Theresa May's Brexit deal suffered a crushing defeat in the British Parliament. Leavers who think the deal does not go far enough in disentangling Britain from the European Union joined Remainers in voting against the government by a majority of 230, the largest defeat of a government on record. Hoping to trigger an election that it thinks it can win, the opposition Labour Party called for a motion of no confidence in the government, which it survived as Tory rebels returned to the fold. Mrs May will have to return to Parliament with a new Brexit blueprint on January 21st.

The mayor of Gdansk, Poland's sixth-largest city, was murdered by a knife-wielding assailant in front of a horrified crowd at a charity event. Pawel Adamowicz had been one of the country's most prominent liberals.

The rambling man

Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a second term as Venezuela's president. In a speech that lasted nearly four hours, Mr Maduro promised to quadruple the monthly minimum wage, which would bring it to $7 at black-market rates, and said the distressed economy would boom. Agents of the country's intelligence service briefly detained the newly elected speaker of the opposition-controlled national assembly as well as two journalists. The national assembly declared Mr Maduro a “usurper”.

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's far-right president, signed a decree that eases gun-control laws. Brazilians without a criminal record will be able to buy guns more easily and to keep them at home. Mr Bolsonaro said the measure would give Brazilians a “l(fā)egitimate right of defence”. In 2017 the number of murders in Brazil reached a record of nearly 64,000.

A court in northern China sentenced a Canadian to death for smuggling drugs. Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said this was a matter of “extreme concern” and accused China of “arbitrarily” imposing the death penalty. Relations between the two countries have been tense since Canada's detention in December of a senior Chinese executive of Huawei, a technology company.

China approved the building of a large new dam on the Jinsha river, as the upper stretch of the Yangzi is known. The Lawa hydroelectric project, on the border between Sichuan and Tibet, is expected to cost more than 30bn yuan ($4.6bn) and have a total capacity of two gigawatts.

Thai officials said that a long-awaited election to restore democracy, scheduled for February 24th, would be pushed back again. But the prime minister and leader of the country's military junta promised that the ballot would take place before May.