NORTH KOREA - A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death. Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December. On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

CUBA - Sandy has reached south-east Cuba and strengthened into a strong category two hurricane. The hurricane was carrying maximum sustained winds of 175km/h (110mph) as it hit land just west of Santiago de Cuba, said the US-based National Hurricane Center (NHC). On Wednesday, one man was killed as Sandy swept over Jamaica. A hurricane watch is in place in the Bahamas, and Florida has been placed on tropical storm watch.

UPDATE: PHILADELPHIA, USA - The latest edition of the GFS model has just rolled out, and it has finally jumped on board with most of the others, discarding the idea of a new coastal low and bringing Sandy in towards Long Island as a tropical storm or hurricane by Tuesday. We may need to be prepared for widespread power outages even farther inland thanks to the deluge of wind and rain that Sandy will produce.

ISRAEL - A majority of Israeli Jews admit they are living in an apartheid state, a recent survey claimed. Many also believed that Palestinians should be denied the right to vote, and suggested that Jewish citizens should be given preferential treatment. Some 500 Jewish adults took part in the survey, answering questions put together by a group of civil rights activists and academics, Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday. The survey’s findings revealed that 39 percent of respondents believe there is a ‘slight’ form of apartheid in the country, while 19 percent admit that there is ‘heavy’ apartheid.

VATICAN - “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council.” This first sentence of “Unitatis Redintegratio,” the council’s Decree on Ecumenism, is still surprising to many Catholics. Ecumenical relationships are a school of virtue. To engage others we need humility, honesty, patience and gentleness. Sometimes we see these in our ecumenical partners. I hope they see them in us. I believe that we need saints to lead us on the road to unity.

USA - For days Donald Trump teased ahead to a big reveal about President Barack Obama, saying his announcement would be made with the best interest of the United States of America in mind. Basically, the announcement, made at noon, comes down to the birth certificate controversy and question of [Mr] Obama’s college records. If President Obama releases his college records and his passport records, then [Mr] Trump says he will give a $5 million check to a charity. [Mr] Trump says he will release the check within an hour of receiving the records. The caveat, he says, is that they have to be submitted by October 31.

USA - Despite the issue garnering a significant amount of media interest as well as the attention of the Secret Service, Obama supporters continued their threats to riot and assassinate Mitt Romney if [Mr] Obama loses in the aftermath of last night’s presidential debate. As we reported last week, Twitter has been flooded recently with violent comments from Obama supporters. The increase in volume of the comments seemed to coincide with [Mr] Romney’s poll numbers edging higher against [Mr] Obama.

USA - The US faces many pressing issues in the near future. But none of them got much air time on Monday night in the debate between President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney. Instead, the two candidates appear stuck in the Bush worldview, and reveal a global power on the decline.

UK - To all intents and purposes, the UK is already out. We stayed still. Europe galloped away without us. No doubt we can find some elegant formula to paper over the split. As my friend Daniel Hannan puts it, we could devise a Swiss arrangement while pretending that we are still EU members. No point frightening the horses.

GILGIT, PAKISTAN - Across Pakistan, violent Sunni radicals are on the march against the nation's Shi'ite minority. Secretive groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are aiming to stoke the intense sectarian violence that has pushed countries like Iraq close to civil war. More than 300 Shi'ites have been killed in Pakistan so far this year in sectarian conflict, according to human rights groups. The campaign is gathering pace in rural as well as urban areas such as Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city. The Shi'ites are a big target, accounting for up to 20 percent of this nation of 180 million.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA/BERLIN, GERMANY - Berlin is intensifying consultations on the support for the Syrian insurgents with Saudi Arabia. The German foreign ministry announced that in the German capital this week Foreign Minister Westerwelle was coordinating with the Saudi deputy foreign minister steps to "strengthen the Syrian opposition."

BERLIN, GERMANY/BEIJING, CHINA - Applauded by the German President and officials of the German government, the laureate of a prominent German cultural award made a plea for smashing China to pieces. China is a "heap of rubbish," he said, it must "be dismembered," insisted the Chinese author, Liao Yiwu, a resident of Germany, who was awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade last Sunday.

MADRID & BARCELONA, SPAIN/BERLIN, GERMANY - Driven by the Euro crisis and the German austerity dictate, secessionist aspirations in the Spanish province of Catalonia are becoming accentuated. Following a major demonstration demanding the founding of a sovereign nation, the region's parliament and prime minister have announced intentions to table a referendum on secession in the course of the next legislative period.

GERMANY - Berlin does not feel like an imperial city. The new government buildings – the chancellor’s office, the Bundestag and the foreign ministry – have all been designed with plenty of glass and natural light, to emphasize transparency and democracy. The finance ministry is, admittedly, housed in the old headquarters of the Luftwaffe. But most of the grandest architecture – Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg gate – is a legacy of the Prussian kings.

UK - Prime Minister David Cameron today vowed to stick to his guns in demanding a European budget freeze, declaring: 'We've not put in place tough settlements in Britain in order to go to Brussels and sign up to big increases in European spending.' He made his position clear in the House of Commons hours after Germany denied seeking to cancel next month's European Council summit if the UK threatened to veto any rise in the EU budget.

L'AQUILA, ITALY - Six scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter by an Italian court on Monday for failing to give adequate warning of an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in L'Aquila in 2009.