Rejecting President Marc Ravalomanana's proposal for a referendum to end Madagascar's violent political crisis, opposition leader Andry Rajoelina instead called for his arrest March 16. As explosions were heard in the capital Antananarivo, the military intervened, seizing key government buildings. The military passed power to Rajoelina, a former mayor of Antananarivo who led weeks of angry protests demanding Ravalomanana's ouster.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld March 17 a district court decision finding former Salvadoran military commander Nicolas Carranza liable for murder and torture committed during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s. In 2005, a Tennessee federal jury found Carranza liable for acts of murder and torture in El Salvador under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victims Protection Act. Carranza had appealed the verdict, claiming that the district court abused its discretion by not granting comity to a Salvadoran amnesty law.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) March 17 hailed a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit not to revisit an earlier decision requiring the Department of Defense (DoD) to disclose photographs of apparent detainee abuse. The Bush administration filed a request for rehearing in November in response to a Second Circuit ruling that the DoD must release the photographs of Iraqi and Afghan detainees after redacting personally identifying information.

The US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals March 17 upheld a military judge's dismissal of the charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the top-ranking US Marine to face court-martial in the killing of 24 Iraqis at Haditha. The court affirmed the appearance of "unlawful command influence" when a lawyer who had investigated the case sat in on meetings at which the case was discussed with the general who ultimately decided to charge Chessani.

From US Labor Against the War (USLAW), March 17:

At the first International Labor Conference ever held in Iraq, three of the country's major labor organizations announced the formation of a new labor confederation. At the close of the two day meeting of Iraqi unions with their international allies, Iraq's powerful Federation of Oil Unions, the nationwide Electricity Association and the General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions signed an agreement to create a new labor confederation, a step toward unifying the Iraqi labor movement as an advocate for the interests of Iraqi workers.

The number of immigrants detained by the US has drastically increased over the last decade, according to an AP report issued March 15. A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database, obtain by the AP through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), indicates that on Jan. 25, 32,000 individuals were detained in the US. This is nearly five times the 6,785 that were detained in 1994.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani announced March 16 that the government will reinstate deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in response to the opposition protests. In a televised address, Gilani announced that Chaudhry and other deposed judges will be reinstated March 21, when the current chief justice retires. Gilani ordered the releaseof all arrested during the past week's "long march" protest, which began March 12.

Shortly after El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal issued its second bulletin confirming the FMLN's lead late March 15, president-elect Mauricio Funes addressed the nation, saying that with their vote the people had signed "a new accord on peace and reconciliation"—an invocation of the 1992 agreement that ended the country's long civil war and saw the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) transform from a guerilla army to an electoral party.