• Chinese security forces shoot dead a young Tibetan man in Sichuan province, at least the third such killing this week. (BBC)
• Arab Spring:
  • 2011–2012 Syrian uprising:
    • Activists say the Syrian Army has launched new attacks against Homs and Hama, as the United Nations Security Council prepares to discuss the conflict. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
    • Syrian security forces kill over 100 civilians across Syria, primarily in the cities of Homs and Daraa. (Al Arabiya)
  • 2011–2012 Bahraini uprising:
    • Amnesty International calls for an investigation into the fatal tear gassing of residential areas by Bahraini security forces. (BBC)
• Insurgency in the North Caucasus: 13 people are killed in three separate clashes between the Russian forces and Islamist militants in the Russian republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Kabardino-Balkariya. (AFP via Google News)

• 170 international writers, including the Nobel laureates J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mario Vargas Llosa and Derek Walcott, take out a full page advert in Mexican newspaper El Universal to defend the freedom of journalists from fear and censorship. (BBC)

• The Economic Commission for Africa says Africa's economy faces "serious" threats because of the Eurozone crisis and the Arab Spring. (BusinessWeek)
• At the World Economic Forum in Davos, British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose economy would be severely affected, denounces the Tobin tax under consideration in the European Union. (City AM)
• Spain's unemployment figure passes five million for the first time in nearly 17 years. (BBC)

• Two sacks of cocaine are accidentally delivered to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. (CNN) (The Telegraph)
• Willem Holleeder, a notorious convicted Dutch felon, is released from jail after serving six years of a nine-year sentence for extortion and blackmail. (DutchNews)
• Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to go on trial for genocide. (The Guardian)

• Kader Arif, the European Parliament's rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), resigns amid protests against the treaty. (BBC)
• Russia's Central Election Commission refuses to register opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky of the Yabloko party, citing invalid signatures. (Russia Today)
• A media advisor to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard resigns after leaked information that led to a confrontation between Australian Aborigines and Gillard yesterday. (Wall Street Journal)

• Twitter alters technology to enable country-specific censorship of messages. (Al Jazeera) (USA Today)

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo's main opposition leader condemns parliamentary elections as rigged and calls for a general strike on Monday in protest at his house arrest. (BBC)
• In the Netherlands, the Council of Ministers vote in favor of a ban on the Burqa, an outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions. (DutchNews)