A suicide bomber exploded his car beside a US Embassy convoy in Afghanistan's capital March 19, killing a 15-year-old pedestrian and wounding five security guards. The first suicide attack in Kabul since December knocked one armored sport-utility vehicle across Jalalabad Road, the site of more bombings and rocket attacks than any other area in the capital. Two other SUVs also were damaged. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, told reporters by phone that a Taliban militant from Khost province conducted the attack. The Embassy closed after the attack and issued a warning to Americans in Kabul.

Police arrested more than 100 protesters in San Francisco and New York City March 19 as the US marked the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. "Stop the money, stop the war," protesters chanted outside New York's Stock Exchange as police hauled 44 away for blocking the entrance. The protesters said they were directing attention to defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Halliburton and General Electric, whose profits have soared since the invasion. Thousands rallied against the war in recent days nationwide, including in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles. (Reuters, March 20)

Saddam Hussein's former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was hanged for crimes against humanity on March 20. Ramadan was sentenced in November to life in jail for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 Shi'ites in the town of Dujail, for which Saddam and two former aides were hanged. But an appeals court recommended he receive the death penalty. New York-based Human Rights Watch raised concerns about the fairness of the original trial and said there was a lack of evidence tying Ramadan to the Dujail killings. UN human rights chief Louise Arbour, who appealed unsuccessfully to Iraq to stop the executions of Saddam and his two aides, had also urged Baghdad to spare Ramadan's life, saying a death sentence would break international law. (Reuters, March 20)

At least 10 people were wounded March 19 in fighting between Pakistani tribesmen and Uzbek militants said to be linked to al-Qaeda in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border. The clash took place in Shin Warsak, a village seven kilometers west of Wana. Both sides were armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The region has been tense since March 6, when 17, including 12 militants, were killed in a gun battle between foreign militants and tribesmen. Authorities say hundreds of militants—said to be Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs—have been hiding in Waziristan since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. The March 6 fighting erupted after the militants tried to kill a pro-government tribal leader. (Pakistan Daily Times, March 20)

The Somali capital Mogadishu came under mortar bombardment March 19, leaving at least two dead and several wounded. A mother and daughter died in one neighborhood as more than 20 rounds hit areas including the Bakara Market, the police transport headquarters and streets around the seaport where some 1,200 Ugandan "peacekeeping" troops arrived and set up defences earlier that day. Government forces and Ethiopian troops fired back with artillery. (Reuters, March 19)

Some 130 inmates awaiting federal immigration hearings staged a protest to complain about conditions at the Monmouth County jail in Freehold, NJ. The inmates refused to eat or participate in activities to press their demands for more food, more Spanish-speaking officers and a television to be fixed. Officials say the protesters met with the warden, and ended their protest shortly afterward. However, no measures to address their demands have been decided on. (AP, NYT, March 19)

In a move reminiscent of the struggle over Liberation Theology in the 1980s, the Vatican has issued a stern warning to Jon Sobrino, a dissident Jesuit priest in El Salvador, sending a formal notification claiming two of his books "may cause harm to the faithful." The ruling from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the Vatican’s ideological watchdog, formerly headed by Pope Benedict when he was Cardinal Ratzinger—finds various "flaws" in works by Sobrino.

Fired opposition lawmakers in Ecuador vow to break a police cordon around the Congress building and reclaim their seats, keeping up the pressure on populist President Rafael Correa. The 57 lawmakers were fired for trying to block a referendum on establishing a body to rewrite the constitution. "Either we all enter Congress or no one will," said Washington Vallejo, one of the fired lawmakers. "We will defend Congress." (Reuters, March 19)