Suspected Islamist separatists shot and killed three Buddhist women involved with a project for victims of Thailand's insurgency March 19. The victims were headed to work at a farm project funded by Thailand's Queen Sirikit in the Nong Chik district of Pattani province, one of several in the area set up to help distressed women, including some widowed by the political violence. The project teaches the women to grow vegetables, fruit and other basic necessities. Assailants on a motorcycle drove up next to the truck the women were riding in and fired randomly. Thirteen other women escaped unharmed.

At least 10 people were wounded March 19 in fighting between Pakistani tribesmen and Uzbek militants said to be linked to al-Qaeda in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border. The clash took place in Shin Warsak, a village seven kilometers west of Wana. Both sides were armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The region has been tense since March 6, when 17, including 12 militants, were killed in a gun battle between foreign militants and tribesmen. Authorities say hundreds of militants—said to be Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs—have been hiding in Waziristan since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. The March 6 fighting erupted after the militants tried to kill a pro-government tribal leader. (Pakistan Daily Times, March 20)

The Somali capital Mogadishu came under mortar bombardment March 19, leaving at least two dead and several wounded. A mother and daughter died in one neighborhood as more than 20 rounds hit areas including the Bakara Market, the police transport headquarters and streets around the seaport where some 1,200 Ugandan "peacekeeping" troops arrived and set up defences earlier that day. Government forces and Ethiopian troops fired back with artillery. (Reuters, March 19)

Kyrgyzstan has demanded the US hand over for trial an Air Force serviceman who shot dead a Kyrgyz truck driver in December at the Manas airbase. The Kyrgyz government threatened to review its agreement with the US on the use of the base, where US troops have been operating since 2001. The US maintains the troops enjoy similar status to diplomats and cannot be prosecuted by Kyrgyz courts. US officials say the truck driver threatened the airman with a knife at a Manas checkpoint. The serviceman shot him twice in the chest. US officials said the airman "used deadly force in response to a threat". President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has demanded more rent for the Manas base, said the airman should not leave the country until an investigation has taken place. (Reuters, March 19)

Waving Puerto Rican and Iraqi flags, hundreds of demonstrators picketed in front of the US National Guard headquarters in Puerto Rico on March 17 as part of an international weekend of protests against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, which began on March 19, 2003. The picket line was organized by Mothers Against War and was supported by the Puerto Rican Independence Party, the Socialist Front and the Hostos National Independence Movement (MINH). Thousands of Puerto Ricans are participating in the US military operation. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, March 18)

At dawn on March 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided the low-income Canal neighborhood of San Rafael in Marin County, California. The raids, part of ICE's national "Operation Return to Sender," were supposedly based on 30 warrants for people who had prior deportation orders. The ICE agents returned to the neighborhood early on March 7 and carried out more arrests; at least one similar raid took place in nearby Novato over March 6-7. ICE agents apparently returned to San Rafael for the third consecutive day on Mar. 8 to make further arrests. San Rafael police were notified that ICE would be making arrests near the city's downtown area between 7 and 8 AM, said police spokesperson Margo Rohrbacher. Some of the immigrants may have been deported the same day they were arrested, an immigration official said on March 8. (Marin Independent Journal, Novato, March 7, 8, 9)

Some 130 inmates awaiting federal immigration hearings staged a protest to complain about conditions at the Monmouth County jail in Freehold, NJ. The inmates refused to eat or participate in activities to press their demands for more food, more Spanish-speaking officers and a television to be fixed. Officials say the protesters met with the warden, and ended their protest shortly afterward. However, no measures to address their demands have been decided on. (AP, NYT, March 19)

In a move reminiscent of the struggle over Liberation Theology in the 1980s, the Vatican has issued a stern warning to Jon Sobrino, a dissident Jesuit priest in El Salvador, sending a formal notification claiming two of his books "may cause harm to the faithful." The ruling from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the Vatican’s ideological watchdog, formerly headed by Pope Benedict when he was Cardinal Ratzinger—finds various "flaws" in works by Sobrino.