On March 21, US President Barack Obama will depart on a short tour of the Asia-Pacific region. His main destinations will be Indonesia and Australia, but the trip will include a brief stopover in Guam.

An article posted at RAWA.org on March 10 by Marc W. Herold said that on February 27, the US/NATO forces occupying Afghanistan “killed three people, including two children, in Alasai district of Kapisa province”.

Cuba's successful models of sustainable development — in areas of food, housing and health — are now being widely replicated throughout Latin America.

Two hundred Aboriginal people and supporters rallied outside state parliament on March 10 to protest the death in custody of another young Aboriginal man in a Queensland prison.

On February 25, the Senate rejected the Greens’ amendment to the marriage act that would have seen discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality removed from the legislation.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Australia over March 9-11. Unsurprisingly, the issue of asylum seekers was the leading concern for the federal Labor government, the corporate media and refugee advocates alike.

Witness Roy Bramwell told the re-opened inquest into Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee’s death on March 8 that police threatened to “come after him”, as they crushed his original damning witness statement and threw it in the bin.

Well, now I really feel safe. The Australian defence department has finally started to buy up vital necessities to protect this country. Oil paintings, comfy handmade chesterfield lounges, memberships to exclusive golf clubs… You name it; our defence department now has it. I guess you can’t underestimate the usefulness of a well-rested backside and a perfect golf swing during hand-to-hand combat.

On March 8, the Green Left Weekly website received a Top 10 Award from the web analytics company Hitwise.

Indonesian and Australian activists are preparing to protest US wars in the Middle East and the stepped-up “war on terror” during US President Barack Obama’s visits.

“Earth Hour” will be held around the world on March 27. The event is organised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and involves participants switching off their lights for the hour as a symbolic declaration of support for environmental action.

In response to the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's call to his ambassadors to ban the screening of Insurgency of the 21st Century, Australian activist groups have started promoting the documentary.

Redistributing wealth from big business to the community through welfare payments is not what one would expect from opposition leader Tony Abbott.

A March 1 Wall Street Journal article compared the low earthquake death toll in Chile to Haiti, and cited conservative economist Milton Friedman as the saviour of the Chilean people.

Politicians from the Coalition and Labor Party are proposing nearly identical housing polices for remote Aboriginal communities — and both ignore the experiences of Aboriginal people themselves.

Latin America has suffered constant aggressions from Washington during the past 200 years.

Two Afghan and nine Tamil asylum seekers faced Christmas Island magistrates court on March 11. They pleaded not guilt to all charges related to a so-called riot in the Christmas Island detention centre last November.

It was a predictable move. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's popularity was sliding in the lead-up to a federal election. Meanwhile, despite Coalition opposition leader “Mad Monk” Tony Abbott's wild statements (and even wilder ones from his deputy), his personal ratings were going up.

Bridget Chappell, an Australian solidarity worker in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, was arrested by occupying Israeli forces on February 7 and threatened with deportation for simply engaging in peaceful protests alongside Palestinians.

On May 28, 2008, an elected constituent assembly declared Nepal’s centuries-old semi-feudal monarchy finished. As Nepalese people celebrated in the streets, the Himalayan country was declared a republic.