Iraqis vote March 7 in parliamentary elections — with more than 6,000 candidates competing for 325 seats. The vote could reconstitute the delicate balance of power among Iraq’s three main ethnic groups.

A U.S. congressional panel passed a resolution March 4 to label as “genocide” the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey, in 1915. The Foreign Affairs Committee resolution now will be sent to the full House of Representatives.

The European Central Bank might consider extending its “enhanced credit support” program to eurozone countries at a March 4 meeting. The liquidity program has enabled governments to issue record amounts of low-cost debt, as described in the graphic above.

The income gap between China’s rural and urban dwellers widened in 2009, according to new figures released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

The leader of the junta in Niger has said millions in the country face a risk of famine — throwing a spotlight on an issue that was seldom discussed during the rule of recently ousted President Mamadou Tandja.

An 8.8. magnitude earthquake was reported early Feb. 27 in Chile, killing more than 700 people. The temblor generated a tsunami.

Thailand's highest court on Feb. 26 seized $1.4 billion in assets from the family of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, after ruling that he had abused power during his 2001-2006 term in office.

The U.S. consulate in Reynosa, Mexico -- a border town in Tamaulipas state -- was closed Feb. 25, due to a spike in violence involving Mexican drug cartels. Firefights ranging from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, have occurred at an increasing rate in recent weeks.

A recent survey by China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security shows that the country is fighting a worsening battle against an old enemy: a labor surplus. Statistics gleaned from a survey of 115 cities, with data through year-end 2009, reveal that unemployment has been increasingly troubling since 2008 -- reflecting the global economic downturn.

Argentina has lodged strong protests over British oil exploration just north of the Falkland Islands. The islands — known in Argentina as the Malvinas — were the prize in the 1982 British-Argentine war, and Britain thus far has brushed off Buenos Aires’ territorial claims in the drilling area.