Ten bombs blew up four commuter trains in Madrid during the morning rush hour on March 11, killing 200 people and wounding about 1,500. The Spanish government initially blamed Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the Basque separatist group, but aNew York Times videotape soon emerged in which Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack . “This is an answer to your cooperation with the Bush criminals and their allies,” the tape said. Three days later, Spanish voters, who overwhelmingly opposed their government’s support of the Iraq war, turned out the ruling Popular Party in favor of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, which …

The British government declined to prosecute Katharine Gun, the linguist who leaked a United States National Security Agency memo asking British intelligence to spy on United Nations diplomats before the invasion of Iraq; there was speculation that the government was trying to avoid another embarrassing debate about the legality of the war.New York TimesClare Short, a Labor member of parliament who resigned from the Blair cabinet over Iraq, charged that British agents had spied on United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan just before the invasion of Iraq, and said that she had seen transcripts of Annan’s conversations.IndependentAnnan was said to …

President George W. Bush made a televised address to the nation and declared that Iraq was now the “central front” in the war on terrorism.He called for national resolve and national sacrifice and said that he will ask Congress for $87 billion in emergency funds for the occupation.It was noted that this new request, which comes on top of $79 billion already approved, will probably push the current budget deficit up to $600 billion. Howard Dean said the speech, which made no mention of Osama bin Laden, was “outrageous” and said it reminded him of Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam …

India recalled its ambassador to Pakistan and threatened to go to war if Pakistan did not stop sponsoring terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad, which attacked India’s parliament building last week. Pakistan denied involvement in the attack, but a captured member of the group admitted that the Pakistani Army donated the weapons and that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency provided logistical support. Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun militia chief, was sworn in as the interim leader of Afghanistan. “Let us be good to each other,” he said. “And be compassionate and share our grief. Let us forget the sad past.” American warplanes attacked …

The White House announced that the anthrax used in recent mail attacks probably originated in the United States; Army officials confirmed that the bacteria was a genetic match with anthrax in the Army’s stockpile but pointed out that their supply had come from the Agriculture Department. The F.B.I. was still trying to figure out how many different government labs were experimenting with the bacteria. President Bush announced that the United States will withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. North Korea said it will sign five international antiterrorism conventions. Israelis and Palestinians continued to kill one another; a poll showed …

President Bush sent an envoy to Israel with the aim of restarting peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas proved that it still has the power to prevent such negotiations by sending a wave of suicide bombers into Israel, which culminated in a double bombing on a crowded Jerusalem street that left at least 10 people dead. Body parts littered the neighborhood. Yasir Arafat declared a state of emergency and arrested 110 suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza City with cruise missiles. Prime Minister Sharon “declared war on terror.” A paper in the scientific journal …

Attorney General John Ashcroft approved a new emergency policy that will allow the government to monitor conversations between federal prisoners and their lawyers and to read such mail. The president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers denounced the policy as “an abomination” that violates the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. The government said it would no longer issue a running tally of the number of people arrested in its investigation of the September 11attacks. At last count, 1,182 people had been detained; the Justice Department has refused to say who is being held, under what charges, or …

Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal reportedly shot and killed most of the royal family, including his mother, Queen Aiswarya, and his father, King Birendra Bir Birkram Shah Dev (who as king was thought to be an incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu god). Prince Dipendra then shot himself through the temple; he was crowned king as he lay unconscious in a hospital, and promptly died. Prince Gyanendra, his uncle, ascended to the throne and claimed that the royal deaths were the result of the “accidental firing of an automatic weapon.” Riots ensued. Indonesia continued to disintegrate; parliament voted 365-4 to begin …

American newspapers and other content providers were still ignoring growing evidence, reported in the British press, of George W. Bush’s electoral coup, including new evidence that thousands of black Floridians were improperly removed from the list of approved voters. Bill Clinton’s corrupt pardons continued to dominate the news; Senator Hillary Clinton chastised her portly brother for exercising “terrible misjudgment” when he accepted $400,000 to help a coke dealer and another felon obtain pardons from his brother-in-law. Federal authorities in New York were investigating whether the pardon of four Hasidic Jews convicted of fraud was granted in exchange for votes. Roger …

Liberal political groups were attempting to rally SenateDemocrats to oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general of the United States, though few seriously believed that members of the Democrat Party were brave or principled enough to do what it would take to defeat the right-wing Christian extremist.Afghanistan’s chief mullah decreed that encouraging a Muslim to convert to Christianity was a capital crime; Mullah Muhammad Omar also let it be known that selling any kind of anti-Islamic literature would be punished by five years in prison.An Iranian court sentenced several people, including a prominent journalist, to long prison …

A Concorde airplane crashed in Paris; two amateur Hungarian photographers snapped a picture of the doomed plane with flames shooting from its engines, which were manufactured by Rolls Royce, just before it destroyed a small hotel near the airport. Investigators soon narrowed their suspicions to a fuel leak, saying that previously detected cracks in another Concorde were unrelated. Atmospheric scientists discovered that some 4,000 tons of a new synthetic greenhouse gas have been released into the atmosphere; the gas, which takes 1,000 years to degrade, may be a by-product of weapons production. A Russian spacecraft docked with the International Space …