2012 news review: The year's biggest surprises
Which world events surprised us most in 2012? The Observer's news team pick the ones nobody saw coming
POLITICS
TOBY HELM, POLITICAL EDITOR
The decline and fall (almost) of George Osborne
Whatever you might have thought of George Osborne a year ago, he began 2012 with a pretty decent reputation in Westminster as a political strategist. Then came his March budget – an "omnishambles" that unravelled day after day and all but destroyed Osborne's career with it. It was the politics, more than the economics, that were awful. The decision to drop the upper (50p) rate of tax in the thick of painful austerity at the same time as imposing taxes on pasties, caravans and even charity donations (the spring from which the "big society" was supposed to be watered) was a catastrophe and a gift for Labour.
The EU wins the Nobel peace prize
In October, like manna in the depth of famine, the EU was awarded the Nobel peace prize for six decades of ceaseless, tireless work in pursuit of unity in Europe. In the UK, eurosceptics condemned the award, while in Brussels it was accepted as proof that occasionally something good can lighten the darkness in the midst of the eurozone crisis. Stunned and a little wrong-footed, David Cameron suggested that rather than him attending the acceptance ceremony, the EU should send along a group of schoolchildren instead.
Indian gang-rape victim's body cremated as six men face death penalty over her murder
The body of a young woman who was gang-raped and brutally beaten on a moving bus in India's capital has been cremated.
Indian police have charged six men with murder in the December 16 attack, which shocked the country and triggered protests for greater protection for women from sexual violence.
The murder charges were laid yesterday, hours after the woman died in a Singapore hospital, where she had been flown for treatment.
Her body was cremated in a private ceremony today in New Delhi soon after its arrival from Singapore on a special Air-India flight.
SYRIA
Syria envoy warns of Syrian 'hell' at Moscow talks
The international community's envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has stressed the need for political dialogue between the government and rebels. Moscow has called the Syrian opposition’s refusal to hold talks "a dead end."
UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said the unacceptable alternative to political engagement in Syria was "hell."
Brahimi warned that, without a political process, the situation in Syria could become similar to that in Somalia for two decades after that country's government fell in 1991.
"If the only alternative is hell or a political process, then all of us have to work continuously toward the political process," said the envoy after a meeting on Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Rebels in the Central African Republic have seized another town in their advance on the capital, forcing an army retreat.
The rebels, who already have control of four other regional capitals in the centre and north of the country, faced no resistance as they entered the town of Sibut around 150km from Bangui, a military official told Agence France-Presse.
The streets of Bangui were deserted on Saturday night, according to an AFP journalist, after a curfew was imposed from 7pm to 5am (6pm GMT to 4am GMT).
Many shops were being guarded by men armed with machetes. "The bosses fear looting so they are paying guards," said one guard.
Officials on both sides said the rebels of the so-called Seleka coalition had also repelled army soldiers trying to recapture Bambari, a former military stronghold in the landlocked country, one of the world's poorest despite vast mineral wealth.
A military official described "extremely violent" fighting over the town, with detonations and heavy weapons fire audible to witnesses some 60km away.
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