGYPTIANS VOTE IN REFERENDUM
Egyptians are voting across the country today and tomorrow in a referendum on a new constitution, Al Jazeera reports. The government, which expects the constitution to be approved, has set up a massive security operation to prevent disruptions, with some 200,000 security forces deployed. Still, a man was killed this morning in clashes outside a polling station in Cairo, while a courthouse in the capital was hit by an explosion. Read more from The Guardian.
THAI PROTESTERS TIGHTEN BLOCKADE
Anti-government protesters in Thailand are continuing their “Bangkok shutdown” and today extended their blockade to ministries and bank branches, The Bangkok Post reports. Suthep Thaugsuban, one of the movement’s leaders and head of opposition party PDRC, warned that the protests would intensify and that they could take ministers into custody.
$1.1 TRILLION SPENDING BILL UNVEILED
Congressional negotiators reached agreement yesterday on a spending bill worth $1.1 trillion, The Washington Post reports. While providing the federal government with funding until the end of September, the bill reverses some of the spending cuts that were approved last month and gives a 1% raise to all federal workers.
FLOODING IN JAKARTA
Floodwaters have hit Indonesia’s capital, and several thousand Jakarta residents have been displaced, though rains appear to be subsiding.
VERBATIM
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rejected UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s call for the country to halt executions during a joint press conference Monday. Read here what he had to say.
BY THE NUMBERS
Chechnya is rewarding parents with $1,000 in cash for naming newborns after the Prophet “Muhammad,” Islam’s founder.
PREVIOUSLY UNHEARD CASH LOVE SONG
A previously unreleased album recorded by Johnny Cash in the early 1980s has been found and will go on sale March 25. A first excerpt has already been published online, a beautiful love song entitled “She Used to Love Me A Lot.”
