WORLD AGENDA MARCH 2009

March 1, Los Angeles: Michelle Obama, 45, is Vogue magazine’s cover girl, marking only the second time a U.S. first lady has appeared on the front of the magazine. Hillary Clinton was the first, in 1998.

March 2, Cairo: Plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip after Israel’s December invasion are unveiled at an international donors’ conference. Estimates put the damage of the offensive, which killed 1,300 Palestinians, at $2 billion.

March 4-5, New York: Controversy surrounds the auction of Mahatma Gandhi’s possessions that Indian MPs say should be returned to India. Spectacles, which Gandhi said gave him “the vision to free India”, and a pair of sandals are among items expected to fetch $42,000.

March 5, Florida: NASA launches Kepler, a telescope designed to discover planets with a similar size and orbit as Earth. The device will study more than 100,000 suns over four to six years.

March 6, Geneva: In a sign of thawing relations between Washington and the Kremlin, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Ties between the two countries have deteriorated in the past few years.

March 10, Lhasa: Fears of renewed unrest surround Tibet’s most sensitive date in years, the 50th anniversary of its failed uprising against Chinese rule that forced the Dalai Lama into exile. A crackdown has begun as Beijing attempts to prevent protest.

March 12, Vienna: United States prohibition comes under the spotlight at a United Nations meeting to frame international drugs policy for the next 10 years. Critics say U.S. laws achieve little in Latin America, where narcotic-related violence and corruption thrive.

March 29, Global: Campaigners for Earth Hour, a climate change initiative to switch off lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm, hope a billion people around the world will take part.

March (undated), Seoul: South Korea faces a possible foreign exchange crisis as a dollar shortage deepens amid global recession. A drop in exports and fears that global lenders will refuse to roll over debt may lead to crunch point.

March (undated), Australia: Efforts to rebuild Victoria, devastated by bush fires which tore through the state killing more than 200 people and leaving 7,000 homeless in early February, begin in earnest. The towns of Kinglake and Marysville were almost completely destroyed.
/ENDS