WORLD AGENDA MARCH 2017

1 Mar 15, Netherlands: The first of a number of countries at the heart of the European Union to hold crucial elections this year, with the far-right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders ahead in the polls. Wilders says he will pull the Netherlands out of the EU if he wins

2 Mar 5, China: The National People’s Congress meets in Beijing to approve plans outlined by the Communist Party leadership. Analysts will dissect the speeches of President Xi Jinping and others for clues to the country’s military and economic ambitions

3 Mar 4, U.S.: President Donald Trump will be able to select his own security chief when Secret Service director Joseph Clancy (left) steps down. The Secret Service has 7,000 employees and is charged with protecting the president and his family

4 Mar 31, UK: Prime Minister Theresa May set this date as the start of the two-year process that will take Britain out of the EU. The nation voted to leave the bloc in Jun 2016

5 Mar 26, Hong Kong: A new Chief Executive will be chosen, not by popular vote
but by electoral committee. Pro-democracy activists fear the leading candidates appear little inclined to fight for universal suffrage

6 March, Java Sea: Australia and Indonesia are to send divers to inspect the wreck of HMAS Perth, torpedoed off Java in 1942, to determine how best to protect the site from looters who have stripped numerous other World War II wrecks

7 Mar 6, South Korea: Annual military drills between South Korea and the U.S. are expected to be the largest ever, with F-22 stealth fighters, an aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine likely to be deployed

8 Mar 21, UK: Pocahontas, the famous daughter of a Native American Powhatan chief, died 400 years ago in England, an ocean away from her home in North America. Gravesend, the town where she was buried in 1617, plans a number of commemorative events

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Sources: News Ahead, Julie Mullins 

Pictures: Associated Press, Getty Images, Newscom, Royal Australian Navy 

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