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Acting less than a week after the massacre of 26 people, including 20 young children and six adults, in a school in Newtown, Connecticut, President Barack Obama has ordered creation of a government-wide task force to come up with solutions to gun violence.

US Benghazi Attack

Women wait for food to be distributed at the Mugunga III camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Russia has sent warships to the Mediterranean after some of its senior diplomats said last week that Moscow may call for the evacuation of Russian citizens in Syria if the government in Damascus falls.

OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier, speaking at an OSCE event on reconciliation after conflict, Vienna, 18 December 2012.

OSCE Chairperson-in Office's Special Representative for the South Caucasus Ambassador Pádraig Murphy (c) flanked by Andrii Deshchytsia, Special Representative of the incoming Ukrainian Chairmanship of the OSCE (l), and the Head of the EUMM, Ambassador Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, Ergneti, 18 December 2012.

Armed group of M23 make their withdrawal from the city of Goma, DRC.

Japan's governing party has suffered a crushing election defeat. Results of parliamentary elections Sunday show the next government will be formed by the Liberal Democratic Party. The conservatives and their allies are expected to take a more hawkish approach in confronting the country's neighbors, but what they plan to do to reverse Japan's long economic decline remains murky.