21 December 2012 Last updated at 06:09 GMT
US cancels vote on Boehner's fiscal cliff 'Plan B'
Philippines only a signature away from passing reproductive health bill into law
Filipina women joyful as Congress passes long-awaited family planning legislation to President Aquino for signoff
Within minutes of the announcement that the Philippines' landmark reproductive health bill had been ratified, jubilant messages began flooding the Twitter feed of Pia Cayetano, one of the senators who pushed through the final version of the legislation by a margin of 11 votes to five.
"Thanks for empowering women like me," wrote @KristineTweeMae, "by pursuing what can benefit many." "What a momentous day!" exclaimed @JennyCarvajal, offering "congratulations … to all Filipina". "Will #rhlaw protect women … in post-abortion state?" asked @rexsorza. "Will they be taken care of instead of left bleeding?" "Yes!" was Cayetano's emphatic answer.
After the successful culmination of a decade-long struggle to give Filipina women the freedom to make informed family planning choices, this week's outpouring of joy was understandable.
Mayan apocalypse 21/12/12: 'The planets are aligned the sun will activate, let the deluge come'
An end-of-the-world party in Moscow was charging $1,000 for entry. Still, you can’t take it with you
If you are reading this after 11.12am, it’s likely that committed apocalypse theorists are now feeling rather silly.
With any luck, the world hasn’t ended – as some believe the Mayans predicted for today – and aliens haven’t emerged from space ships inside a French mountain to beam locals to safety.
Scientists have done their best over the past week to reassure us that the end was far from nigh, but last night a small number of survivalists and doomsday cultists prepared to take their final stands in forests and on mountain tops around the world.
The latest outpouring of apocalyptic angst mixed with fatalism and dark humour has been fuelled by internet rumours of interplanetary catastrophe and atavistic concerns that a milestone in the 5,000-year-old Mayan Long Count calendar meant 21 December 2012 would be the earth’s last.
SYRIA
Syrian conflict becoming 'overtly sectarian'
A new United Nations report says the fighting in Syria is being increasingly fought along sectarian lines. Human rights investigators also expressed concern about the prevalence of foreign fighters in the conflict.
The 10-page report, unveiled at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, detailed what the chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria described as "an extremely bleak picture of the devastating conflict and humanitarian law violations by both sides."
"We think this is a war where no military victory is possible," Paulo Pinheiro said.
The investigators also found that the front lines in the conflict were changing. While rebels continued to fight against government troops to try to bring down the regime of President Bashar Assad there was also an increase in overtly sectarian fighting.
"What we found in the last few months is that the minorities that tried to stay away from the conflict have begun arming themselves to protect themselves," Karen Abuzayd, one of the investigators told reporters in Brussels.
Feeding frenzy in the world's newest country, Sudan
As South Sudan begins its journey towards development, the rest of the world is descending in droves. Kevin Bloom and Richard Poplak report.
We wake early for a televised election. The Afex River Camp, on the banks of the White Nile passes for luxury in the world's newest capital, Juba. Fist-sized insects thwack against our $125-a-night containers, in which we lie like refrigerated produce. We disengage our alarms and stumble into the bilious light of a parking lot. In the shadows on the far side, CNN blares.
It is a Wednesday in November, the halfway mark of one of those weeks that creak beneath the weight of historical significance. As we enter the kitchenette of the International Republican Institute, a non-governmental organisation, vote counting is already taking place for the contest between United States President Barack Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney. A day later, China's 18th Party Congress will begin the process of installing Xi Jinping as its new leader, determining the course of the world's second-largest economy for the coming decade. In Juba, the principal city of a recently independent South Sudan, these events seem portentous and menacing. In Juba, geopolitical alliances shift with the inclement weather.
How the Zetas drug gang took Monterrey
The Zetas have many sides, but how and why the gang settled in Monterrey explains a lot about who they are and how they operate.
The Zetas have many sides. The group is at once sophisticated and ruthless, coordinating multicaravan ambushes and sending hooligans to launch a wild assault on a police station. It has gang-bangers and Special Forces snipers on its payroll. It uses a sophisticated radio system and a machete in the same operation. It has a political platform that consists of shaking down the entire political class. And it has the accounting system of a multinational company, but the uncanny ability to destroy its own sources of income.
It is, in essence, more organism than organization. For this reason, we tend to see what we want to see when we look at them, even when we analyze the same event. Take the August 25, 2011, afternoon assault on the Casino Royale in Monterrey. When eight men piled in the casino in four cars with automatic weapons, gasoline and lighters, two seasoned security analysts saw entirely different things.
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