LIBYA

While the world agonized about the death of Kim Jong-il and the future of North Korea, the Chinese city with a front-row view into the isolated state shrugged.

Kim Jong Il, like Muammar Gaddafi , has died at age 69 after decades of tyrannical rule. But as North Korea scrambles to determine the country's future, many more dictators remain in power. From Arab Spring autocrats in Syria and Sudan to the leaders of Ethiopia and Uganda, here are the eight worst dictators still in power today.

Commodities trader Trafigura's profits soared nearly two-thirds to a record over $1 billion this year, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing a note to bondholders.

The International Criminal Court is suspicious about the manner in which Moammar Gaddafi was killed in October.

The killing of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi may have been a war crime, according to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Staying in Syria would tacitly suggest that Hamas supports Assad, who has already become the loneliest and most isolated leader in the Middle East.

Cain then fell from the polls and bowed out of the race. But he's told Barbara Walters in an interview that aired Wednesday night as one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of the year that if given the opportunity for a cabinet position, he would choose this one -- Secretary of Defense.

Italian financial institutions have already released about 600 million euros ($782 million) of Libyan assets.

McCain himself seemed pleased with Putin’s tirade.

A shift in the global military balance is one of the inalienable fallouts of the economic winter experienced by the Western world. While military spending in the U.S., the reigning super power, is increasingly coming under a scanner, the extended defense holiday in Europe signals that the continent’s global influence is on irreversible decline.

With oil prices already high at/near $100 per barrel and the global economy no where near its GDP output potential, OPEC is once again in the catbird seat as it heads into its December meeting.

Panetta is heralding what now appears to be an improving security situation in Afghanistan.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in nine months of unrest in Syria, the U.N. human rights chief said, as an insurgency begins to overshadow what had been mostly peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

Jammeh has been in power in Gambia since engineering a bloodless coup as a 29-year-old in 1994,

OPEC began negotiations on Monday on a new production deal aimed at healing the rift caused by a bad-tempered failure to agree an output target when it last met in June.

OPEC began negotiations on Monday on a new production deal aimed at healing the rift caused by a bad-tempered failure to agree an output target when it last met in June.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's opponents hope to bring large numbers of people out onto the streets across Russia on Saturday for rallies that will test their ability to channel outrage over allegations of election fraud into a powerful protest movement.

Atheist bloggers have shown their charitable side by swarming to donate money to Doctors Without Borders, in what turned into the humanitarian agency's biggest online fundraiser.

Investors are cautiously optimistic about their investment plans in developing countries over the next 12 months despite increased concerns about the euro zone debt crisis, a survey by the World Bank's political risk insurance agency found on Thursday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged private industry to protect Internet freedoms Thursday, saying it was vital to promote online rights amid restrictions in Russia, Syria and China.

Libya's interim government has issued an ultimatum to regional militias lingering in the capital of Tripoli: disarm or leave.