Europe

• Greek leaderspostponeda decision on an austerity package for another day in the face of a general strike against the measures.

• Germanyenjoyeda trade surplus of $209 billion in 2011 on record imports and exports. 

• Russian authoritiesare planningto retry a lawyer who died in detention for tax evasion, in the first posthumous prosecution in Russian history. 

Asia

• The ousted president of the Maldives claims hedid not resignvoluntarily yesterday but was rather forced out of power"at gunpoint" -- a claim the country's new leaderdenies.

• Millions of voters in the giant Indian state of Uttar Pradeshhave cast ballotsin the first stage of a critical election.

• The decision by a deputy of Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai to go on leave is fanning rumors in China of acorruption scandalorpolitical infighting.

Americas

• Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchnerhas announcedplans to formally complain to the U.N. Security Council about British"militarization" of their dispute over the Falkland Islands, but Britainruled out negotiations.

• The Brazilian governmentis suingTwitter over user alerts about police speed traps and roadblocks aimed at combating drunk driving.

• Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum stole some of Mitt Romney's momentumby winningthe Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and a non-binding primary in Missouri.

Middle East

• The U.S. State Departmentmay halvethe size of its embassy in Iraq, which currently has a staff of nearly 16,000 people. 

• The Iranian parliamenthas summonedPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to testify about"irregularities" in his management of the country's ailing economy.

• Israel's main labor unionhas launcheda rare general strike that is expected to cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars a day.  

Africa

• The Islamic militant group Boko Haramhas claimedresponsibility for a suicide bombing at a military facility in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.

• Sudanese President Omar al-Bashirwill inauguratea governing body tasked with striking a peace deal in Darfur.

• A new study finds that Somali piracy in the Indian Oceanis costingthe global economy $7 billion a year. 

STR/AFP/Getty Images

ViaChina Digital Times,Shanghai Dailyreportsthat fears about debris from a destroyed Russian Mars probe forced the temporary shutdown of two Shanghai airports last month: 

SOME 17 flights were told to defer landing at Shanghai's two airportslate last month out of fear that debris from Russia's failed Mars probemight fall to the city, the civil aviation regulator of East China saidyesterday.

The regulators asked the planes to circle aroundPudong and Hongqiao international airports about 1am on January 16 afterbeing informed that some pieces of the probe might be dropping to thecity, said the East China Regional Administration under Civil AviationAdministration of China.

The Phobos-Grunt Mars probecrashed into the South Pacificabout 1,250 kilometers west of Chile, though some reports suggested debris may have allen over a wider area, including parts of Brazilian territory. Russia's space agency blamed acomputer malfunctioncaused by cosmic rays.

Der Spiegelalsorecently reportedthat a 20-year-old German research satellite narrowly missed hitting Beijing last October -- though"narrowly" seems like a somewhat relative term when you're talking about distances of over 2,000 miles. NASA's 12,500-pound UARScrashed over the Pacificin September. 

Thankfully, due to either navigation technology or probabilities, satellites generally crash at sea, though landfalls aren't unheard of -- such asSkyLab's 1979 crashin the town of Esperance in Western Australia. It seems like only a matter of time before this results in a major international incident. 

It's a somewhat less ambitious project than fending the 1,951 mile U.S.-Mexico border, but not necessarily less controversial.EU Observerreports:

Greece has started construction of a 12.6-km-long razor-wire-toppedfence designed to keep out migrants but described as"pointless" by theEuropean Commission.

The fence, costing an estimated €5.5 million, is being built in theEvros region on the Greek-Turkish border where the vast majority ofirregular migrants try to cross into the EU. It is to be completed inSeptember.

The European Commission on Tuesday (7 February) said the fence is anational issue. But it also poured scorn on the project."Fences andwalls are short-term solutions to measures that do not solve theproblem. The EU is not and will not co-finance this fence ... It ispointless," a spokesman for home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstromtold press in Brussels.

Just one day earlier, Christos Papoustis, a former Europeancommissioner and currently Greece's minister for citizen protection hadsaid the fence has both"practical and symbolic value."

The Greek-Turkish border is for the most part a 180-kilometre-longriver patrolled in part by Frontex, the EU's Warsaw-based border controlagency. Near the city of Orestiada, the river loops east and runs forabout 12 kilometres on the Turkish side, with the Greek-Turkish landborder located in this loop.

The fence may not be the best of the near-bankrupt Greek state's resources at the moment, but the country does have an understandable gripe about the EU'sso-called Dublin regulation, which holds point-of-entry countries -- mostly on Europe's periphery -- responsible for handling asylum cases. Under the law, other countries deport asylum-seekers back to their country-of-entry for processing.