Serbian and Russian officials have signed an energy deal they say will turn Serbia into a major hub for gas supplies to Europe and boost Russia's economic influence in the region. The deal was signed in Moscow, where Serbia's President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and other officials met President Vladimir Putin and their Russian counterparts. The agreement provides for the construction of a stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline in Serbia, including a major regional gas storage unit at Banatski Dvor. Under the deal Gazpromneft, the oil subsidiary of Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, acquires a 51% stake in Serbia’s top oil and gas company, Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS). The deal comes a week after Bulgaria joined the South Stream project, which is to have an annual capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of gas. The pipeline is to carry Russian gas via Bulgaria and Serbia to Hungary, Austria and Italy.

French police Jan. 24 arrested accused ETA militant Eneko Galarraga near Bayonne. Police said Galarraga was not armed and did not resist. The Spanish news agency EFE said Galarraga, 27, has been wanted in Spain since 2002 when escaped to France after the breaking up of ETA's "Zelatu" commando. The Basque pro-amnesty organization Askatasuna denounced the "repression [of] Basque political refugees" and accused France of "backing the Spanish strategy against the Basque independence movement." (EiTB24, Jan. 24)

Joel Beinin of Jewish Voice for Peace writes from Cairo, Jan. 24:

About 3:00 AM on Wednesday morning Jan. 23, well-coordinated explosions demolished the iron wall built by Israel to seal the southern border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (the Philadelphi axis). Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed across the border and entered the Egyptian side of the town of Rafah, which had been bisected by the wall, in search of food, gasoline, and other basic commodities which have been in short supply for many months in Gaza. The first wave of Palestinians to cross consisted of hundreds of women who were met with water canons and beatings by Egyptian security forces.

Hundreds of representatives of Venezuela's grassroots social movements met in the Southern Caracas barrio of El Valle this weekend, to hash out plans for the formation of the Revolutionary Grassroots Front of the South [Frente Popular Revolucionario del Sur]—a new united movement through which they hope to combat the growing bureaucracy within the Chavez government, and to push their own grassroots agenda.

A director of Colombian military intelligence and another officer implicated in a series of false attacks and a bombing that killed a civilian and injured 19 soldiers in Bogotá in 2006, attended the US Army School of the Americas, an examination of records shows. The Colombian Public Ministry is investigating Colonel Horacio Arbelaez, former director of the Army’s Joint Intelligence Center; Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavides; and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero for orchestrating placement of bombs in a Bogotá shopping mall and other sites in July 2006, on the eve of President Uribe's inauguration for his second term. At the time of the bombing and false attacks, they were attributed to guerrillas of the FARC. In most cases, the bombs were not detonated, but were denounced by the accused officers and deactivated to demonstrate the FARC threat and show military intelligence was doing its work. [Procuraduría General de la Nación, Oct. 12. 2006]

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)