Tens of thousands of people have protested in the centre of Mexico City against President Enrique Pena Nieto's planned overhaul of the energy sector. Opposition leader Andres Lopez Obrador told the crowd to surround the Congress this week. Mr Pena Nieto says the plan to allow private investment in the oil and gas sector is needed to boost the economy. His approval ratings have slumped to their lowest since he took office a year ago.

The collective mood of a nation mired in a prolonged economic recession shows many of the symptoms of clinical depression: despair, fatalism, an inability to make decisions, lack of motivation, and irritability. This is one of the impressions I got from a recent trip to Spain and Italy, two nations I know well and visit often. While both countries have recently made small strides on the path to recovery, I nevertheless came away with the strong sense that their economies are in recession and their societies are in depression.

In late September Andrei, a middle-aged Moldovan, was set upon by two men in a park in the center of this city. They had found his number on a gay dating site, arranged a meetup and, after calling him a faggot, beat him and kicked him in the face. Then, for good measure, they stole his bag and wallet. “It was vicious, and when the police arrived they started asking me all these degrading questions,” says Andrei, who asked that his name be changed.

The Geneva Agreement is a setback for Israeli diplomacy and a personal defeat for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As the United States and its other allies have sought to respond to what they see as signs of change in Tehran, Mr Netanyahu has stuck grimly to the same message. That is that those signs may be cosmetic and that the world powers are relaxing sanctions without getting much in return.

Going about their business on Monday, Israelis seemed more accepting than their leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, of a nuclear deal with Iran that he rejected as a historic mistake. On the streets of Israeli cities, people questioned about Sunday’s interim accord between global powers and the Islamic Republic voiced doubts about an agreement that Netanyahu said would leave arch-foe Iran within reach of an atomic bomb.

Here’s a statistic from an official Pentagon presentation, recently revealed at a security industry conference in Augusta, Georgia. The subject was American military interventions since the end of World War II. The figures: 44 interventions – one a year – between 1945 and 1989; and another 100 – three to four a year – since the end of the Cold War.

Arab women played a central role in the Arab Spring, but their hopes the revolts would bring greater freedom and expanded rights for women have been thwarted by entrenched patriarchal structures and the rise of Islamists, gender experts in the countries say.

With a preschooler at home, I don't get out much. I get out to a lot of parks, but art openings or the theater? Unfortunately, never. Still, to be new in Paris, with some of the world's best museums, designer clothes shops, and gallery exhibitions all around me, at least I can partake in a buzzing cultural vibe.