The week at a glance...International

Cairo

Women assaulted: A mob of angry men broke up a women’s-rights rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square this week by sexually assaulting and beating the women taking part. Several hundred women who marched on International Women’s Day to draw attention to sexual harassment soon found themselves outnumbered by crowds of men. “Everyone was chased,” said the rally’s organizer, Dina Abou Elsoud. “Some were beaten. They were touching us everywhere.” Women played a decisive role in the uprisings that drove President Mubarak from power, but their political liberation has been short-lived. Sexual harassment is rampant in Egyptian society. In a 2008 Egyptian survey, 83 percent of women said they had been groped, while 62 percent of men admitted to harassing women.

Sanaa, Yemen

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Next to fall? The protests in Yemen may have reached a tipping point this week after government security forces fired on anti-government demonstrators, killing at least one and injuring scores of others. Tens of thousands of protesters have been camped outside of Sanaa University for weeks, demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has governed the country since 1978. Witnesses said police began shooting into the air and dispersing tear gas when students tried to bring food and blankets to the protesters; the government contended that the students were transporting weapons. Saleh is also battling two separate ethnic uprisings elsewhere in the country, as well as a strong al Qaida presence. “At this time, the most he would hope for is to preside over a transition period until the end of his term, in 2013,” said Yemeni political analyst Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani.

Tehran

Moderate loses top post: Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most influential politicians, has lost his position as the head of a powerful clerical body. The former president this week declined to stand for re-election as head of the Assembly of Experts, most likely on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani has been on the outs since 2009, when he voiced support for the protesters demonstrating against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his power seems to be waning. Last week, one of his sons lost his job, and last month his daughter was briefly arrested at an opposition protest.

Kabul

Gates apologizes: On an unannounced trip to Afghanistan this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the deaths of nine Afghan children during a helicopter strike on Taliban fighters. Karzai, who had rejected a similar apology from NATO commander Gen. David Petraeus, accepted Gates’s, but added a plea that the U.S. “make the utmost effort” to stop killing civilians. The Taliban are responsible for more than 80 percent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan, but killings by NATO troops, who are supposed to protect Afghans, tend to cause more anger among the population.

Istanbul

Reporters arrested: Turkey’s two most prominent investigative reporters were among seven people arrested last week for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party. The detentions have fueled fears that the government’s two ongoing treason investigations—into a shadowy nationalist network known as Ergenekon and into an alleged military coup plot code-named Sledgehammer—are being used to muzzle critics of the socially conservative, pro-Islamic party. Most of the hundreds detained in the four-year probes are hard-line nationalists, but the two journalists don’t fit that description. One, Nedim Sener, wrote a book on police negligence in the murder of a famous Armenian journalist; the other, Ahmet Sik, was the first to expose the Sledgehammer plot. Human rights groups have condemned the arrests.

Ulan Bator, Mongolia

Goat shortage: A worldwide cashmere shortage is looming because harsh winters, coupled with the global recession, have forced goatherds in Mongolia to eat many of their goats. Two successive bitter winters, in which temperatures dipped to nearly -50, have left herders with little food besides the goats, whose soft down has long provided them their livelihood. To make matters worse, the recession pushed the price of cashmere below the price at which herders could break even on their goats, leaving many with no choice but to slaughter them. “This could be the end of cheap cashmere,” said Jonathan Dyson, of the World Textile Information Network. Cashmere goats are raised in other countries, such as Iran and Afghanistan, but temperatures there aren’t low enough to make the goats produce the best wool.

Beijing

Tracking everyone: The Chinese government is planning to launch a massive tracking system that will monitor the whereabouts of everyone who has a mobile phone. Officials said the project, the Information Platform of Realtime Citizen Movement, would be used to ease traffic congestion. But critics said it was a blatant attempt to follow dissidents and journalists—perhaps to see which individuals congregate at protest sites. Improving transportation does not require knowledge of the individual position of each citizen, said Chen Derong, a professor of wireless communication at Beijing University. “If you want to know about the flow of traffic, you should install cameras at intersections.”