WORLD AGENDA MARCH 2018

Mar 18, Russia: President Vladimir  Putin, who has dominated Russia’s political landscape for the last 17 years, is on course to be comfortably re-elected for another six year term. With opposition leader Alexei Navalny barred from the race, Putin faces seven other candidates, the most since his first election in 2000

Mar 4, Italy: An election pits a centre-right coalition against populists and a divided left, with polls suggesting a hung parliament and uncertainty in the eurozone’s third-largest economy

Mar 8, Chile: Eleven nations sign a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating a market of 500 million people with a combined GDP of $10 trillion. The original pact was never implemented after Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal

Mar 7-9, Saudi Arabia: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ventures abroad seeking foreign support and investment for
his efforts to transform the oil-dependent kingdom into a market-based economy. He will visit the UK, France and the U.S.

Mar 5, U.S.: Time runs out for the “Dreamers”, some 700,000 immigrants brought in illegally as children and allowed to remain under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme – unless Congress can agree on a replacement scheme

Mar 26-28, Egypt: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi appears guaranteed to win a second term as president. Leading opposition figures want a boycott, saying the election has been compromised by intimidation of opponents

Mar 4, U.S.: The 90th Academy Awards ceremony honours the best films of 2017. The Shape of Water (pictured above) leads the field with 13 nominations

Mar 11, UK: Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, was published 200 years ago

Sources: NewsAhead, Julie Mullins   Pictures: AP, Getty Images, Newscom, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios    © GRAPHIC NEWS