• Syrian civil war:
  • Qatar says the government of Syria is waging a "war of extermination" against their own citizens. (Al Jazeera)
  • At least 50 are killed throughout the country, according to an activist group. (CNN)
• The Bahraini regime makes all opposition to its rule illegal. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
• Police attack Anglo American Platinum mine workers with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades in Rustenburg, South Africa. (Al Jazeera)
• Bolivian journalist Fernando Vidal is set on fire live on radio. (BBC)

• Somali poet, playwright and songwriter Warsame Shire Awale is killed in Mogadishu. (BBC)
• Major Dutch writer J. Bernlef dies at home in Amsterdam. (Dutch News)
• Groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urge Qatar to release Mohammed al-Ajami, the poet held since last year on charges of "inciting to overthrow the ruling system" and "insulting the emir". (BBC)
• Ahead of the first preview of his new play, Alan Bennett reveals it emerged as a result of disquiet at the National Trust and laments a nation turned into a "captive market" where public life exhibits a "diminution of magnanimity." (The Guardian)
• Tamasin and Daniel Day-Lewis donate poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis's archive—including manuscripts and a letter from W. H. Auden—to Oxford University's Bodleian Library. (The Guardian)
• The Stone Roses announce a series of performances in 2013, including their first London show since their reunion. (The Guardian)

• The Walt Disney Company purchases Lucasfilm Ltd. from George Lucas for US$4.05 billion. Included in the deal are the rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. (Associated Press)

• Aid workers and the United Nations raise concerns about rising food prices and increased cholera in Haiti, where Hurricane Sandy has killed at least 52 people. (Al Jazeera)
• Hurricane Sandy makes landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, with widespread flooding and at least 29 deaths in the Northeastern United States. (CNN) (WNN)

• Rwanda’s high court sentences opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire, to eight years in prison, convicting her of "conspiring to harm the country through war and terror, and minimizing" the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. (The New York Times)
• Organisers of a proposed free public event on Homo floresiensis are forced to change the event's title after use of the word "hobbit", the creature's nickname, is forbidden by the representatives of the Tolkien Estate. (The Guardian)
• A suburban Chicago woman, Elzbieta Plackowska, 40, of Naperville, Illinois, is held without bail after allegedly fatally stabbing her 7-year-old son, Justin, Tuesday night 100 times, and then killing a 5-year-old girl, Olivia Dworakowski, who she had been babysitting and who had witnessed the homicide. She told investigators she did it because she was angry with her husband, a truck driver who was often away, leaving her to do work as a maid and care for the child, work that supposedly was beneath her, according to DuPage County, Illinois State's Attorney Robert Berlin. (Peoria Journal Star)

• Afghanistan hosts its first professional men's boxing match—Hamid Rahimi versus Said Mbelwa—in Kabul. (BBC)
• In the fourth round of the 2012–13 Football League Cup, Arsenal and Reading participate in a twelve-goal thriller (7-5) at the Mad Stad—with Arsenal 4-1 down by the end of the first half. (The Guardian) (The Daily Telegraph) (Irish Independent) (ESPN) (GOAL)