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By WILLIAM NEUMAN

GRAMALOTE, Colombia — Much of the time, the only sound in this town’s once-idyllic main square is the chatter of birds perching in the cracked church tower and the tap-tap-tap of hammers wielded by men furtively stripping away the last items of any value: a piece of rebar pried from a ceiling, loose bricks knocked from crumbling walls.

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By THOMAS FULLER

MAE SAI, THAILAND — The news coming out of Myanmar these days is of hope and reconciliation as the country moves from military dictatorship to fledgling democracy. But what is actually coming across Myanmar’s border here is a surge of illicit drugs.

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By JOSH KRON Published: May 10, 2012

MAYOM WEL, South Sudan — On a recent blistering afternoon, this village danced in an open field. Women sashayed, hoisting chairs over their heads. Barefoot children scampered. Old men, with skin as dry and cracked as the bark of a savanna tree, jabbed rifles toward the burning sky.

“We are not cowards, we do not fear!” cried out the local commissioner, Awet Kiir Awet

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By DAMIEN CAVE

SANTIAGO XALITZINTLA, Mexico — The night sky sparked bright; dust fell on the villagers. Popocatépetl, the monstrous volcano shadowing this tiny town, rumbled once again this week, spewing forth a cloud of ash and scaring Mexican authorities, who raised threat levels and dispatched civil protection services.

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By DEBORAH SONTAG

A year and a half after cholera first struck Haiti, a tiny portion of the population on Thursday began getting vaccinated against the waterborne disease that has infected more than 530,000 Haitians and killed more than 7,040.

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MOGADISHU, Somalia — Up until a few weeks ago, all visitors who landed at Aden Abdulle International Airport in Mogadishu were handed a poorly copied, barely readable sheet that asked for name, address — and caliber of weapon.

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By ADAM NOSSITER

The insurgent violence stalking northern Nigeria has struck a long list of official targets, killing police and army officers, elected officials, high-ranking civil servants, United Nations workers and other perceived supporters of the Nigerian government.

Now it has an ominous new front: a war against schools.

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By RICK GLADSTONE and STEPHEN CASTLE

A United Nations inquiry commission on rights abuses in the Syria conflict offered grim new details on Friday of the government repression in that country, including the uprooting of extended clans and villages forced to flee into neighboring countries by armed forces bent on crushing armed resistance.

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By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — An iPhone can do a lot of things. But can it arm Congolese rebels?

That is the question being debated by a battalion of lobbyists from electronics makers, mining companies and international aid organizations that has descended on the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent months seeking to influence the drafting of a Dodd-Frank regulation that has nothing to do with the financial crisis.