From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), March 3:

On February 20 more than three thousand Salvadoran bakers participated in a march to protest the high cost of flour and other commodities used by their sector. The marchers demanded that the government step in to alleviate the crisis by means of a subsidy. Thousands of Salvadoran families remain unable to put bread on the table, in part due to the rising cost of flour, which bakers are then forced to pass along to their customers.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), March 8:

On the 8th of March This Year...
"No to Women Killing... No to the Gangs Who Promote Sexual Cleansing...
Yes to an Iraq that is Free of Women Haters"
The 8th of March is the International Women's Day, on which the voices are lauding and protests against sexual discrimination are widening every day even in the most developed countries. In Iraq however, the discrimination against women has reached to a degree of sexual cleansing carried out by sectarian militias linked to the regime of mullahs in Iran and groups of Al Qaeda. These groups have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, and women in particular to the extent of sexual genocide in the cities of Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala.

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani said March 8 he seeks a "strategic" partnership with Turkey as he wrapped up a visit to Ankara aimed at easing tension sparked by the Turkish military's eight-day incursion into Iraq last month. Speaking to members of a Turkish-Iraqi joint business group, Talabani also called on Turkish interests to invest in Iraq's oil sector. "We want to forge strategic relations in all fields including oil, the economy, trade, culture and politics," Talabani said. Addressing Turkish fears, Talabani stressed that Kurdish rebels would not be tolerated inside Iraq's borders, and said Iraq was continuing to put pressure on the PKK to lay down arms. (AP, March 8)

In its 2007 Annual Report, released March 5, the International Narcotics Control Board called on the governments of Bolivia and Peru to ban coca chewing, as well as its sale or export. The indigenous people of the Andes have chewed coca for thousands of years, and the call is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Andes.

Israeli authorities say the previously unknown Galilee Freedom Battalion was behind the March 6 attack on West Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Jewish seminary, and the gunman was an Arab from Jerusalem. (Ma'an News Agency, March 7) Opening fire with a Kalashnikov rifle in a ground-floor library, the gunman killed at least seven students and wounded nine before he himself was gunned down by an Israeli army officer. (NYT, March 7)

Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer accused by both the UN and Amnesty International of flouting embargos, was arrested at a five-star hotel in central Bangkok March 6. Thai authorities issued the warrant based on information from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). A former KGB officer, Bout allegedly sold arms to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Colombia's FARC rebels and warring sides in several African conflicts. Russia and the US are both seeking his extradition.

At least 23 were killed and dozens were wounded March 3 when two car bombs, including one driven by a suicide attacker, blew up in Baghdad. In the suicide attack, a man drove a minibus into the headquarters of the Interior Ministry's 4th Brigade, a special quick reaction force based in Baghdad's eastern Zayouna neighborhood. The blast killed at least two police officers and wounded six others. One day earlier, the US military said its soldiers discovered 14 bodies in a mass grave south of the city of Samarra. The military said all the victims had their hands tied behind their backs and had been shot in the head — execution style. "Coalition and Iraqi forces believe al-Qaida in Iraq is responsible for these murders. The victims are believed to have been members of Iraqi security forces or Sons of Iraq," a military announcement said. Sons of Iraq is US-funded Sunni militia now fighting al-Qaeda. (AP, March 3)

A US submarine fired three Tomahawk cruise missiles into southern Somalia March 3, aiming at what the Defense Department called terrorist targets. The missiles hit the town of Dobley, five miles from Somalia's border with Kenya, partly destroying a house and injuring local residents. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it was a "deliberate and precise strike" aimed at "a known al-Qaeda terrorist." Residents reached by telephone told the New York Times three civilians were wounded, and three cows and donkey killed.