Africa’s most-populous nation runs in the opposite direction of progress;  More staffers flee Toronto’s City Hall, where the mayor is accused of smoking crack;  The UN is doing a terrible job fighting an epidemic it caused, according to a prominent doctors’ group.

Nigeria's House of Representatives voted to ban gay marriage and outlaw any groups actively supporting gay rights.  The measure also calls for 10-year prison sentences for any “public show” of affection by a same-sex couple.  It’s not clear if President Goodluck Jonathan will sign it.  While Western diplomats declined to immediately comment, the United Kingdom already has threatened to stop aid to nations that discriminate against gays.

Toronto’s alleged crack-smoking mayor says he’s not going to quit, and he plans to run for reelection.  This, as two more key staffers were escorted out of city hall after handing in their immediate resignations.  The video allegedly showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack with drug dealers has not surfaced, despite a gossip website having raised the $200,000 price tag the owners were reportedly asking. 

The UN plan to deal with the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti is “almost non-existent”, according to the health care NGO “Medicins Sans Frontieres”.  The epidemic was traced to sewage from a UN camp running into a river, and has killed 8,000 people since late 2010.  Haiti hadn’t had a cholera outbreak for more than a century before the UN arrived.  MSF manager Duncan McClean says despite the UN’s $2.2 Billion plan, “the impact on the ground today is almost non-existent.”

This weekend’s scheduled friendly between Brazil and UK might be cancelled because the stadium is unsafe.  Senior officials at the Football Association say the recently renovated Maracana Stadium is safe, a judge issued a court order saying that the game cannot go ahead.  Maracana went under massive renovations for the 2014 World Cup finals, but several problems remain. 

The 2013 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia is a black hole of theft and corruption, according to Russian opposition leaders.  Boris Nemtsov and Leonid Martynyuk say Mopre than A$30 Billion has been stolen in preparations for next year's games.  Their report says expenses so far, expenses “turned out to be more than all expenses for all the sports structures at the previous 21 Winter Olympics put together,” and the beneficiaries are “only oligarchs and companies close to (President Vladimir) Putin.”

A UN Tribunal at the World Court acquitted two former Serbian security officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1990s Bosnian War.  The presiding judge ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence linking high-ranking Serbian officials Jovica “Ice Man” Stanisic and Franko “Franki” Simatovic to murders, mass killings, and torture.  Glares of disbelief went through the court as the verdict as read, as most observers expected the men to be found guilty.

The latest anti-austerity protest in Spain pit cops against firefighters, the latter of who were protesting massive cuts and staff reductions they say put the “safety of workers and the people of Catalonia.”  Some protesters at the Barcelona demonstration ignited flares, threw smoke bombs and burned makeshift coffins labeled “public services”.