Global News

Unrest grows over the sacking of a popular mayor in Bogota – A decades-old tragedy turns out to have been a political assassination – And an outbreak of bubonic plague is causing a panic.

In the eternal debate raging on the world’s Internet comment boards, there’s this unofficial rule known as “Godwin’s Law” – In short, the first person to compare an opponent to Hitler loses.  American conservatives spent the day violating Godwin’s Law after President Barack Obama shook the hand of an old cold war rival at the memorial for South African hero Nelson Mandela.

Uruguay's Senate approved a new law to create the world's first national marketplace for legal marijuana, putting the government in charge of production and sales of a market that everyone knows exists practically unfettered but is controlled by criminals. 

Israel and Romania are squabbling after Bucharest refused to allow Romanian construction workers to be employed in West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.  It is Israel's second diplomatic row with an European Union country this week.

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Bangui on his first visit to the Central African Republic since sending 1,600 French troops in to restore order.  But it came just hours after two of the troops were killed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is proposing an amnesty deal that could free two members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot from prison, as well as avoid jail terms for members of the Greenpeace Arctic 30. 

In Argentina, they’re calling it “The Cordoba Effect” – Police are walking off the job on strike, and mobs are running wild, looting stores and businesses.  At least five people are dead and hundreds are injured as violence infects 19 of Argentina’s 23 provinces.

Yingluck refuses to quit – A Queenslander is jailed in America for an unspeakable crime – Nasty weather makes great video – And Africa mourns a music legend.

Thousands of people rallied in Bogota, Colombia's central square to protest the sacking of the mayor for having de-privatized a public service.  The mayor had been expected to be a potential presidential candidate, but is banned from holding office for 15 years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is shutting down the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti and “Voice of Russia” radio station, and replacing them with a new agency to be headed by a notorious news anchor known for spouting extreme anti-western and homophobic opinions.

Massive crowds as well as current and past world leaders are assembling in Johannesburg, where they will attend the official memorial for Nelson Mandela at the giant FNB soccer stadium.  The service will last four hours and is pretty much expected to be the only thing going on in South Africa for the time.

Where yesterday the police stayed on the edges of massive anti-government demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, cops are now threatening to evict protesters from Independence Square if they don’t clear out on their own by Tuesday.  Some protest camps were already taken down.

An electric commuter train in Jakarta, Indonesia crashed into a truck hauling liquefied gas, sending a fireball of orange flames shooting skyward.  At least four people are dead according to railroad officials.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved parliament and called a snap election.  But anti-government protest leaders met this with more demonstrations to scrap the democratically elected government and install an unelected body to run Thailand.

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's Socialist government won a majority of votes in local elections on Sunday, dealing a major disappointment to the opposition and helping his quest to continue the late Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian legacy.

South Korea says it will expand its air defense zone over the Yellow Sea, as of 15 December.  The South Korean zone will incorporate airspace that was claimed by China last month, and has been in the Air Defense Zone of Japan for years.

It was slow and respectful instead of “Fast & Furious”.  But thousands of gearheads, busters, and just plain movie fans hopped in their rides and headed for Valencia, Calfiornia for a massive rally in honor of the late actor Paul Walker, star of the “Fast & Furious” movies.

The rebel who for the moment is President of the Central African Republic says he has no control over the “Seleka” alliance of militias who helped him into power.  Those militias are accused of killing scores of civilians in the chaos following the coup.

For the first time in more than two years and two weeks after a landmark international agreement, inspectors from the United Nation’s nuclear agency have visited Iran’s Arak heavy water production plant. 

Car bombs killed at least 30 people across Iraq and injured 123 more.  The attacks are part of the growing Shi’a versus Sunni violence that spilling over the porous border with Syria, where the civil war has been degenerating into a sectarian conflict.Iraq