The governments of China and Russia blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad to hand over power, sparking outrage among Western and Arab leaders supposedly concerned about a bloody conflict that has already claimed thousands of lives. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to the UN vetoes by vowing to redouble the Obama administration’s efforts to take down the regime.

As cartel-related violence continues virtually unabated in Mexico's Ciudad Juárez, thousands of police officers in that city of 1.3 million people have fled their homes and now must live in hotels to conceal their identity. The government-funded relocation follows a month in which eight police officers were murdered as part of a systematic campaign by one of the cartels to attempt to force the resignation of the city’s police chief. Banners around the city have threatened the death of a police officer a day until Police Chief Julian Leyzaola resigns his office.

“We need a larger firewall.” So declared Christine Lagarde (left), Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a speech in Berlin on January 23, in which she called on taxpayers of the world to chip in $1 trillion to the IMF to stave off a global crisis. “We need to act quickly or else we could easily slide into a 1930s moment,” Lagarde warned, in an obvious reference to the Great Depression.