Portal:Current events/2014 March 27

• Six people are stabbed to death in a family property dispute in Beijing, China. (Reuters via Euronews)
• The United Nations Human Rights Council authorises an international investigation into alleged war crimes during the Sri Lankan Civil War. (Al Jazeera) (Washington Post) (BBC News)

• 2014 Ukrainian revolution:
  • The interim government of Ukraine agrees to increase natural gas prices for domestic consumers by 50% in order to secure an aid package from the IMF. (BBC News)
  • The IMF pledges US$18 billion in loans to help steady Ukraine's economy. (CBS News)
• Pharmaceutical company Baxter International announces will split into two by mid 2015. (Businessweek)
• England's High Court decides that Rusal, the huge Moscow-based aluminum producer, is right in its objections to new rules proposed by London Metal Exchange concerning the use of LME controlled warehouses. (Bloomberg)

• Canada's Atlantic seaboard provinces brace for a spring blizzard that is predicted to be the worst storm in a decade. (AAP via SBS)

• Holy See–United States relations:
  • President of the United States Barack Obama meets Pope Francis for the first time since Francis' inauguration. (Los Angeles Times)
• 2014 Crimean crisis:
  • The General Assembly of the United Nations passes a motion condemning the Russian annexation of Crimea. (BBC News)

• Garda phone tapping scandal:
  • As the scandal rages on, it emerges Martin Callinan, who resigned as Garda Commissioner this week, wished to withdraw his use of the word "disgusting" to describe the behaviour of whistleblowers but was prevented from doing so by officials in the Department of Justice. (RTÉ News)
• Philippines signs a peace accord with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending decades of conflict. The Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro will pave way for autonomous Bangsamoro. (Al Jazeera)
• Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest serving death row inmate, is freed from a Japanese prison and granted a retrial after serving 48 years. (Washington Post)

• Turkey blocks access to YouTube after a high-level intelligence leak. (Business Insider) (BBC News)
• Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is confirmed as second-in-line to the Saudi Arabian throne. (Bloomberg)
• Sir Peter Cosgrove is sworn into office as Governor General of Australia. (ABC)

• It is announced publicly that, three months ago, doctors at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in Utrecht, Netherlands, successfully implanted a 3-D printed skull (most of it), from Australian company Anatomics, in a medical first, into an unnamed female patient. (NBC)
• The journal Science publishes that an international team of scientists have for the first time successfully replaced one of the sixteen chromosomes of the genome of a yeast cell with a synthetic DNA chromosome. (BBC News)
• A study finds that Cuvier's beaked whale is capable of diving to a depth of 3.2km and staying under water for 137 minutes, both records for a mammal. (News.com.au)