200 counter-protesters from around the country outnumbered some 30 members of the "pro-majority" Nationalist Movement who marched in Jena, LA, Jan. 21 to protest the holiday honoring Martin Luther King and the national campaign for the "Jena Six," black teenagers charged with beating a white classmate after black students were threatened with nooses left hanging from a tree at the school. The two groups met at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse, where one member of the New Black Panthers was arrested. (USA Today, Jan. 22) Barred by Jena police from marching with two shotguns they said they needed for protection, the Nationalist Movement now says it will hold a second march in the town to protest abridgment of its "second amendment rights." The group's leader Richard Barrett said he has filed suit in federal court to have the town and Mayor Murphy McMillin held in contempt of court for violating an order by US District Judge Dee Drell to not interfere with the march. "We do intend to defend the Second Amendment in the best and strongest way possible," Barrett said. (AP, Jan. 23)

A series of four bomb blasts rocked the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan over the weekend, wounding one person and damaging shops and businesses. One blast was in the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu; the others targeted shops and markets in the remote districts of Samste, Chukha and Dagana. The explosions come as the once rigidly closed monarchy is preparing its first national elections on March 24. Bhutan's authorities say they suspect one of three militant organizations based in refugee camps in nearby Nepal—the Bhutan Tiger Force, the Bhutan Maoists Party, and the Communist Party of Bhutan.

In a statement on its website, the Nigérien Justice Movement (MNJ) claimed a Jan. 22 attack on Tanout in the Zinder district of Niger, in which at least three soldiers were killed, six wounded and nine others, including the town's prefect, were taken captive. (IRIN, Afriquenligne, Jan. 22) The French nuclear company Areva has signed a deal with Niger to open a second uranium mine in the west of the country, in return for increasing payments to the government by 50%. Protested MNJ commander Aghaly ag-Alambo: "The company has already worked here for 30 years but the local population hasn't even benefited from 1 percent of this wealth." (Financial Times, Jan. 15)

Chad's Alliance for National Resistance (ANR) said Jan. 19 they had shot down an army MI-24 helicopter gunship which attacked their positions at Beda near the Sudanese border. The rebels used a SAM-7 ground-to-air missile. (AFP, Jan. 19) Sudan accused Chadian aircraft of bombing western Darfur in "repeated aggressions" last month. Read a Foreign Ministry statement: "In an unprecedented escalation, Chadian forces have violated the joint border as three Chadian war planes bombed two areas...in West Darfur...on December 28." (Reuters, Dec. 30) Gibraltar-based Signet Mining, with operations in Chad, Niger and South Africa, plans to build a uranium processing plant at its Madagzang prospect in Chad "sometime next year," said CEO Calvyn Gardner. (Mining Weekly Online, Jan. 22)

The US State Department has condemned the Sudanese government for appointing purported Janjaweed commander Musa Hilal as a special advisor to President Omar al-Bashir. Said spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos: "We deplore the government of Sudan's decision to name him to a senior position. He is under both US and UN sanctions for the role he played in Darfur." In April 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Hilal and three other Sudanese nationals accused of war crimes in Darfur, freezing their financial assets. On a visit to Turkey, Bashir defended Hilal's appointment: "Musa Hilal is an influential person in Darfur. Through his leadership, he has contributed greatly to security and stability in the region. We believe the accusations against him are baseless." (AFP, Jan. 22)

Hundreds of Mexican campesinos, accompanied by 40 tractors, marched in Ciudad Juarez, in the northern state of Chihuahua, on Jan. 18 to launch the "Chamizal to the Zocalo" caravan, a 2,000-km ride to protest the elimination of tariffs on staples under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Organized by the Francisco Villa Campesino Resistance Movement, the caravan's route goes from El Chamizal Park, Juarez—at the border with El Paso, Texas—to Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo, where the protesters are to join a Jan. 31 demonstration against NAFTA planned by a broad range of groups.

Thousands of members of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM) participated in an eight-hour national strike on Jan. 16 in support of workers at Grupo Mexico's giant copper mine at Cananea, in the northwestern state of Sonora. Police and soldiers had forcibly removed strikers from the mine on Jan. 12, one day after the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) ruled that the miners' five-month-old strike over safety conditions was illegal under Mexican labor law. The union won a temporary injunction on Jan. 12 allowing the strike to continue, but unofficial sources reported that the Sixth District Labor Court would probably terminate the injunction. Grupo Mexico insisted that at least 400 of the 1,300 workers had returned to the mine.

Guatemalan human rights activist Amilcar Mendez and his wife, Miriam Dardon, began an open-ended hunger strike on Jan. 12 in Guatemala City to protest impunity for the 21,509 homicides that took place in the four-year administration of outgoing president Oscar Berger. One of the victims was the couple's son, José Emanuel "Pepe" Mendez Dardon, who was murdered on Aug. 17, 2007, on his way home from work in Guatemala City.