East and South Asia
North Korea has confirmed a nuclear test.
Japan wants to goose its stock market by 17% in the next seven weeks. Felix Salmon has some thoughts.
The view on papal succession from India: ‘Wanted, a new pope: White, European and old.’
A closer look at the 2nd prime minister appointee for South Korea, former prosecutor Chung Hong-won.
North America
Pope Benedict XVI’s influence on American politics.
U.S. president Barack Obama is expected to take a particularly aggressive tone with Congress in tonight’s annual state of the union address.
Kathleen Wynne has become Ontario’s premier and chosen Ontario’s new cabinet.
U.K.-born, U.S.-resident, gay Catholic blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan’s take on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is as solid as anyone’s. What I wouldn’t give to read an original Christopher Hitchens column today.
Cardinal Mark Ouellet gets rave reviews from The Montreal Gazette and from The Globe and Mail.
Latin America / Caribbean
Francisco Toro on the Venezuelan bolivar’s devaluation.
The #YoSoy132 movement in México launches a magazine. [Spanish]
Austin “SuperBlue” Lyons and Machel Montano will share the ‘soca monarch’ title in 2013 after Trinidad’s carnival.
The view of papal succession from Latin America.
A profile of Rafael Correa in advance of his likely reelection on February 17.
Epsy Campbell will run for president in Costa Rica in 2014.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Kenya held its first-ever presidential debate Tuesday.
Frontrunner Raila Odinga taunted his opponent Uhuru Kenyatta over his war crimes trial at the ICC.
Europe
The political rift deepens in Georgia. (Latest on the talks here).
BBC’s primer on electing a new pope.
A little late, but The Economist‘s thoughtful piece on the Nordic economic model.
Labour leads the Conservatives in the United Kingdom by 12 points, according to a new poll.
Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta gets saddled into the horsemeat scandal.
Is fascism making a comeback in Italy?
Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić is still taking heat from alleged ties to a drug lord.
You should be prepared to check early and often at Rocco Palmo’s Vatican blog over the next six weeks.
The take on Benedict from Poland (where, predictably, he remains most fully in the shadow of his Polish predecessor, John Paul II).
The Czech left doesn’t seem set to merge anytime soon.
Russian opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov is placed under house arrest.
A political science approach to the upcoming papal enclave.
Speigel previews the upcoming Austrian election year.
The Cyprus bailout will likely come in March after the presidential election.
Middle East and North Africa
Violence hits Yemen on the two-year anniversary of the 2011 protests.
The latest over a potential new unity government in Tunisia.
Racing against time in Lebanon to craft a new elections law.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition possibilities tighten.
Turkey reaches out to Europe to help it stop the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Oceania
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd wants you (or Julia Gillard, perhaps) to call him, maybe.
A New Zealand MP wants to ban Muslims from flights.