Politics this week

The process of selecting a presidential candidate for the Republican Party got under way, with Mitt Romney eking out the narrowest of victories (by eight votes) in the Iowa caucuses over Rick Santorum, hitherto a no-hoper in the race. Ron Paul came a close third and Newt Gingrich was some way behind in fourth place. Mr Santorum won the support of many social conservatives and evangelicals. Those who said they were looking for the best candidate to beat Barack Obama opted for Mr Romney. See article

Michele Bachmann, a tea-party favourite, ended her bid for the presidency after coming sixth in Iowa.

Asserting some new-found presidential backbone as he enters an election year, Barack Obama appointed several people to executive positions over the heads of the Senate, which is in recess and where Republicans have held up the nominations. Chief among Mr Obama's recess appointments is Richard Cordray as boss of the new and controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Enter stage left

The opposition People's National Party won a landslide victory in Jamaica's general election. Its leader, Portia Simpson-Miller, becomes prime minister again, four years after losing the job. See article

Argentina's president, Cristina Fernández, was said to be recovering well after an operation for thyroid cancer. She is expected to return to work on January 24th

An international arbitration tribunal awarded Exxon Mobil $908m in compensation for assets nationalised by Venezuela's government in 2007. Exxon had demanded more than $10 billion, but PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, said it will pay Exxon just $255m. Exxon is pursuing a separate case against Venezuela at the World Bank's arbitration panel.

An appeals court in Ecuador ratified an award of $9.5 billion in damages against Chevron for oil pollution. The American oil company said the judgment was fraudulent and politicised; it is taking action against the plaintiffs in international courts.

A long walk to freedom

Myanmar released hundreds of prisoners, and shortened prison terms for others, to mark the 64th anniversary of its independence from Britain, and just ahead of the first visit by a British foreign secretary to the country since 1955. Democracy activists claimed that only a handful of those freed were political prisoners. An American spokeswoman said the clemency wasn't enough to merit lifting sanctions.

Pakistan experienced its first terrorist attacks of the year, when two bombs killed five people in the north-west Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Meanwhile, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad reported that there were 1,966 terrorist attacks in Pakistan last year, which killed 2,391 people and injured more than 4,300. Both the number of attacks and the casualty count were lower in 2011 than in the two previous years.

The Commonwealth responded cautiously to an announcement by the prime minister of Fiji, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, that the Pacific island state would lift a state of emergency and draft a new constitution. Fiji was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2009, three years after Mr Bainimarama seized power in a coup. See article

A Chinese man died of bird flu in the port city of Shenzhen, the first reported case of human infection for 18 months. Chinese health authorities urged calm as nearby Hong Kong culled 17,000 birds.

Some kind of justice

Two men were convicted of the 1993 murder in London of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager. His killing led to much soul-searching in Britain about racism and the criminal-justice system. The original investigation was marred by police ineptitude and one of the men had previously been acquitted. See article

Concerns mounted over the state of democracy in Hungary as tens of thousands took to the streets of Budapest to protest against a new constitution. Critics say the document entrenches the power of the ruling Fidesz party at the expense of formerly independent institutions. European officials said that they would not return to Hungary to resume financial-aid talks until the government withdraws a law that increases state influence over the central bank. See article

Christian Wulff, the German president, faced calls for his resignation after it emerged that he had tried to stop a tabloid newspaper publishing a story about a personal loan he had accepted. If Mr Wulff is forced out it would be an embarrassment for Angela Merkel, who backed his candidacy in 2010 against the wishes of some in her party. See article

After more than a year of political deadlock leaders of Bosnia's quarrelsome Bosniak, Serb and Croatian communities surprised Balkan-watchers by forming a government. Bosnia hopes the deal will help it on the road towards EU membership. See article

Unpersuasive

A team of observers under a mandate from the Arab League arrived in Syria in an effort to persuade Bashar Assad's regime to withdraw his troops from towns, to free all political prisoners and to talk to the opposition. But the death rate stayed as high as before, some but by no means all troops were withdrawn, a minority of prisoners were freed, and no talks took place. See article

As Egypt's three-stage general election drew to a close, with final run-offs expected on January 11th, assorted Islamists were expected to win three-quarters of the seats in the lower house of a new parliament, but the relatively moderate Muslim Brothers continued to say they would prefer to form a coalition with secular parties rather than with the extreme Salafists. See article

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Jordan and had their first talks for more than a year. No breakthrough occurred but the two sides said they would meet again soon.

Thousands of Nigerians protested against a doubling of fuel prices after the government withdrew a costly subsidy. As trade unions threatened to strike, President Goodluck Jonathan's cabinet held an emergency meeting.

Youssou N'Dour, a well-known musician, said he would run for the Senegalese presidency against Abdoulaye Wade, the incumbent, in elections next month.