Global News

Almost 90 people are injured after the ceiling collapsed onto the audience in the 113-year old Apollo Theater in London’s West End entertainment district.  The collapse and the emergency response brought Shaftesbury Avenue to a standstill.

Russian President Vladimir Putin now says he will pardon a jailed former tycoon, a day after Russia revealed an amnesty program that covers prominent human rights cases such as the Greenpeace Arctic 30 and the Punk Rock band Pussy Riot.

Technically, anti-government protesters can still claim to have thousands of supporters on the streets.  However, what were once massive throngs of people opposed to President Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday dwindled to about 2,500 hardcore believers.

A cable television star talks himself out of a job, at least temporarily – A pedophile rock star is sentenced to prison – One of the “Great ATrain Robbers” is dead – And a lot more.

The South African cardiologist known by some as “Doctor Death” has been found guilty of professional misconduct for making chemical and biological weapons for the apartheid regime, going against all violating international medical ethics.

Get it straight, Zhang Ziyi is not a prostitute.  The star of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” has reached an undisclosed settlement with a US-based website which has apologized for false reports that she was paid to have sex with top Chinese officials.

Citing stronger job growth and other positive economic factors, the United Stations Federal Reserve Bank is scaling back its efforts to boost the US economy, although Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is warning that the recovery thus far is “far from complete.”

Russia's parliament passed a bill that will likely grant amnesty to the punk rock band Pussy Riot and the Greenpeace Arctic 30 including Australian activist Colin Russell, raising hopes that the latter group will be able to spend the holidays with their families in their home countries.

Myanmar’s opium output this year will be more than 25 percent higher than last year – and production is driven higher because poverty stricken farmers simply don’t have any other alternatives to make a living.

Oz eyes a big jobs package – Italy learns that refugees have mobile video cameras and can catch officials in wrongdoing – UK accuses Syria of murdering a London doctor – And much more.

India removed protective barriers from around the US Embassy in New Delhi, in of apparent retaliation for the arrest and strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York City last week.  India’s government has not addressed “why” the woman was arrested, or who might be the true victim in this case.

France and the African Union (AU) are finally going to get some help restoring order to the strife-torn Central African Republic (CAR):  France emerged from a meeting of European Union foreign ministers saying that some EU members will contribute troops to the effort.

Fugitive US spy secrets leaker Edward Snowden wrote an open letter to the people of Brazil, published in that country’s largest newspaper.  In it, Snowden offers to assist Brazil investigate US espionage against Brazilians, while making the case for his asylum request.

The price of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich’s turn to Moscow away from a long-negotiated political and trade deal with Europe has been massive street protests that have surrounded government buildings.  But after meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, we’ve learned what Ukraine gets out of it.

Moscow and Kiev get closer to sealing the deal over objections from protesters – A job action at Amazon gums up the works just before Christmas – And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally corrects a glaring error.

Dozens of crewmembers of the USS Ronald Reagan say they are suffering from a variety of cancers as a direct result of exposure to the initial stages of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power Plant in March 2011. 

The Kremlin is admitting that it has deployed a “significant quantity of short-range Iskander-M” in the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, the non-contiguous Baltic Seaport wedged in between NATO members Lithuania and Poland, which have expressed worry over the nuclear-capable weapons.

Construction workers at the World Cup football stadium in the Brazilian city of Manaus have gone on strike after the deaths of two workers over the weekend.  One of the men died from falling more than 35 meters.  The tragedy already prompted a court to ban work in the very highest high areas of the Arena de Amazonia.

The United Nations is asking for A$7.3 Billion to deal with the crisis caused by more than twp years and nine months of the Syrian Civil War.  More than half of that amount would be used to deal with the millions of Syrians who were forced to flee over the country’s borders, into refugee camps scattered throughout the region.

A United States judge says that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) once-secret programs to gather up and analyze every bit of telephone and internet data that it can is unconstitutional.  The massive data mining was revealed in the documents smuggled out of the US by whistleblower Edward Snowden and leaked to a tight circle of journalists.