• Thirteen people are killed in Hama, Syria, during the latest violence in the ongoing uprising. (Al Jazeera)

• Time names "The Protester" the magazine's 2011 Person of the Year, as a result of the Arab Spring and subsequent movements. (Forbes)

• United Kingdom unemployment rises to 2.64m. (BBC)

• A state of emergency is declared in the Nelson region of New Zealand due to heavy floods. (New Zealand Herald)
• Toxic illegal alcohol kills 166 people in West Bengal, India. (BBC) (The Hindu)

• The governments of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands protest the start of Japan's whaling season off the coast of Antarctica. (AFP via News Limited)

• Taiwan is to reduce the length of compulsory military service from one year to four months. (Straits Times)
• Belgian police find the body of a woman at the home of gunman Nordine Amrani responsible for the 2011 Liège attack. (Global Post)

• The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament and ally of Vladimir Putin, Boris Gryzlov, resigns. (RIA Novosti) (The New York Times)
• The population of the village of Wukan in southern China revolt over the death of a local man who led protests against a land grab; local officials and police flee. (Wall Street Journal) (Daily Telegraph)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi's party calls for mass protests amid disputed elections. (IOL)