- Houston became the first major American city to elect an openly gay mayor.
- A plane originating from North Korea and scheduled for South Asia landed in Thailand for more fuel. Thai authorities boarded the plane and discovered an illegal weapon shipment of 45 tons probably bound for an insurgent group in Pakistan.
- The UK is debating the future of its Trident nuclear submarines.
- Barack Obama expressed his anger at the banks who continue to pay out millions in bonuses after the worst economic year in decades.
- A British MP is being criticized for claiming $350 for a DVD player on his expense account and expressing his ignorance that one could be purchased much cheaper.
- Here is the main reason that China’s economic growth will sputter within the next couple of decades. It will be old before it is rich.
- Al Qaeda must be getting soft. It offered condolences to its unintended Muslim victims.
- Italy is about to ban breast enhancements for those under 18.
- Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, San Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica have developed a virtual currency, the “sucre,” for trade among themselves. It is an attempt to lessen their reliance on the dollar.
- The U.S. prison population is larger than the populations of 12 states.
- Florida’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has determined that judges cannot have lawyers who may appear in their court as Facebook friends.
- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi doodled while speakers at the Copenhagen climate conference discussed ways to help poorer nations combat global warming. When he was done, he passed around drawings of women’s underwear through the ages – loincloths to thongs.
- It appears that Queen Elizabeth is grooming her grandson, Prince William, to be the next monarch instead of her son Charles.
- Porn films were found at various Taliban hideouts in South Waziristan.
- Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was elected to another 5-year term as leader of his party. The eighty-five-year-old vowed to dismantle the power sharing agreement that he has with the political opposition.
- After broadcasting the burning of a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini by an anti-government protester, Iranian state television is being accused of faking the incident.
- Catalans are voting on an informal and non-binding referendum on whether Catalonia should become an independent state separate from Spain in the European Union.
- Except for South Africa, where same-sex marriage is legal, most African countries are increasing penalties for the criminalization of homosexuality, including the death penalty.
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