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    • Pope Benedict XVI’s Successor and Change in the Church

      By Christiane Amanpour, Mary-Rose Abraham, David Miller & Mark Monroy | Around the World – Thu, Feb 14, 2013

      Catholics around the world just marked Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. But even this holiest period in the Church calendar seemed to be overshadowed by the stunning news just prior. Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, effective Feb. 28.

      It was the first time in more than 700 years that a Pope willingly chose to step down. Even the heavens seemed to react with shock as a photographer captured a lightning strike on St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican hours after the pope’s announcement.

      The most pressing questions are who Benedict’s successor will be and what changes, if any, the new pope may introduce.

      As pontiffs before him had done, Benedict resisted forces of modernity which called, for example, on a changing role for women. His successor is not likely to change course.

      “The pope follows in the teaching of the Church. That’s over a 2,000-year-long tradition. A particular pope does not have the freedom to make choices that are contradictory to the tradition,” said Rev.

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    • Air Pollution Causes More than 6 Million Deaths Worldwide

      By | Around the World – Thu, Feb 7, 2013

      For the last three weeks, residents of Beijing have been breathing thick, soupy air so choked with pollutants that it has registered far off the scale of acceptable levels.

      Yet places like Beijing or New Delhi, India, which has also had extremely unhealthy air quality levels, are far from the only cities to be plagued. Air pollution affects practically everyone on the planet and causes more than 6 million premature deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. Yet, this insidious and long-standing issue really only generates headlines when it hits extreme levels.

      ABC News correspondent Gloria Riviera reports that levels in Beijing averaged 300 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), a whopping 280 points over what WHO says is good, clean air. Optimal AQI is just 20.

      Explosive economic growth in China means factories are going full tilt 24/7 and millions of people are able to own cars for the first time. China has minimal environmental standards in place. The new pollution

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    • Guatemala Dictator to Stand Trial on Genocide Charges

      By Christiane Amanpour | Around the World – Mon, Feb 4, 2013

      After a U.S.-backed coup ousted its democratically elected government, Guatemala, a small Central American country, endured a brutal civil war that lasted more than three decades, from 1960 to 1996. Tens of thousands of Guatemalans went missing and 200,000 of its citizens were killed during the conflict, mostly by state security forces.

      Now, relatives of the victims have a symbolic victory all these years later. Just last week, a Guatemalan court ordered a former military dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

      The charges against the general are a direct result of what filmmakers captured in a 1983 documentary called “When the Mountains Tremble.” During Montt’s 17-month rule in the early 1980s, the dictator allowed a young woman, Pamela Yates, to accompany and film him on a helicopter mission as he led troops on a crackdown against leftist guerrillas in the Mayan highlands. “Granito” is a 2011 documentary about that original

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