Tokyo finally gets the prize its been after for years – Europe moves closer to the US opinion on attacking Syria – Moscow’s mayoral election pits the Kremlin against the highest-profile opposition leader.

The 2020 Summer Olympics will take place in Tokyo, Japan’s “Eastern Capital” beating out rival bids from Madrid and Istanbul (not Constantinople).  The International Olympic Committee made the announcement earlier, accompanied by the Tokyo Delegation jumping to their feet in celebration, weeping with joy, and waving the flag.  Tokyo already has well maintained stadiums and facilities from the last time it hosted the Summer Games in 1964, and a multitude of newer facilities, hotels, restaurants, trains that go everywhere, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assures us that the spewing radioactive mess at Fukushima is 240 kilometers away and will not affect the big city.

European Union foreign ministers are calling for a “clear and strong” international response to what it said was “strong evidence” that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people on 21 August.  But EU Foreign Ministers did not fully endorse the US plan for a military strike, and concluded nothing should happen until after the United Nations weapons inspectors release their report on what happened in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

US President Barack Obama showed graphic and gruesome videos of the Syrian Chemical Attack’s aftermath to a select group of senators, to drum up their support for a cruise missile strike at Syrian government targets.  They’re the same group of videos that people around the world have seen on YouTube.  President Obama will give a televised address on his plans to strike Syria on Tuesday in America.

Tens of thousands of Tunisians marked the end of a 40 day mourning period for a slain opposition leader with a giant march and rallies in the capital Tunis.  They’re demanding the Islamist government step down, accusing it of failing to reign in militants and radical, and to improve the failing economy.

Across Brazil, Independence Day celebrations were marked with protests, including some that got violent.  The demonstrators echoed the general feeling of the massive protests from a few weeks ago:  Dissatisfaction over the government spending billions on public spectacles such as the World Cup and the Olympics instead of infrastructure, health care, and education.  Still, President Dilma Rousseff defended her record saying the country has “progressed as never before in the last few years.”

Moscow on Sunday has its first mayoral election in nearly a decade.  Incumbent Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is the Kremlin's candidate.  His challenger is anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is currently free on bail after being found guilty of embezzlement in what he and his supporters insist was a political trial with faked evidence.  Voters are not expected to face a situation in which they throw away six years of stable financial management and progress for an extremist frontman for Oligarchs, because that would be insane, right?  No one would do that.

A hospital in Kolkata, India is under fire after 30 babies died in its care in just four days.  Hospital officials say was a spike in admissions of seriously ill babies who could not be saved.  The parents say staff at the BC Roy Post-Graduate Institute of Pediatric Sciences did not give their children the correct medicine and were guilty of mismanagement.

China just locked up some lucrative energy deals with Kazakhstan, including co-ownership of the giant Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea, said to be the world's largest oil discovery in five decades. The deal gives Beijing substantial clout in post-Soviet Central Asia, feeds its industrial base, and blocks regional rival India from getting a stake in the project.