From the New York Post, March 12:

Car Kills Woman on Birthday
A Queens woman was struck and killed by a car on her 71st birthday yesterday as she crossed an Upper East Side street on her way to celebrate with her daughter and granddaughter.

On March 5, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the global union federation for oil workers, issued a call for "strong condemnation" by supporters of workers' rights of US-led military raids on union offices in Baghdad on February 23 and 25. During the raids, targeting the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), a member of the union’s security staff was arrested and office equipment was destroyed. On February 19, the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists was raided and computers and membership records were confiscated.

A suicide car bomber barreled into a flatbed truck packed with some 70 Shi'ite pilgrims March 11, leaving at least 32 dead. The latest attacks followed a week in which hundreds of Shi'ite pilgrims were killed trying to reach the holy city of Karbala for Ashura celebrations. The exodus faces the same risks. Blasts killed at least 15 others in Baghdad, a day after Iraqi officials warned an international conference that the sectarian violence could spread across the Middle East if not quelled. Outside the capital, militants attacked residents and set about 30 houses on fire in the mixed Sunni-Shi'ite city Muqdadiyah, Diyala province, forcing dozens of families to flee. Victims from both sects blamed the "Islamic State of Iraq," a Sunni militant organization that has taken over several other towns in the area. Residents said the organization had recently demanded money, weapons and oaths of support from the local populace. (NYT, AP, March 12)

The UN Human Rights Council High Level Mission to Sudan has delivered a critical report, accusing the Sudanese government of orchestrating "gross and systematic" human rights abuses in Darfur, and decrying that the international response has been "inadequate and ineffective." The five-member panel also urged that leaders of Sudan's government and militias be charged with war crimes. "The principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign waged by the government...in concert with Janjaweed militia and targeting mostly civilians," the report found. "Rebel forces are also guilty of serious abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law." Khartoum is organizing opposition to the mission's report. The Human Rights Council in Geneva will now consider adopting the report, but Sudan and its allies are trying to thwart it. Khartoum had blocked the team that wrote the report, led by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams, from visiting Darfur, so the mission had to rely on interviews with refugees across the border in Chad. (UPI, March 12; The Guardian, LAT, March 13)

Afghan drug lords linked to the Taliban get busted. Others get appointed to government posts. From AP, March 9:

Afghan Anticorruption Chief Sold Heroin in Las Vegas in ’87
KABUL — When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as Mr. E. In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a pound-and-a-half bag of heroin for $65,000 cash, unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in a Nevada state prison for nearly four years.

Words of wisdom from an Iranian diplomat. Imagine. From the Chicago Tribune, March 11 (emphasis added):

BAGHDAD -- The United States and Iran traded blame for the violence engulfing Iraq at a conference of Iraq's neighbors Saturday that was hailed as a first step toward resolving the building tensions between the decades-old rivals.

Via Save Tibet, dated March 10:

The Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Eighth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising
On the occasion of the forty-eighth anniversary of the Tibetan people’s peaceful uprising in Lhasa in 1959, I offer my prayers and tribute to all those Tibetans who have suffered and sacrificed their lives for the cause of the Tibetan people. I also express my solidarity with those who are presently suffering repression and imprisonment.

From Phayul.com, March 11 (links added):

NEW YORK - As the Tibetans all over the world commemorate the 48th Tibetan National Uprising day hundreds of Tibetans walked with pro-independence banners, placards and Tibetan national flags in the heart of New York city. Students for a Free Tibet, regional Tibetan Youth Congress chapters of New York and New Jersey led the rally which began from Brooklyn this morning.