Chanting slogans from a student strike at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), on Jan. 21 a group of students and activists interrupted a talk that conservative Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño Bruset was giving at Valladolid University Law School in Valladolid, Spain. The activists said they were Puerto Ricans living in Spain who wanted the international community to know about Gov. Fortuño's "destruction" of the UPR, and "the repression, the criminalization and abuse of power against the student demonstrators." A group of students has been on strike at several of the university's campuses since December to protest an $800 surcharge on tuition at the large public university.

For the second year in a row, a federal court in Columbus, Georgia, has sentenced activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base during protests against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). This is the maximum sentence for the offense, and US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth surprised observers when he imposed the penalty on three activists in January 2010.

On Jan. 14 Guyana's Foreign Ministry announced that the country was recognizing Palestine as an independent nation in the hope that "that the increasing recognition of the state of Palestine will contribute to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of lasting peace and stability in the region." Guyana is the sixth South American country to recognize Palestine in a little more than a month. (Haaretz, Israel, Jan. 14)

Thousands of Haitians turned out for religious ceremonies in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country on Jan. 12 to mark the one-year anniversary of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that leveled much of the capital and the surrounding area. Cardinal Robert Sarah, sent by Pope Benedict XVI, joined the papal nuncio and Haitian bishops and priests in a special mass at the ruins of the city's Catholic cathedral. Protestants held a service at the Champ-de-Mars park, across from the shattered National Palace, while Vodou followers participated in a ceremony of remembrance at the National Bureau of Ethnology.

Students at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) renewed militant protests around economic issues as the school reopened on Jan. 11 following winter holidays. The actions had started in December in opposition to an $800 tuition surcharge for 2011; protest leaders said the increase would keep as many as 10,000 of the system's 65,000 students from attending the public university. The students called a 48-hour strike on Dec. 7-8, and an indefinite strike starting on Dec. 14, but the actions were only observed at six of the UPR's 11 campuses, in contrast to the 10 campuses shut down last spring, when students beat back major budget cutbacks with a two-month strike. (People's World, Jan. 10)

Honduran campesino leader Juan Ramón Chinchilla was safe and was staying in an undisclosed location on Jan. 11 after two days in captivity, according to the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of labor and grassroots organizations. Chinchilla, a leader in the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), said a group of hooded men seized him on Jan. 8 on a road near La Concepción, Tocoa municipality, in the northern department of Colón. The kidnappers questioned him, beat him and burned his hair, Chinchilla said. Most of the men wore uniforms; some spoke English and one spoke a language Chinchilla couldn't understand. He escaped while the kidnappers were moving him to another location on the night of Jan. 9.

On the evening of Jan. 12 Honduras' National Congress passed reforms to Articles 5 and 213 of the 1982 Constitution that would open the way to changing key elements of the document—including the ban on presidential reelection—by popular referendum. The changes were proposed by the rightwing National Party (PN) of President Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa and were backed by other parties, including the Liberal Party (PL) of former president José Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); 103 of the 128 legislative deputies voted for the reforms.

Mexican activists, local residents and state authorities committed themselves to working for the rights of Central American immigrants at the Jan. 8 conclusion of a caravan from Arriaga in the southwestern state of Chiapas to the nearby town of Chahuites in Oaxaca. Oaxaca governor Gabino Cué Monteagudo met with the caravan's members at the Chahuites municipal auditorium while local residents, mostly members of the Zapotec indigenous group, carried signs with slogans welcoming "brother and sister migrants" and telling them to "feel at home" in the town. "What we're clear about is that in this state's territory the human rights of Oaxacans and of other people, wherever they come from, will be maintained," the governor promised. (El Universal, Mexico, Jan. 9)