From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), March 17:

Under the slogan of "A Better World Can be Made by Workers," the First International Iraqi Labour Conference was held in Erbil in the Kurdish Region of Iraq on 13 and 14 of March. The event drew more than 200 delegates from unions and federations across Iraq and solidarity delegations from the US, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and Iran.

Anti-G-20 protesters clashed with riot police in central London April 1, overwhelming police lines, invading and vandalizing the Bank of England and smashing windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland. A banker was burned in effigy, drawing cheers. More than 30 people were arrested after some 4,000 clogged London's financial district for what was dubbed "Financial Fool's Day." The protests were called ahead of the Group of 20 summit set to open the city.

Our March issue featured stories on new challenges to the Pentagon's Afghanistan operation, fears of Mexico's imminent destabilization, and NAFTA's hidden military agenda. Our multiple-choice March Exit Poll was: Which will be Obama's biggest foreign policy challenge? We received 17 votes (which we hope does not indicate that we have only 17 readers). The results follow:

President Barack Obama says he won't consider speeding up the troop pullout from Iraq despite supposed improvements in security. "I think the plan that we put forward in Iraq is the right one," he told CBS TV's "Face the Nation," calling for "a very gradual withdrawal through the national elections in Iraq."

A US Army sergeant was convicted March 30 and sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing four unarmed Iraqi prisoners in 2007. Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo, formerly of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry and two other soldiers were charged in September with shooting the four bound and blindfolded prisoners and disposing of their bodies in a canal.

At least 20 people were killed early March 30 as gunmen stormed a Pakistani police training school near Lahore. The attackers remain in control of the complex, and are exchanging fire with security forces. The assailants apparently entered the complex dressed in police uniforms. (AFP, BBC World Service, March 30)

A hostage crisis involving three International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers may force agencies to stop bringing assistance to some areas of the Philippines, officials told the UN news agency IRIN. Stephen Anderson, the World Food Programme (WFP) country representative, said additional protection measures for his 60 local and foreign staff were paramount as the situation in Mindanao had become "dramatically more insecure".

Former US State Department lawyer Vijay Padmanabhan criticized the administration of former president George W. Bush for approving extreme interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects, in an interview with the Associated Press March 27. Padmanabhan, who now teaches at Cardozo School of Law in New York, served as the State Department's chief counsel on Guantánamo Bay and Iraq detentions. He said he believes the interrogation tactics used on some detainees constituted torture, and that the Bush administration was wrong to argue that the detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions.