SYRIA: Turkey’s Parliament has approved a bill authorising the military to conduct cross-border operations in Syria after shelling from Syrian territory killed five civilians.
The Anadolu Agency says MPs today voted in favour of the bill that gives the government authority for one year to send troops or warplanes to strike Syrian targets whenever it deems it necessary.
AMERICA: President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney clashed over taxes, deficits and how to revive the US economy as they shared the stage for the first time in a high-stakes debate with the power to reshape the race for the White House.
Mr Obama said Mr Romney wanted to return to the policies that hurt the US economy.
Mr Romney said Mr Obama’s policies had failed and America needs a change.
HONG KONG: Hong Kong residents are mourning the deaths of 38 people in the city’s biggest maritime tragedy in decades.
People across the southern Chinese city dressed in black and fell silent for three minutes at midday today as they started three days of official mourning.
INDONESIA: Two Britons have gone on trial for allegedly trafficking cocaine onto Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali.
Both could face death by firing squad if found guilty.
SPAIN: Spanish police say they have arrested a man who allegedly planned to imitate the 1999 Columbine school killings by planting bombs around a university campus.
In a statement, police said they seized 140 kilo (308lbs) of bomb-making material when they arrested the 21-year-old in Palma, Majorca.
AMERICA: Facebook has topped one billion users, but the past few months have not been easy.
Mr Zuckerberg also updated his Facebook status to announce that the social networking site has more than one billion active users each month.
EUROPE: Almost all the EU’s 145 nuclear reactors need safety improvements and the cost could be as high as 25 billion euro (£20bn), Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger says.
The European Union today released a report following stress tests carried out in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan.
