From the Center for Constitutional Rights, March 30:

Hicks Forced to Agree to Gag Order With Plea
Guantanamo Detainee May Not Speak to Press, Criticize his Detention or Say He was Tortured
The US government required Guantánamo detainee David Hicks to agree to a series of conditions in exchange for accepting his plea before the military commission and releasing him to Australia to serve a sentence of seven years for "material support of a terrorist organization." Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represented Hicks in the original Supreme Court case that established the right of the detainees to challenge their detention in US courts, criticized the deal.

More than 1,000 immigration detainees held a two-day hunger strike at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, according to the consul general of El Salvador in Georgia, Asdrubal Aguilar. The Atlanta Latino newspaper reported the protest in a March 22 article, but did not say when it took place. The facility is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) under contract with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

On March 26, a Border Patrol shot and killed a man who allegedly threatened him with a rock in Calexico, California, on the border with Mexico. The agent fired an M-4 assault rifle at the man, who was apparently trying to evade arrest and run back to Mexico. The man was pronounced dead from one bullet wound at El Centro Regional Medical Center. Pablo Arnaud Carreno, Mexico's consul in Calexico, said the victim appeared to be a Mexican man who had entered the US without permission. His name was not released. The Mexican government has asked US authorities for a thorough investigation. "It seems unjust to shoot someone who is unarmed," Arnaud Carreno said on March 27.

From Military Families Speak Out, March 29:

Military Families Speak Out responds to Senate vote to continue Iraq war
Today, Military Families Speak Out, the largest organization of military families speaking out against a war in the history of the United States, issued the following statement in response to the vote in the U.S. Senate to provide continued funding for the Iraq war:

The construction of a Georgia's second "NATO standard" military base less than 20 miles from Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, is being protested by separatist leaders. Ossetian leaders charge that construction of the base near Gori is a sign that Tbilisi is preparing to use force in to reestablish its authority over the territory. Georgian officials deny any belligerent intentions. Georgia's first "NATO standard" base was completed last year in the western town of Senaki—close to Georgia's other separatist enclave, Abkhazia.

Iran's embassy in London has stated that the British sailors captured last week were 0.5 km inside Iranian waters when they were taken by the Revolutionary Guard. British officials insist that their sailors were 1.7 miles within Iraqi waters. The ongoing dispute was further muddled as an initial set of coordinates released by Iranian officials were in fact within Iraqi waters, thus supporting the British case.

A one thousand year-old Armenian church on the island of Akdamar in Lake Van has been renovated and now reopened by Turkish authorities. Though Armenia and Turkey do not maintain regular diplomatic relations, a delegation of Armenian architects and government officials attended the opening ceremony. The renovation of the church is part of an effort to warm ties between the countries still divided over the massacres of Armenians during the final stages of the Ottoman Empire. (BBC, March 29)

In a move calculated to win more support in the Arab world, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia described the American occupation in Iraq as "illegal" and urged the leaders gathered at the ongoing Arab League summit to unite in order to protect their region from foreign influence. Saudi Arabia has long been a staunch ally of the United States, but recent rhetoric and the visit of Iranian diplomats to Riyadh suggest that the Kingdom may be forging a new direction for its foreign policy.