March

The Mozambique floods drove 1 million people from their homes as international aid responses came under scrutiny. Also in Africa, man proved to be as brutal as nature: more than 900 people died in a mass cult murder in south-western Uganda. And, in Zimbabwe, veterans of the country's 1970s civil war began a takeover of white-owned farms.

With the last appeals against his being freed exhausted, Augusto Pinochet went home to Chile after 16 months under house arrest in London. He was not universally welcomed. Moves were afoot to remove his immunity from prosecution.

Russian voters confirmed Vladimir Putin as president, the position bequeathed him by Boris Yeltsin. Obligatory sabre-rattling by Beijing failed to stop Taiwanese rejecting their long-ruling Nationalist Party and installing as president Chen Shui-bian, leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

Virtually every Tuvalu family was touched by tragedy as fire raged through a dormitory in the only secondary school on the tiny Pacific island, killing 18 schoolgirls and their matron.

Bringing some light to the general gloom from overseas, American Beauty won the best picture Oscar and Russell Crowe avoided another bout of Australia-New Zealand claiming rights by losing the best actor nomination to Kevin Spacey. And, from the funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-show storybook, 55 of the statuettes were stolen in transit from the makers in Chicago – 53 were recovered in the rubbish bins of a Los Angeles supermarket.

At home, petrol prices resumed their upward trend. But not all was gloom in oil-related matters. Tests suggested potential oil and gas reserves equivalent to as much as 500 million barrels in a Taranaki on-shore field.

Suicide articles in the Auckland University student newspaper triggered a storm of protest – although whether everyone who expressed dismay had actually read them was an issue in itself.

Shadowy figures carried out a midnight coup in the Auckland City Council chambers, the mayor and likeminded councillors removing the official photographs of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Royalists were not amused.

In some eyes, the Prime Minister increased dependence on the national anthem's sentiments, cancelling the deal to lease 28 F-16 jet fighters from the United States.

Plans to merge the dairy industry's manufacturing and marketing arms turned sour.

Daniel Vettori became the youngest spinner to take 100 test wickets and Shane Warne broke Dennis Lillee's Australian test wicket record as the first-innings top-order fragility of both sides produced a transtasman cricket series more intriguing than the 3-0 Australian whitewash implied.

It might have been 23 years since New Zealand women won a world bowls title but Patsy Jorgensen, Sharon Sims, Anne Lomas and Jan Khan combined to produce an emphatic end to the drought, picking up the triples and fours titles at the world championships in Australia.

The New Zealand connection to the Welsh rugby team became tarnished as the breeding of colonial imports Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson failed to survive close scrutiny.

And lay days were put aside so that New Zealand could beat the weather and Prada to retain the Cup, 5-0 – with a new man, Dean Barker, at the helm. That was at the beginning of the month. By the end of March, dissatisfaction within Team New Zealand over its second-defence leadership structure had at least one leading identity suggesting he had considered walking away. Was Brad Butterworth having a premonition?