TIME.com

Laos pays the price of Chinese rail expansion in Southeast Asia, Africa’s energy consumption is growing fastest in the world and Latvians buckle down to weather an economic crisis.

Three of China’s most populous regions will ease school entry restrictions for children of rural migrants and the use of torture in Mexico reached a peak during the ex-president’s tenure.

A surge in “honor killings” in India highlights a national scourge, Ireland’s carbon taxes deliver results and a 115-year-old Japanese man is the world’s oldest man.

Bolivia’s unconventional war on drugs yields results, Switzerland refines two-thirds of the world’s gold and China plans to create a “Music Valley” outside of Beijing.

The U.S. government tries to sell advanced spy drones to South Korea, China opens the world’s longest high-speed rail line and Israel reviews restrictions on women’s prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Critics say Russia’s potential ban on adoptions by Americans would overwhelm the country’s orphanages, China tests the world’s longest high-speed rail line and fake malaria drugs hinder progress against the disease.

Gender imbalance in China is prompting rural men to move to urban areas in search of wives, Turkey’s Internet companies are booming and Africa now has more cell phone subscribers than the U.S.

The U.N. adds pressure on Israel to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hong Kong government makes a move to curb air pollution and Canadian authorities arrest three men over stolen maple syrup.

Japan’s conservative party is back in power, North Korea marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il and Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse at the heart of the royal prank call, is to be buried in India