The Bay Area group Direct Action to Stop the War marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion March 19 by blocking key intersection in downtown San Francisco, staging "die-ins" and halting traffic. The corporate headquarters of Chevron and Bechtel and a military recruiting center were also blockaded. Some 150 were arrested at several sites around the city. (Indybay, March 19) Three were charged with felonies such as assault on an officer. (Infoshop News, March 20)

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua March 16 quoted the 11th Panchen Lama Gyaincain Norbu harshly condemning the Tibetan uprising: "The rioters' acts not only harmed the interests of the nation and the people, but also violated the aim of Buddhism... We resolutely oppose all activities to split the country and undermine ethnic unity. We strongly condemn the crime of a tiny number of people to hurt the lives and properties of the people."

While little news is now coming out of Lhasa, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that at least three Tibetan protesters were shot dead by Chinese security forces March 18 during a peaceful demonstration in Kardze county, Sichuan. (TCHRD, March 18) Hundreds of Tibetans in Amdo Bora, Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province, staged a peaceful march against the Chinese rule in Tibet. (TCHRD, March 18) Protests also continue in Nepal, where police arrested 58 Tibetans who marched on the UN offices in Kathmandu. (Phayul, March 18)

On March 18, protests broke out in Ganja, a nomadic village 25 kilometers north of Labrang in Amdo (traditional Tibetan region in Gansu province), with some 2,000 marching on government township office with Tibetan flags and portraits of the Dalai Lama. Residents at the nearby nomadic village of Songkok stormed local government offices, shouting anti-China slogans. Protesters from Amchok village began a cross-country march towards Labrang but were halted by the People's Armed Police. (Phayul, March 18) Some 600 monks from Amchok Tsenyi monastery staged a protest outside the local government office in Tsenyi, a village in Ngaba Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. (Phayul, March 18)

On Jan. 17 the Review Court of Rome dismissed the Italian case against former Uruguayan navy captain Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, who was arrested in Salerno on Dec. 23 in connection with Operation Condor, a clandestine program of cooperation between South American militaries during the 1970s and 1980s. Fernandez Troccoli, who headed Uruguay's secret services for the 1973-1985 military dictatorship, is one of 140 military officers and soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay that Italy is seeking for crimes against more than 25 people of Italian origin. The Italian court found that there was insufficient evidence against Fernandez Troccoli. However, as of February he was still held in prison because of an extradition request from Uruguay. (Terra, Spain, Feb. 6 from EFE)

On Feb. 25 the body of retired Argentine military officer Lt. Col. Paul Alberto Navone was found by an employee of the Air Force's Hotel Parque, in Ascochinga, a town some 55 kilometers north of Buenos Aires. He had been shot in the chest; a 9mm pistol and a suicide note were found near the body. Navone, who lived in Ascochinga, had been scheduled to appear that day before federal judge Myriam Galizzi in an investigation of the disappearance of twin babies born in Paraná, Entre Rios province, in 1978, during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship's "dirty war" against suspected leftists. The parents were Raquel Negro and Tulio "Tucho" Valenzuela, a leader of the Montoneros rebel group. Claiming ill health, Navone had gotten his court appearance postponed to March 3.

At around noon on March 14 a group of armed men killed farmer leader Armando Villarreal Martha with submachine gun blasts near his house in Nuevo Casas Grandes municipality, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Villarreal Martha was the leader of the National Agrodynamic Organization (OAN). He was well-known for his campaigns for lower electricity rates for farmers and campesinos, and was imprisoned for a year and a half before being acquitted of charges in connection with the occupation of the Janos and Villa Ahumada customs station in 2002. Earlier this year he was involved in national protests calling for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in demands for the reactivation of the petrochemical industry to make fertilizers and other chemicals cheaper for farmers. He ran as a local candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1988 and for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1992. (La Jornada, March 15)

Musayyib power plant sit-inThe March monthly bulletin of the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) notes numerous labor actions in the energy sector throughout the country last month. On Feb. 4, thousands of electricity workers walked off the job and marched through the streets in Basra, Musayyib, Hilla and Kut to demand moves against corrupt bureaucrats in the Energy Ministry, electrification of poor districts, better housing for workers, and redress of other grievances. When there was no response to their petitions, the workers held sit-ins at power stations and industrial sites in these cities the following day. Some 7,000 workers at the Ur industrial complex near Nasiriyah also held a sit-in to demand upgrading of power facilities, as well as the right to free unionization and repeal of the Saddam-era anti-union Law 150.