The World

1 | Pakistan A Deadly Show of Strength Baitullah Mehsud, commander of Taliban groups in Pakistan, took credit for a March 30 raid on a police academy in Lahore that sparked an eight-hour standoff and left at least 12 people dead. In telephone interviews with Pakistani news agencies, Mehsud also promised to “amaze everyone in the world” with an attack on Washington as revenge for U.S. missile strikes on militant bases along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The FBI painted the threat as purely aspirational, pointing out that Mehsud had made similar comments before. Still, the attack comes less than a month after a deadly assault on the visiting Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore; analysts are concerned about increased coordination among al-Qaeda, Taliban and other extremist forces and the Pakistani government’s apparent hesitancy to rein them in.

2 | Iraq Goodbye to Basra On March 31, British forces handed over command of their operational base in Basra to the U.S., a major step in the U.K.’s withdrawal from Iraq, where for six years it has been America’s closest ally. Britain’s 4,100 remaining troops complete their combat mission on May 31, and all but a few hundred–who will stay in an advisory capacity–are expected to depart by August. Iraq’s second largest city has seen some security improvements over the past year, but elsewhere the gains are fragile–a fact highlighted by a suicide truck bombing that killed seven and wounded 38 in Mosul on the day of the handover.

3 | Libya Tragedy on the High Seas In one of the worst such accidents on record, more than 200 people attempting to illegally enter Europe drowned when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean. The vessel was one of at least two that left from Libya and encountered bad weather. It was most likely bound for the Italian island of Lampedusa; more than 30,000 migrants arrive there from Africa every year, according to the International Organization for Migration.

[The following text appears within a map. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual map.]

Countries visited since March 4

EGYPT

LIBYA

SAUDI ARABIA

QATAR

ERITREA

ETHIOPIA

4 | Sudan A Waltz with Bashir Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir brazenly defied an international warrant for his arrest by embarking on a six-country regional tour. Several leaders expressed solidarity with al-Bashir during a March 30 Arab League summit in Qatar and accused the International Criminal Court–which on March 4 charged him with committing war crimes in Darfur–of placing a double standard on Arab countries.

5 | Washington Cleaner Cars The Department of Transportation significantly raised its fuel-economy standards for the first time since they were established in 1975. Passenger cars will now be required to get 30.2 m.p.g. (up from 27.5), while the standard for light trucks will increase from 23.1 m.p.g. to 24.1. The new rules apply only to 2011 models; the Obama Administration is still debating how to apply them to future model years, given the U.S. auto industry’s precarious financial situation.

6 | The Hague Breaking the Ice with Iran Almost two weeks after Barack Obama spoke to Iran in a video message, special envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan. The brief tête-à -tête marked the first such contact with Tehran since Obama took office.

7 | North Dakota CRISIS AVERTED? Less than a week after the Red River reached record highs and threatened to cause disastrous flooding, Fargo residents weathered a blizzard and 40-m.p.h. winds while 3.5 million sandbags served as temporary levees to protect North Dakota’s largest city. Though businesses, schools and streets have reopened, local officials are lobbying for permanent disaster-relief funding–in the past 12 years, the region has seen two hundred-year floods. As one city official said of Fargo’s ceaseless battle with Mother Nature, “You kind of feel like it’s a Bruce Willis film.”

8 | Phnom Penh In the Face Of Justice, An Apology The first defendant in a U.N.-backed genocide trial of senior Khmer Rouge officials expressed “heartfelt sorrow” for the torture and killings of some 15,000 people at Tuol Sleng, the notorious prison over which he had presided. But 66-year-old Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, painted himself as a scapegoat for a regime whose rule caused an estimated 1.7 million deaths in the 1970s. If convicted, Duch faces a possible life sentence.

9 | Washington Keeping America Wild In a victory for nature lovers, a newly signed omnibus bill will protect some 2 million acres of wilderness, the most significant conservation effort in more than a decade. The legislation also protects 1,000 miles of scenic rivers and provides more federal protection to areas under the Bureau of Land Management.

Some of the areas affected by the bill

1. Mount Hood Wilderness

2. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Wilderness

3. Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness

4. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Wilderness

5. Wild Monongahela Wilderness

10 | New York Rockefeller, Reconsidered Governor David Paterson reached an agreement with legislators to scale down the state’s Rockefeller drug laws, some of the earliest statutes in the nation to lay out mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. Critics and activists hailed the pact, arguing that mandatory minimums contribute to prison overcrowding and recidivism and incarcerate addicts who should instead receive treatment. The original laws, which were a model for much of the legislation passed at the height of America’s War on Drugs in the 1980s, mandated minimum sentences as long as 15 years for certain drug offenses–the same as those for second-degree murder.

1973 Original Rockefeller Law

• Set mandatory minimum at 15 years to life

• Applied to offenses including possession of more than 4 oz. of narcotics

2004 Drug Law Reform Act

• Cut minimum sentences to eight to 20 years

• Raised possession minimum to 8 oz.

• Allowed for lighter resentencing

2009 New Legislation

• Eliminates mandatory minimums for lower-level offenders

• Emphasizes drug treatment

• Allows judges to impose shorter sentences

RECESSION WATCH

Here’s $3,000. Now scram! That’s the offer that Japan made on April 1 to unemployed foreigners of Japanese ancestry. These immigrants, mostly from Brazil and Peru, had previously obtained special visas to do manufacturing work in Japan for companies like Toyota. With the number of available jobs at a six-year low, the nation can no longer afford to pay them unemployment benefits and is asking them to leave.