Global News

The confidence vote in Italy’s parliament looms on Wednesday.  And key allies of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are urging their colleagues to defy their own and back the current government led by Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

A court in Ecuador is for the first time investigating crimes against humanity committed by a past administration.  Prosecutors are seeking the arrests of 10 military and police officials, accusing them of torture, sexual violence, and kidnapping.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, a day after he met with US President Barack Obama on a mission to warn the US about Iran.

The United States Government has begun partial shutdown, after congressional conservatives in the lower house refused to approve a spending plan for next year, unless it contained a repeal, defunding, or delay of President Obama signature health care legislation that went into effect as the government ran out of funding.

A judge wants evidence reexamined in a notorious murder case – Anti-immigration extremists are allowed into Norway’s coalition government (that didn’t work out too well in Greece, BTW) – Tens of thousands of people become stateless non-citizens as a judge redoes one country’s laws going back to 1929.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired a broadside at the nation’s official secular status and introduced a plan to lift the ban on Islamic headscarves on civil servants.  Male colleagues allowed to sport beards, a sign of Muslim piety

Kenya is dealing with the repercussions of the deadly Westgate mall attack that killed 67 people:  For the second time in two months, Kenya troops are accused of robbing the very property they were supposed to be protecting.

The United Nations chemical weapons inspection team has left Damascus.  On Tuesday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will begin its work to eliminate such weapons from Syria.

Still more than three months remaining in 2013, and South Africa has already set an unfortunate record for Rhino poaching.  At least 688 rhinos killed by poachers, surpassing last year’s record of 668 by twenty.

Unanswered questions in Kenya vex MPs – Australia leads efforts to turn the UN’s focus in Syria from Military to Humanitarian – A deadly week in Pakistan ends with another unwanted bang.

Only about a day remains before the Government of the Untied States of America shuts down because republican lawmakers are refusal to agree on a spending plan before the current fiscal year ends on midnight Monday.

With relations between Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s center-left bloc and Silvio Berlusconi’s conservatives at an all time low, Letta will go to parliament and ask for a confidence vote this week.

Boko Haram terrorists stormed a college in northeastern Nigeria and shot dead around as many as 50 male students, some of whom were murdered in their sleep, others who were shot in the back as they tried to flee the carnage.

PM Tony Abbott picked Indonesia for his first international trip and he will arrive in Jakarta later today for talks on border protection and asylum seekers, at least 31 of whom died last week when their vessel sank off the coast of Java.

Greece cracks down on a troublesome neo-nazi political party – Italy’s government teeters on the brink – And India’s PM chastises his neighbor for harboring terrorists.

Diplomacy brings two major achievements to bring calm to the Middle East – Scientific opinion is in, Global warming is here and it’s our own dang fault – The response to the Nairobi Mall Attack might have been mishandled because of bureaucratic turf wars.

The neo-nazi Golden Party has threatened to pull out of parliament if Greece doesn’t stop the crackdown and investigation against it.  This follows a Golden Dawn leader’s arrest for and confession to the cowardly murder of a popular Left-wing musician.

Russia shows no sign of going easy on arrested Greenpeace activists – Activists accuse the International Olympic Committee of throwing LGBT people under the bus – The new Iranian President’s words of peace to the UN are not necessarily being transmitted back home in Tehran.

Brazil’s Labor Ministry is accusing a construction company contracted to getting the largest city ready for the World Cup of forcing more than one hundred men to work in slave-like conditions.

Ending weeks of diplomatic deadlock, the United States and Russia plus the other three most-powerful members of the United Nations Security Council agreed to a resolution that requires the Syrian government to surrender its chemical weapons.