2008 Review: March

RIA Novosti looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below the month-by-month review of 2008 continues, with March:

March 1

* Russia assumes UN Security Council presidency

March 2

* Russia holds presidential elections

 * Eight people are killed and over 130 wounded in Armenia's capital in clashes between police and protesters unhappy with recent presidential election results

March 3

* The United Nations Security Council passes a resolution imposing a third round of economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program

March 6

* Russia lifts trade, economic, financial and transport sanctions on Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, and urges other CIS countries to follow suit

March 7

* Russia's Central Election Commission announces the official results of the March 2 presidential elections with Kremlin-backed Dmitry Medvedev gaining 70.28% of the vote

March 11

* Russia's MiG signs a contract with the Indian Defense Ministry to upgrade around 70 MiG-29 fighters, in service since the 1980s

March 13

* U.S. President George W. Bush signs an order extending sanctions against Iran for another year

March 15

* China's National People's Congress re-elects Hu Jintao as president in an almost unanimous vote, giving him a new five-year term at the helm of the world's most populous nation

March 17

* An uneasy calm settles over the capital of Tibet as a deadline for protestors demonstrating against Chinese rule to surrender to authorities approaches amid conflicting reports of deaths

March 20

* Russia and Israel sign a deal on mutual visa-free travel, as part of the Russian foreign minister's visit to the country 

March 25

* Flights between Georgia and Russia resume almost 18 months after they were halted amid a spying row between the former Soviet allies

March 29

* Zimbabwe holds presidential polls and re-elects dictator Robert Mugabe 84, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980