The young man sitting before lawyer Musa Amhan pulled out a small red notebook filled with names he had compiled of neighbors who had spied on residents and reported suspicious acts to Syrian intelligence.

The bicycle repairman rode into the neighborhood on a tank when security forces came to arrest protesters. The egg merchant set up a checkpoint to search cars for weapons. One bully extorted money by threatening to identify his neighbors as anti-government rebels. (Read Full Article Here)

The authorities in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, said they would start detaining addicts of crack cocaine and sending them against their will to treatment centers. The new measure, which was announced Thursday and is set to be put into effect this month, is aimed at combating a crack epidemic visibly on display in blighted parts of the city of São Paulo, the state capital, where roving groups of addicts consume the drug in broad daylight. Officials across Brazil are searching for solutions to the problem, with Brazil ranking among the world’s largest cocaine markets. Security forces in Rio de Janeiro have been forcing crack addicts into treatment centers since 2011. On a federal level, President Dilma Rousseff’s government is moving forward with a $2 billion anti-crack initiative, including awareness campaigns and enhanced efforts to combat the trafficking of cocaine into Brazil from neighboring countries. (Read Full Article Here)

Protesters say they and others like them will never fully take part in the promise of a more prosperous nation unless something fundamental changes. (Read Full Article Here)

Demonstrations in India continued for a second straight day after a young woman who was gang-raped on a public bus died of her injuries over the weekend. Police are awaiting forensic reports that would establish the presence of the men inside the bus that the young woman boarded with her companion, who was also brutally beaten in the attack. (Read Full Article Here)

Twenty-one tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot to death in Pakistan’s troubled northwest tribal region early Sunday, government officials said. (Read Full Article Here)

Mr. Peña Nieto’s six-point program includes better government planning; increased intergovernmental coordination; protection of human rights; more social investments and crime-prevention programs; additional evaluation of government programs; and institution building. It also proposes a 10,000-member force to secure municipalities and states where law enforcement is powerless against organized crime. The administration has said it will focus on street gangs and criminals employed by the cartels, a shift from former President Felipe Calderón’s emphasis on eliminating top drug trafficking bosses. (Read Full Article Here)

Is the state serious about fighting corruption? (Read Full Article Here)

Now, though, the heat has turned up again, as the death early on Saturday of a young woman savagely assaulted and raped here in the national capital has mushroomed into a new and volatile moment of crisis that has touched a deep chord of discontent. Protests that began more than a week ago as anguished cries against sexual violence in Indian society have broadened into angry condemnations of a government whose response has seemed tone deaf and, at times, incompetent. (Read Full Article Here)

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt took responsibility on Wednesday for ‘mistakes’ during the run-up to ratification of the new Constitution and urged Egyptians to appreciate the fierce disagreements about it as a ‘healthy phenomenon’ of their new democracy. (Read Full Article Here)

The world’s third-largest cocaine producer has taken an unorthodox approach to controlling the growing of coca that veers markedly from the wider war on narcotics. (Read Full Article Here)