FRANCE - France's Socialist government has approved a bill to legalise same-sex marriage and allow gay couples to adopt. The bill, opposed by more than 1,000 mayors and the Catholic Church, will be debated by parliament in January. France already allows civil unions between same-sex couples, but it was a campaign pledge of President Francois Hollande to extend their rights. It is one of the most divisive issues he has faced, correspondents say.

CHINA - Final preparations are under way in the Chinese capital ahead of a Communist Party congress that will see a new set of leaders unveiled. Security is tight across the city, with policemen checking passers-by and transport restrictions in place. Spokesman Cai Mingzhao said the congress "will be one of great importance, when China is in a crucial stage of building a modern and prosperous society in all respects, taking on reform and opening up, and accelerating the transformation of the growth pattern." Analysts say there has also been division at the very top of the leadership, with two rival factions jostling for position and influence.

CHINA - If reports from the Hong Kong press and China's blogosphere are correct, a remarkable upset has occurred on the eve of the ten-year power shift next week - the greatest turn-over of top cadres since Mao's revolution. The South China Morning Post says the new line-up of the Politburo's Standing Committee is "packed with conservatives". The succession deal agreed over the summer has been scuppered. The hardliners seem poised to snatch control of the seven-man Committee, tying the hands of incoming president Xi Xinping and premier Li Keqiang. If confirmed, long-term investors may have to rethink their core assumption about the future course of China.

NEW YORK, USA - Trillions of dollars worth of stock certificates and other paper securities that were stored in a vault in lower Manhattan may have suffered water damage from Superstorm Sandy. The DTCC provides “custody and asset servicing” for more than 3.6 million securities worth an estimated $36.5 trillion, according to its website.

GERMANY - Are Central Banks Overstating their Gold Holdings? Romania has demanded for many years that Russia return its gold. Last year, Venezuela demanded the return of 90 tons of gold from the Bank of England. The German high court recently ruled that Germany must audit its gold reserves held in foreign countries such as the US, England and France. And German inspectors will actually travel to the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s gold depository and the Bank of England to inspect their gold. Germany will also repatriate 150 tons of gold in order to test it for purity.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will not allow Iran to continue its progress towards nuclear armament if he is re-elected in January. "I am of course ready to press the button if necessary," he told Israel's Channel 2 in an investigation aired on Monday evening. "As long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have the atomic bomb. If there's no other way, Israel is ready to act."

USA - The United States is frittering away its role as a model for the rest of the world. The political system is plagued by an absurd level of hatred, the economy is stagnating and the infrastructure is falling into a miserable state of disrepair. On this election eve, many Americans are losing faith in their country's future.

NEW YORK, USA - More than 400 possible cases of price gouging of gasoline and other essentials, including a $10 box of matches and $7 loaf of bread, have been reported in New York before and after Sandy. Reports are being investigated in New York City, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

USA - If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676. During the time Barack Obama has been president, the US government debt has increased from approximately $143,255 per American under 18 to approximately $218,676 per American under 18 - a climb of $75,421 or about 53 percent.

NEW YORK, USA - 'Rockaways always get left over,' said Meyer. 'It's treated like a marginalized land in the city.' Most of the grocery stores in the area have not reopened since the storm, and the neighborhood has been left cut off from the rest of the city, with no trains or even shuttle buses servicing the residents.

NEW YORK, USA- Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps to defend against looters. Thugs have been masquerading as Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) workers, knocking on doors in the dead of night. But locals say the real workers have been nowhere in sight, causing at least one elected official — who fears a descent into anarchy if help doesn’t arrive soon — to call for the city to investigate the utility.

USA - The birth rate in the United States hit an all-time low in 2011, according to a report released this month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The 2011 preliminary number of US births was 3,953,593, 1 percent less (or 45,793 fewer) births than in 2010; the general fertility rate (63.3 per 1,000 women age 15-44 years) declined to the lowest rate ever reported for the United States,” said the report. More than 40 percent of all babies born in the country last year, the report said, were born to unmarried women.

UK - The Catholic Church has accused Stonewall, the campaign for gay rights, of being intolerant of dissenting views after a Cardinal was branded 'bigot of the year' at an awards ceremony. Cardinal Keith O'Brien was named in the controversial category at Stonewall's annual award ceremony in London.

NEW YORK, USA - This year's New York City marathon has been cancelled in the aftermath of the super storm Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced. In a statement, he said: "We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it." Plans to press ahead with Sunday's event had prompted widespread anger in cyclone-ravaged parts of the city. It had been due to start in Staten Island, the hardest-hit part of the city, where 19 people died as a result of Sandy. But before the race was cancelled, US Representative Michael Grimm, whose district covers the island, told CNN: "We're still pulling bodies out of the water and the mayor is worried about marathon runners and returning to life as normal."

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - One of the holiest sites in the Christian world, believed to be the place of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, is now under threat of being closed over unpaid water bills. Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, was founded during the rule of Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century and withstood invasions, fires and earthquakes. But now, more than 1,600 years later, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which maintains most of the complex, may close the temple’s doors as the city’s water company Hagihon demands payment of a US$2.3 million bill dating back 15 years, including interest.