Saudi Arabia's Shoura Council has discussed a national plan to deal with potential radioactive contamination in the Kingdom following warnings of possible attacks on Iran's nuclear reactors. "The plan to check radiation hazards was discussed by Shoura members, but it will be discussed and reviewed again before being tabled for voting," an unnamed Shoura Council member told Arab News. The King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) is said to be preparing a contingency plan. (Arab News, March 24)

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has ordered the army to start baking more bread following a series of clashes breaking out at long lines for government-subsidized loaves. Acute shortages of the flat, round bread which is a staple of the Egyptian diet—made available to the poor at one cent a loaf—have led to explosions of violence in poor neighborhoods in recent weeks. At least seven people have died, according to authorities. Two were stabbed in fights between customers in line; the others died of exhaustion or other medical problems aggravated by waiting in the spring heat. (AP, March 24)

Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, has proposed the ethnic division of Kosova to the UN mission in the disputed territory, a Belgrade newspaper reports. The key point of the accord offered to the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is to create "the functional separation of Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo," Samardzic told the pro-government daily Politika. "We accept the [UN Security Council] Resolution 1244 and authority of UNMIK police, judiciary and customs, but after the unilateral proclamation of independence, only Serbs, aided by Serbia, could carry that out," Samardzic, a member of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's party, was quoted as saying. He told Politika the proposal referred to all Serb-populated areas of Kosovo, and not only the northern Serb stronghold including the flashpoint town of Kosovska Mitrovica.

Newly pseudo-independent Kosova, it seems, is serving as a sort of political Rorschach test, with commentators' views on its drive for self-determination shaped more by their views on other issues. Days after left-wing Israeli dissident Uri Avnery noted Israeli reluctance to recognize Kosova lest it give some ideas to the Palestinians (and, worse yet, Israeli Arabs), comes a voice from the neocon end of the spectrum—finding that Kosovars and Israelis are natural allies. Michael Totten writes in a March 20 piece for Commentary (also online at his website):

Recent clashes between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and fighters from the nomadic Arab Miserriya community have displaced hundreds of civilians from their homes and raised tension across Abyei, a region lying between the north and South Sudan. Abyei's Gov. Edward Lino, appointed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, said that in new fighting March 20, "our men, the SPLA, exchanged fire with the Miserriya 20 kilometers east of the Heglig oil field."

Iranian artillery March 23 shelled three border towns in northern Iraq where Iranian Kurdish militants are believed to be operating, Iraqi Kurdish authorities reported. The shelling of the towns of Marado, Razda and Dolakoka started at 7:00 AM and lasted for about two hours, said Azad Watho, a top administrative official in Sulaimaniyah, one of three provinces that make up Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Watho said the shelling targeted fighters from the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK).

The death toll of US soldiers in Iraq passed 4,000 March 23 as four troops died in a roadside bomb attack on a patrol in southern Baghdad. More than 29,000 US soldiers have been wounded in five years of conflict in Iraq, according to the icasualties.org website. At least 97% of the deaths have come after George Bush announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003. At least 50 Iraqis, most of them civilians, also died March 23 in violence including bomb blasts and shootings. (AlJazeera, March 24) Gunmen in three cars opened fire on pedestrians in southern Baghdad's mixed Zaafariniya district, killing at least seven and wounding 16. (Reuters, March 23)

At least two people were killed and 12 wounded on March 22 in Peru's northeastern Loreto department in clashes between police and mostly Achuar indigenous workers who had been occupying installations on the Pluspetrol Norte oil company's lot 1AB since March 20 in a labor dispute. The clashes occurred after the workers attempted to take over the Andoas airport on March 22; they were then removed by police agents, who stayed to patrol the area.