World

The Enemy of My Enemy …

1 | INDIA

Afghan President Hamid Karzai paid a visit to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to strengthen ties between Kabul and New Delhi. Just days before, Karzai had accused Pakistan–geographically sandwiched between Afghanistan and India–of orchestrating the assassination of a prominent Afghan official and aiding the Taliban. India has long seen the handiwork of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, in terrorist attacks on its soil. To counteract Islamabad’s influence, India has poured billions of dollars of aid into Afghanistan.

ON TIME.COM

‘Everywhere, there is a great sense of disillusionment. The struggles are all connected.’

VICENTE RUBIO, a Spanish teacher in the New York City area and participant in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, linking the growing protest movement in the U.S. to the mass occupations carried out earlier by the indignados of Rubio’s native Spain

Anwar al-Awlaki’s terrorism rsum

9/11/2001 Some of the bombers sought his spiritual counsel

Fort Hood, 2009. E-mailed at length with Major Nidal Malik Hasan, killer of 13 soldiers

Christmas 2009. An attempt to blow up a U.S. plane goes awry

Times Square, 2010. Purported motivator of failed car bomber Faisal Shahzad

Parcel bombs, 2010. Behind a plot to ship bombs to the U.S. and elsewhere

A Marked Man Gets Marked Off

2 | YEMEN

Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico–born radical Islamist cleric, was a marked man, the first U.S. citizen put on a CIA kill list. He’s no longer on it. Al-Awlaki was killed by a missile launched by a U.S. drone on Sept. 30. He was targeted because of his ties to al-Qaeda and his links to a spate of terrorist attacks. The “YouTube preacher” was one of al-Qaeda’s leading ideologues and perhaps its main commander in Yemen, where he fled to in 2004. Still, his death has triggered a heated debate over the legality of a targeted assassination of an American, even one who’s a terrorist.

TUVALU 11,000

Population of the Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which declared a state of emergency Oct. 3 after its supply of fresh water nearly ran out because of erratic rains. Fiji Water to the rescue?

A Tragedy of Twin Typhoons

3 | THE PHILIPPINES

Residents of a coastal community north of the capital, Manila, walk amid the debris of homes blown away when back-to-back typhoons struck the archipelago nation. Ferocious winds, rock slides and flash flooding claimed at least 59 lives. The impoverished Philippines weathers nearly two dozen major storms each year; the latest round caused more than $200 million in damages.

It Just Gets Worse

4 | SOMALIA

At least 70 people were killed and many injured when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged truck in a government compound in the heart of the capital, Mogadishu. The al-Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility. The attack came months after the fragile Somali government said it had driven al-Shabab fighters from Mogadishu. Among the dead were many bright young students waiting to collect scholarships to study abroad–yet another loss for a nation accustomed to disaster.

Hate Thy Neighbor

5 | BULGARIA

Anti-Roma demonstrations broke out after an incident in which a Bulgarian youth was allegedly killed by henchmen of an ethnic Roma mob boss. The protests, staged in part by far-right thugs, revealed the depth of local resentment toward Roma (often called Gypsies), who are stigmatized as criminals. The 10 million to 12 million Roma in Europe remain one of the continent’s poorest and most persecuted minorities.

Roma population in Eastern Europe

= 1% OF THE POPULATION

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

HUNGARY

SERBIA

ROMANIA

MACEDONIA

BULGARIA

SOURCE: COUNCIL OF EUROPE

Currency Clash

6 | CHINA

Officials in Beijing blasted a U.S. Senate bill aimed at China that calls for higher tariffs on currency manipulators. Bill co-sponsor Charles Schumer and others charge that China’s currency, the renminbi, is kept artificially low relative to the dollar to give Chinese exporters an edge over U.S. competitors. China dismissed the claim, warning that the proposed legislation could set off a high-stakes trade war that could do serious harm to the global economy.