Some of the more interesting and important items for March 23rd :

• Portugal’s PM quits after debt-cutting plan nixed – Yahoo! Finance – LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Debt-stressed Portugal's prime minister says he has quit after opposition parties scuppered his proposals devised to avoid a bailout.
• Egypt bourse slumps in truncated trading session Emerging Markets Report – MarketWatch – Egyptian stocks tumbled nearly 9% Wednesday when the market reopened for the first time since late January and investors reacted to the political upheaval of the past two months.
• Italy Approves Nuclear Pause – WSJ.com – The Italian cabinet Wednesday approved, as expected, a one-year moratorium for the country's nuclear comeback, and the government may decide to end the atomic program if it isn't satisfied with the European Union's stress tests on safety, ministers said.
• Portugal Braces for Government Collapse – WSJ.com – Portugal's government could collapse Wednesday after opposition parties withdrew their support for another round of austerity policies aimed at averting a financial bailout
• BBC News – Stock trades to exploit speed of light, says researcher – "High-frequency trading" carried out by computers often depends on differing prices of a financial instrument in two geographically-separated markets.