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.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua March 16 quoted the 11th Panchen Lama Gyaincain Norbu harshly condemning the Tibetan uprising: "The rioters' acts not only harmed the interests of the nation and the people, but also violated the aim of Buddhism... We resolutely oppose all activities to split the country and undermine ethnic unity. We strongly condemn the crime of a tiny number of people to hurt the lives and properties of the people."

While little news is now coming out of Lhasa, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that at least three Tibetan protesters were shot dead by Chinese security forces March 18 during a peaceful demonstration in Kardze county, Sichuan. (TCHRD, March 18) Hundreds of Tibetans in Amdo Bora, Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province, staged a peaceful march against the Chinese rule in Tibet. (TCHRD, March 18) Protests also continue in Nepal, where police arrested 58 Tibetans who marched on the UN offices in Kathmandu. (Phayul, March 18)

On March 18, protests broke out in Ganja, a nomadic village 25 kilometers north of Labrang in Amdo (traditional Tibetan region in Gansu province), with some 2,000 marching on government township office with Tibetan flags and portraits of the Dalai Lama. Residents at the nearby nomadic village of Songkok stormed local government offices, shouting anti-China slogans. Protesters from Amchok village began a cross-country march towards Labrang but were halted by the People's Armed Police. (Phayul, March 18) Some 600 monks from Amchok Tsenyi monastery staged a protest outside the local government office in Tsenyi, a village in Ngaba Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. (Phayul, March 18)

On Jan. 17 the Review Court of Rome dismissed the Italian case against former Uruguayan navy captain Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, who was arrested in Salerno on Dec. 23 in connection with Operation Condor, a clandestine program of cooperation between South American militaries during the 1970s and 1980s. Fernandez Troccoli, who headed Uruguay's secret services for the 1973-1985 military dictatorship, is one of 140 military officers and soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay that Italy is seeking for crimes against more than 25 people of Italian origin. The Italian court found that there was insufficient evidence against Fernandez Troccoli. However, as of February he was still held in prison because of an extradition request from Uruguay. (Terra, Spain, Feb. 6 from EFE)

On Feb. 25 the body of retired Argentine military officer Lt. Col. Paul Alberto Navone was found by an employee of the Air Force's Hotel Parque, in Ascochinga, a town some 55 kilometers north of Buenos Aires. He had been shot in the chest; a 9mm pistol and a suicide note were found near the body. Navone, who lived in Ascochinga, had been scheduled to appear that day before federal judge Myriam Galizzi in an investigation of the disappearance of twin babies born in Paraná, Entre Rios province, in 1978, during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship's "dirty war" against suspected leftists. The parents were Raquel Negro and Tulio "Tucho" Valenzuela, a leader of the Montoneros rebel group. Claiming ill health, Navone had gotten his court appearance postponed to March 3.

At around noon on March 14 a group of armed men killed farmer leader Armando Villarreal Martha with submachine gun blasts near his house in Nuevo Casas Grandes municipality, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Villarreal Martha was the leader of the National Agrodynamic Organization (OAN). He was well-known for his campaigns for lower electricity rates for farmers and campesinos, and was imprisoned for a year and a half before being acquitted of charges in connection with the occupation of the Janos and Villa Ahumada customs station in 2002. Earlier this year he was involved in national protests calling for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in demands for the reactivation of the petrochemical industry to make fertilizers and other chemicals cheaper for farmers. He ran as a local candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1988 and for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1992. (La Jornada, March 15)

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.