President Bush has tapped Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to take over as head of the World Bank. Bush told a news conference March 15 that Wolfowitz, now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top deputy, is "a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job at the World Bank. That's why I put him up." (AP, March 16)

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), being held in Tanzania, has sentenced a former Rwandan civic leader to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to involvement in the 1994 genocide. Vincent Rutaganira, 60, is the fourth man to have pleaded guilty before the tribunal. Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was the first to plead guilty, and is serving his life sentence in Mali.

Twenty-two imprisoned militants of the Abu Sayyaf group and at least 17 others are dead in the Philippines, 24 hours after they launched a rebellion at Camp Bagong Diwa maximum security prison at in Taguig City. The dead are said to include three top Abu Sayyaf leaders, Alhamser Limbong (alias Kumander Kosovo); Ghalib Andang (Kumander Robot); and Nadjmi Sabdula (Kumander Global). Authorities reporteldy gave the militants a non-extendable 15-minute deadline to lay down their weapons and surrender before launching the assualt.

Newsday reports March 15 that militant settlers gathered at the Hebron tomb of Baruch Goldstein to mark the 11th anniversary of his massacre of 29 Palestinians as they prayed at the Tomb of Patriarchs, where Abraham is believed to be buried. (The 39-year-old native Brooklynite was beaten to death by survivors.) A photo accompanying the story shows one settler reverentially kissing Goldstein's tomb. The gathering served as a rallying point for settlers pledging to resist any attempt to evacuate them from the Occupied Territories. Israeli security services are said to be bracing for a violent backlash from the armed settler right.

A short commentary piece in Israel's largest circulation daily Yediot Aharonot claimed March 10 that armed youth are hitch hiking to Gush Katif, the illegal Jewish settlement bloc in the occupied southern Gaza Strip, where they are being hosted by the local community, sometimes sleeping out, and preparing for confrontation with the army to come. They say they will stop the disengagment with their bodies. No one's stopping them from entering the Gush bloc. (Of course if they were left activists the area would be declared a "closed military zone" and they wouldn't be allowed in- WW4). They were wearing batik shirts, sported rasta-locks, and brought thier sleeping bags. They're hippies, yet they have M16s, Yediot commentator Zeev Tsachor noted with some irony.

In Nam Khem, a poor coastal village in Thailand, when displaced survivors returned to the ruins to search for the remains of their loved ones and rebuild their homes, they found the area had been sealed off my armed men. The thugs told them the land now belonged to the "Big Boss," a nameless real estate speculator who had been battling for control of the land in the courts for years, hoping to cash in on the local boom in tourist resorts.

Two US soldiers have now been charged in the deaths of two Afghan prisoners who died in US custody in December 2002, after they were apparently chained to the ceiling before being savagely beaten at the Bagram Control Point, just north of Kabul. (NYT, March 12)

As previously noted here, a CIA contract agent charged in a similar case plans to cite Bush in his defense.

The planned March 18 woman-led traditional Friday prayers—hailed as an historic first for Islam—have been moved from a Soho art gallery to an undisclosed location where they will be open to an invitation-only list following a slate of death threats. One anonymous message to the gallery threatened to "blow you up." The prayers are to be led by Amina Wadud, author of Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, who remains defiant: "If there really exists a threat to my life, if my intentions and my heart remain focused on Allah, then I couldn't die in a better state. Life and death are not mine to determine."