Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in his first editorial since largely disappearing from public view due to illness last year, charged US demand for biofuels directly hurts the world's poor. The article, appearing in the official Cuban newspaper Granma, was titled "Over three billion people in the world condemned to premature death due to starvation and thirst," charging that biofuel demand pushes farmers worldwide to plant fuel crops instead of food crops needed by the world's poor.

From Military Families Speak Out, March 29:

Military Families Speak Out responds to Senate vote to continue Iraq war
Today, Military Families Speak Out, the largest organization of military families speaking out against a war in the history of the United States, issued the following statement in response to the vote in the U.S. Senate to provide continued funding for the Iraq war:

Fighting continues between Pashtun tribesmen and foreign al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's Tribal Areas. Both sides used mortars, heavy guns and rocket-propelled grenades in battles overnight in South Waziristan, following the collapse of a week-long ceasefire. Violence first erupted March 19 when a Taliban commander-turned-government supporter ordered Uzbek and Chechen militants to disarm, leaving 160 dead last week. Tribesmen March 29 seized control of a school which the Uzbeks were using as their base in Ghawakha, near Wana. At least eleven have been killed in clashes this week. (AFP, March 30)

More than 12,000 people have fled fighting in Mogadishu in the past week and a humanitarian crisis there is intensifying with aid workers unable to access the needy, the U.N. refugee agency said on March 30. Dozens of civilians have been killed by mortar rounds and gunfire in the Somali capital, according to William Spindler of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "There has been a steady outflow from Mogadishu," he told a news conference, estimating 57,000 people have been uprooted by the conflict since the beginning of February.

Two suicide bombers killed 76 people in a crowded market in Baghdad's Shi'ite Shaab district March 29, as three suicide car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Khalis, a Shi'ite town north of the capital, killing 53 and wounding 103. (Reuters, March 30) A bomb planted under a parked car also tore through a market in Baghdad's mixed Al-Bayaa district, killing three and wounding 26. And a car bomb exploded near a Shi'ite mosque in Mahmoudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing six persons and wounding 19. (AP, March 29)

As the US carries out massive military exercise in the Persian Gulf, the United Arab Emirates became the second Gulf state to declare it would not take part in any attack on Iran. Qatar—home to 6,500 US troops and the enormous al-Udeid Air Base, headquarters of the Pentagon's Central Command—said earlier it would not permit an attack on Iran from its soil. The Gulf Cooperation Council, consisting of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Emirates, has called on all its members not to support any US action against Iran.

The Pentagon conducted a test March 28 of a new ultra-powerful 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The MOP, carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives, delivers more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the BLU-109. Designed to be carried in B-2 and B-52 bombers and dropped from high altitudes, the MOP is guided by global positioning system navigation and has cropped wings for improved agility. The $30 million MOP development program is overseen by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in conjunction with Boeing Co. (AP, March 15)

The government of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, forced to resign last month after a defeat on the issue, narrowly won a Senate vote to keep Rome's 1,900 troops in Afghanistan March 27. But questions remain over the mission's future, as NATO allies criticize Italy's handling of a recent hostage crisis, in which Rome engineered a prisoner-swap to secure the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a well-known Italian journalist held 15 days by the Taliban. The United States, Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands have all denounced the deal, under which five jailed Taliban figures—indlucing three considered high-level—were freed in exchange for Mastrogiacomo. "There was a clear sense in the room that none of us should agree to negotiate the release of hostages in return for terrorists," US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said after a NATO meeting in Brussels.