The death toll from a supermarket roof collapse skyrockets – An oil pipeline ruptures beneath a major city, sending cars, trucks, and huge slabs of blacktop flying – And crack-smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s antics costs his city a potential gold mine.

At least 44 people are dead and 166 are injured in the explosion of an underground oil pipeline in Qingdao, in China’s Huangdao Province.  The pipeline had been leaking oil onto the street, and crews were trying to repair it when in exploded.  The damage to Qingdao City is apparently widespread – Chinese news websites show block after block of upended streets, cars and trucks tossed asunder, as well as people who never had a chance against such power.

Authorities now say 51 people are known to have been killed in the collapse of a supermarket roof in Riga, Latvia.  The initial cave-in killed and trapped dozens of people on their way home from work on Thursday night.  Three rescuers were killed when more of the roof came down as they tried to pull people from the rubble.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is en route to Geneva on word that a deal with Iran is close.  If the right language were agreed upon, Tehran would promise to curb its nuclear program in exchange for America and the west lifting billions of dollars of economic sanctions.  Russia’s foreign minister is reportedly already in Switzerland as a possible agreement closes in.

The Pakistani doctor who helped the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) find Osama bin Laden has been charged with murder in connection with a surgery he performed in 2006.  The new charge is on top of the retrial he faces stemming from a complaint over a teenage boy who died after Afridi performed surgery on him for appendicitis in 2006.  US Officials have angrily demanded the Pakistan release Dr. Shakil Afridi, viewing the prosecutions as revenge for the Bin Laden raid.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is ordering Russia to release the Greenpeace Arctic 30 upon receiving 3.6 Million Euros (A$5.3 Million), and allow the crew and ship to leave Russia.  In the binding ruling, The Netherlands would pay Russia, because the Greenpeace ship is Dutch-flagged.  All but one of the Arctic 30 were granted bail by a Russian court, except for Tasmania’s Colin Russell, which Russia has yet to explain.

Former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says she will drop her demand to be released from prison if the government signs a trade and political deal with the European Union.  Thousands protested in Kiev over the government’s decision to jilt Europe and instead negotiate with its old Soviet master Russia, which is offering cheap credit and gas without the EU’s human rights strings attached.

North Korea is confirming it has detained an American citizen – although the hermit kingdom did not specifically say the person detained is 85-year old American tourist Merrill Newman, who was pulled off of the plane last month as he tried to leave the country.  Pyongyang’s motive is still a mystery, and Newman’s family says there has been “some dreadful misunderstanding” and that the elderly grandfather may need medication.

Rio de Janeiro is rejecting a Friendship City agreement with Toronto, Canada.  It turns out that Rob Ford’s crack-smoking buffoonery is just a little too much to shake hands with these days.  A Toronto councilor had spent a week in Rio in October trying to forge the friendship agreement with the future Olympic host in the world’s 7th largest economy; it would have opened up economic channels between the two municipalities.  But his work was steamrolled by the Ford Scandals.