On Good Friday, March 21, three New Orleans residents who entered the vacant Lafitte Housing Development in a bid to save it from being razed were arrested and charged under an anti-terrorist "critical structure" law enacted by the Louisiana legislature in the wake of 9-11. The three activists—Jamie Laughner, Thomas McManus, and Ezekiel Compton—slipped below a barbed wire fence, scaled a metal grating and situated themselves on the balcony of an empty apartment. When the three were arrested an hour later, they were charged with trespassing, resisting an officer, and "unlawful entry into a critical structure." Apart from the insidious treatment of an act of civil disobedience as an act of terrorism, the charges are doubly Orwellian given that the activists—from the groups May Day Nola, C3/Hands Off Iberville, and Common Ground—were trying to save the "critical structure." City authorities subsequently ordered its demolition. (The Bridge, Boston, March 25)

Newly pseudo-independent Kosova, it seems, is serving as a sort of political Rorschach test, with commentators' views on its drive for self-determination shaped more by their views on other issues. Days after left-wing Israeli dissident Uri Avnery noted Israeli reluctance to recognize Kosova lest it give some ideas to the Palestinians (and, worse yet, Israeli Arabs), comes a voice from the neocon end of the spectrum—finding that Kosovars and Israelis are natural allies. Michael Totten writes in a March 20 piece for Commentary (also online at his website):

Recent clashes between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and fighters from the nomadic Arab Miserriya community have displaced hundreds of civilians from their homes and raised tension across Abyei, a region lying between the north and South Sudan. Abyei's Gov. Edward Lino, appointed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, said that in new fighting March 20, "our men, the SPLA, exchanged fire with the Miserriya 20 kilometers east of the Heglig oil field."

The death toll of US soldiers in Iraq passed 4,000 March 23 as four troops died in a roadside bomb attack on a patrol in southern Baghdad. More than 29,000 US soldiers have been wounded in five years of conflict in Iraq, according to the icasualties.org website. At least 97% of the deaths have come after George Bush announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003. At least 50 Iraqis, most of them civilians, also died March 23 in violence including bomb blasts and shootings. (AlJazeera, March 24) Gunmen in three cars opened fire on pedestrians in southern Baghdad's mixed Zaafariniya district, killing at least seven and wounding 16. (Reuters, March 23)

At least 52 are dead following a March 17 bomb blast near the shrine of Imam Hussein, a pilgrimage center for Shi'ites in Karbala. Most reports identified a female suicide bomber as the perpetrator, but the Karbala police chief said it had been a bomb planted in a crowded area. About 75 were injured in the blast, the worst attack on Shi'ite civilians since the Ashura holy period.

Colombia has asked Mexico to investigate ties between Mexican citizens and the FARC guerrillas after four Mexicans were found among the dead in Colombia's March 1 strike on a rebel camp in Ecuador. In disclosing the request, Mexico's Exterior Secretariat said the government had opened a probe into whether the country harbors FARC collaborators. "The Mexican government is worried that Mexican citizens might be involved with an organization like the FARC," the secretariat said in a statement.

Following litigation against Chiquita Brands International for its payments to Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries, the families of five missionaries and lay workers with the Florida-based New Tribes Mission killed by the FARC guerillas in 1994-5 have filed suit against the company in federal court in Miami. The 63-page complaint claims Chiquita provided "numerous and substantial hidden payments" to the rebels in addition to weapons and supplies, amounting to support for "acts of terrorism."

As the Bush administration heads into months of negotiations with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the future of US troops in Iraq, it aims to stretch the bounds of executive power to unprecedented lengths. The administration plans to bypass Congress to forge a status of forces agreement (SOFA) that would grant the US an unlimited "authority to fight" provision, according to statements by the State Department's Coordinator for Iraq, David Satterfield, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week. Drafts of the SOFA, a binding pact, also provide legal immunity for US private contractors operating in Iraq, according to a January New York Times article.