Workers started a 72-hour strike at the Somina uranium mine in northern Niger March 20, demanding better wages and the release of unpaid bonuses. A spokesman for the Syntramines union told Reuters 680 workers have downed tools for the strike, which could be extended to an open-ended stoppage if demands were not met. Somina is run by the uranium unit of the China National Nuclear Corporation, Sino-U, in a partnership with Niger's government. The mine, in the remote Agadez region, was established in 2007, producing 700 tons annually. Niger is also top uranium supplier to France, which is expanding operations. Areva’s Imouraren mine is expected to more than double the French company's current production in Niger when it comes online in 2014, with expected output of 5,000 tons per year. (Reuters, March 21; Asia Daily Wire, Press TV, March 20)

Thousands of teachers from the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), the largest dissident group in Mexico's 1.5 million-member National Education Workers Union (SNTE), marched in Mexico City on March 5 to protest a series of "educational reforms" that President Enrique Peña Nieto signed into law on Feb. 25. The teachers were also demanding the resignation of the new SNTE president, Juan Diaz de la Torre, who they say was appointed in a backroom deal after the Feb. 26 arrest of former president Elba Esther Gordillo Morales on charges of embezzling $157 million from union funds. According to the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) police, some 7,000 protesters joined the march from the central Zócalo plaza to the Los Pinos presidential palace, where a 10-member delegation presented officials with a petition.

Mexican federal agents arrested Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, president of the 1.5 million-member National Education Workers Union (SNTE), on Feb. 26 in the airport at Toluca, the capital of México state, on corruption charges. According to Attorney General Jesús Murillo Kara, Gordillo used millions of dollars from union funds to buy properties in California, to shop at the Neiman Marcus department store and to pay for plastic surgery. The arrest came one day after President Enrique Peña Nieto signed into law a series of "educational reforms" that include regular teacher assessments and measures that would limit the union's power. Gordillo opposed the new law and didn't attend the signing ceremony.

The Association of Victims of March 3 in Vitória, Spain, marked the 37th anniversary of the massacre at the Basque Country city with a public demonstration demanding that the Madrid government officially recognize the facts of the incident, which they say have been excised from the history of the democratic transition after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. The demonstration was coordinated with protests against Spain's pending neoliberal education reform, which brought 3,000 to Vitória's streets. Similar numbers were reported in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria.

Hundreds of Islamists demonstrated in Aman, Jordan, after Friday prayers Feb. 22 to demand faster political reform after an election weeks earlier that produced a mostly pro-government parliament. Muslim Brotherhood followers marched from the main Husseini mosque to downtown Amman in the first such protest since the Jan. 23 ballot. The group boycotted the vote, saying electoral rules were loaded against it. Protesters chanted: "Reform is what is required; Justice and freedom and not these sham elections and deputies." (Daily Star, Lebanon, Feb. 22)

Colombia's largest coal miner, Cerrejon, said Feb. 24 that rebels broke into its facility at Mina Sur, La Guajira department, and burned four of the company's trucks in what it called a "terrorist attack." The attack came four days after the company declared force majeure in the face of work stoppage that began on Feb. 7. Cerrejon, a joint venture between Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Xstrata, operates Colombia's largest open-pit mine, and has frequently been the target of guerilla attacks. Both the FARC and ELN guerilla groups operate in the zone. In 2012, Cerrejon produced around 34.6 million tons of coal, half of which was exported to Europe. (Colombia Reports, Feb. 24; Energy Global, Feb. 20)

Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) had plans to foment violence and declare a state of emergency if he lost an Oct. 5, 1988 plebiscite on his regime, according to declassified US documents that the DC-based research group National Security Archive posted on its website on Feb. 22. The plebiscite, mandated by Pinochet's own 1980 Constitution, gave Chileans a choice between voting "yes" to have the general remain president for eight more years or "no" to end the dictatorship and hold an election in 1989. The "no" option won by 54.7% to 43% for "yes"; some 98% of eligible voters participated.

IndustriALL Global Union, a European industrial union federation founded in Copenhagen on June 19, 2012, is calling for "mobilizations, awareness-raising activities, and letter writing" Feb. 18-24 to protest labor violations in Mexico, with a special focus on the Finnish-based auto parts multinational PKC Group. In December the company's Mexican subsidiary, Arneses y Accesorios de México, SA de CV, laid off 122 workers from its three plants in Ciudad Acuña, in Coahuila state near the border with Texas; all the members of a militant union's local executive committee were among those dismissed, and the rest were thought to be supporters of the local. PKC has since signed a contract with what the laid-off workers describe as a company union.