Iran Confronts Twin Scourges of Heroin Addiction, AIDS

While the United Nations has grand plans for a multinational peacekeeping force in Mali and the French have hopes of withdrawing their troops soon, Islamist militants in the West African country have other designs. French security forces are still engaged in daily combat with al-Qaeda affiliates and finding huge caches of insurgent arms buried in the Sahara. The United Nations stability force, meanwhile, is understaffed at less than half of its authorized strength.

Eye-popping fines against six big European banks over a global rate-rigging scandal make for good headlines but won’t necessarily lead to tighter regulation. Despite the record $2.3 billion penalty, the European Commission’s direct responsibility over the markets is limited and EU political resistance will make it difficult for the commission to respond to calls for tougher rules.

Political turmoil has engulfed Ukraine for the past two weeks as hundreds of thousands of protesters converged on the capital to protest President Viktor Yanukovych’s snap decision to withdraw from political and economic association talks with the European Union. Adding to the furor, riot police ransacked the leading opposition party’s offices on Monday.

Fueled by anger at growing income inequality during a period of prolonged economic stagnation, legislators on both sides of the Atlantic have begun to toy with radical solutions — in very different ways. On Nov. 24, Swiss voters defeated a proposed ban on executive pay more than 12 times the earnings of the lowest-paid employee. Two weeks later, U.S. President Barack Obama suddenly threw his support behind an immediate 39.3 percent hike in the federal minimum wage, then indexing it to inflation.