March 14, 2012 (Wednesday)
Armed conflict and attacks
- 2011-2012 Syrian uprising:
- The Syrian Army captures the former rebel held city of Idlib. (CNN)
- Amnesty International releases a report detailing wide scale abuse and torture of prisoners held by the Syrian government. (CBS)
- Afghanistan:
- Leon Panetta, the United States Secretary of Defense, arrives in Afghanistan to attempt to placate anger over the Kandahar massacre. (CNN)
- The soldier allegedly responsible is removed from Afghanistan to Kuwait. (Voice of America)
- More than 10,000 Peruvian illegal gold miners clash with police in an attempt to gain control over the regional capital Puerto Maldonado. (AP via Google News)
Arts and culture
- The United Kingdom towns of Chelmsford, Perth and St Asaph are awarded city status to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. (BBC)
Business and economy
- Unemployment in the United Kingdom reaches 2.67 million, the most people since 1995. (Office for National Statistics)
Disasters
- Tropical Cyclone Lua heads towards Western Australia's Pilbara region. (Bloomberg via Business Week)
- The death toll from the sinking of a ferry in Bangladesh rises to 110 with at least 61 others missing. (AP)
- A magnitude 6.8 earthquake occurs off the coast of Japan causing a small tsunami that hits the coast of Aomori prefecture on the island of Hokkaido. (AFP via News Limited)
- The Belgian parents of children killed in a bus crash yesterday travel to Switzerland to identify the bodies. (Reuters)
International relations
- Authorities in Azerbaijan arrest 22 people for allegedly spying for Iran's Revolutionary Guards. (BBC)
- The President of the United States Barack Obama and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron meet at the White House in Washington D.C. to discuss Afghanistan, Syria, the global economy and Iran. (Voice of America)
Law and crime
- The International Criminal Court in the Hague delivers a verdict of guilty in the case of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on war crimes charges. (BBC) (Reuters)
- The BBC claims that a "sophisticated cyber-attack" against its online service has been linked to efforts to disrupt its Persian Service by Iran. (BBC)
- An American jury finds Virginia Tech guilty of negligence for delaying a campus warning about the massacre of 33 students in 2007. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
Politics
- Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly starts questioning the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his handling of the economy. (Ynet News)
Sport
- Dereck Chisora loses his British Boxing Board of Control license indefinitely following a clash with fellow boxer David Haye after his bout with World Boxing Council champion Vitali Klitschko in February. (AP via Fox Sports)[permanent dead link] (BBC)
- In basketball, Mike D'Antoni resigns as the coach of the New York Knicks. (New York Post)