Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has signed a law that women's advocates at the UN say "legalizes" rape. The new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage, and restricts a woman's right to leave the home, according to UN documents. "It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century," said Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. "It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), March 17:

Under the slogan of "A Better World Can be Made by Workers," the First International Iraqi Labour Conference was held in Erbil in the Kurdish Region of Iraq on 13 and 14 of March. The event drew more than 200 delegates from unions and federations across Iraq and solidarity delegations from the US, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and Iran.

Israel may attack Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb, the top US commander in the Middle East told Congress April 1. Gen. David Petraeus said "the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."

Anti-G-20 protesters clashed with riot police in central London April 1, overwhelming police lines, invading and vandalizing the Bank of England and smashing windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland. A banker was burned in effigy, drawing cheers. More than 30 people were arrested after some 4,000 clogged London's financial district for what was dubbed "Financial Fool's Day." The protests were called ahead of the Group of 20 summit set to open the city.

Our March issue featured stories on new challenges to the Pentagon's Afghanistan operation, fears of Mexico's imminent destabilization, and NAFTA's hidden military agenda. Our multiple-choice March Exit Poll was: Which will be Obama's biggest foreign policy challenge? We received 17 votes (which we hope does not indicate that we have only 17 readers). The results follow:

The New York Times' City Room blog March 27 notes the ruckus raised by NYC's tabloids upon hearing that the Port Authority has dropped the name "Freedom Tower" for the monstrosity going up at Ground Zero in favor of the more prosaic "World Trade Center 1" (NY Post front-page hed: FREE DUMB TOWER). Noted City Room:

This time it is none other than neocon whiz kid and former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, along with Justin Polin, a sidekick from the Hudson Institute, who favorably invoke the Sufis in a New York Times op-ed about Pakistan March 30. How frustrating that the attack on sufism by Pakistan's neo-Taliban receives practically no coverage in the international media—until war propagandists seize on it for their own cynical purposes...

President Barack Obama says he won't consider speeding up the troop pullout from Iraq despite supposed improvements in security. "I think the plan that we put forward in Iraq is the right one," he told CBS TV's "Face the Nation," calling for "a very gradual withdrawal through the national elections in Iraq."