Portal:Current events/2011 March 7

• Libyan Civil War
  • NATO decides to increase surveillance flights over Libya to a 24/7 basis. (MSNBC)
  • The Arab media reports that Muammar Gaddafi sent envoys to Benghazi to negotiate terms for his withdrawal from power but the terms are rejected. (Asharq Alawsat), (BBC), (Reuters)
• 2011 Yemeni protests
  • Protesters in the central jail of the Yemeni capital Sana'a take part in anti-Saleh demonstrations, where warning shots are fired. (Al Jazeera)
• 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis
  • Rebel forces seize a third town in western Ivory Coast from government forces.(Reuters)
• Twenty-three oil workers are kidnapped in eastern Colombia with FARC rebels the most likely suspects. (Voice of America)

• Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, goes on public exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, England. (Reuters via Yahoo News)
• Warner Bros. Television sacks actor Charlie Sheen from the cast of television show Two and a Half Men. (TMZ), (Sky News)

• The New York Times reports that French luxury group LVMH will take control of Italy's Bulgari in an all-share deal. (New York Times)
• Oil prices rise to their highest level in 29 months as fighting in Libya intensifies. (Bloomberg via Business Week)
• Australia's Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, says that the government's plans to impose a carbon tax, part of a phase-in of an emissions trading program, will impact less than 1,000 companies. (Reuters)
• Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Ivory Coast, nationalises the coffee and cocoa industries which are the Ivory Coast's two biggest crops. (CNN)
• AOL completes its purchase of the Huffington Post. (Los Angeles Times)

• New Zealand earthquake
  • The state of emergency put in place after the 2011 Canterbury earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, is extended. (AAP via SBS News)
  • A National Memorial Service to honour earthquake victims will be held on March 18. (New Zealand Herald)
• A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake occurs off the coast of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. (AFP via Yahoo! News)

• China closes Tibet to foreign tourists, ahead of the third anniversary since unrest there in 2008. (AFP via Google News) (MSN Malaysia)
• Yang Jiechi, the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, warns the United States that relations between China and the US will deteriorate if it sells weapons to Taiwan. (Reuters)
• Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of Defense, arrives in Afghanistan to meet with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. (Reuters)
• Britain upgrades its relation with Palestine to a mission, the second-highest rank.(Haaretz)

• A court in Zimbabwe frees 38 people detained for weeks on charges of attempting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, after they watched videos of the Arab Spring. (Reuters)
• Tunisia dissolves the country's secret police, accused of human rights abuses. (BBC)
• Former President of France Jacques Chirac faces charges that related to alleged use of Paris city government resources to benefit his Rally for the Republic party while serving as Mayor of Paris. (AP via Yahoo News)

• A new cabinet of Egypt is sworn in by the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. (Al Arabiya)
• Seiji Maehara resigns as Foreign Minister of Japan after becoming involved in an illegal political donation scandal. (Wall Street Journal)
• United States Senator John Ensign announces that he will not stand in the 2012 Senate elections in Nevada. (Las Vegas Sun), (Fox Las Vegas), (Washington Post)
• President of the United States Barack Obama lifts a two year freeze on the Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. (BBC), (CNN)
• ABC News reports that President Barack Obama will nominate the United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke as the next United States ambassador to the People's Republic of China. (ABC News)

• A possible discovery of extraterrestrial life forms in samples of CI1 meteorites is reported in the Journal of Cosmology by Richard B. Hoover. (Daily Times) (The Star) However, NASA formally distanced itself from Hoover's claim and his lack of expert peer-reviews. (ABC News)