dime

more in taxes.

The Republican Party, which has the majority in Congress, is strongly opposed to tax rises, but Mr Obama said his re-election on Tuesday showed that the majority of Americans agreed with his approach.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that extreme weather caused by climate change has become what he called the new normal. Mr Ban was speaking ten days after a huge storm devastated parts of New York, where the UN is based.

The main Syrian opposition group meeting in exile has chosen a Christian former communist as its leader. He’s George Sabra, a former teacher. He said that his election as president of the Syrian National Council showed that the group was not

sectarian

. He also said the opposition needed more weapons. A BBC correspondent in Doha, in Qatar, where the election took place, says the Council will now come under pressure to join with other opposition forces, but Mr Sabra declined to give an immediate answer to that.

Italian police have arrested nine heart doctors accused of performing unauthorized experimental treatments on patients. A police spokesman said the investigation began more than a year ago after a consumer group raised the alarm of medical practices and reported deaths at a hospital in the northern city of Modena.

World News from the BBC

Fourteen Mexican police officers have been charged with attempted murder over the shooting of two US government officials and a Mexican navy officer. The vehicle, which was armoured was