The news at a glance...International

last updated 8 January 2015

Tehran

Ambassador blocked: Iran reacted with anger this week when the U.S. Senate voted to refuse a visa for its nominee as ambassador to the United Nations. The nominee, Hamid Aboutalebi, was peripherally involved in the 1979 hostage taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, acting as an occasional translator for the revolutionaries. As host to the U.N. headquarters in New York, the U.S. is obliged to grant visas to diplomats, but it has reserved the right to block those involved in the hostage crisis. Iran’s foreign ministry has protested, while Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Hassari Asafari said the U.S. was conducting “sheer interference in the internal affairs of the U.N.” The dispute could derail the talks going on in Geneva about Iran’s nuclear programs.

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Hagel stands firm: U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took a tough tone in Beijing this week as he sparred with his Chinese counterpart over spying and disputed islands. Hagel pushed China to be more open about its cyberespionage programs, noting that the Pentagon had recently shared its cyberwarfare doctrine with Chinese officials. “We have urged China to do the same,” he said. Hagel also declared that the U.S. is committed to protecting Japan, the Philippines, and other allies and that China has no right to lay unilateral claim to disputed islands in the East China Sea. That didn’t sit well with Defense Minister Chang Wanquan. “We are prepared at any time to cope with all kinds of threats and challenges,” Chang said. “The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned, fight any battle, and win.”

Manila

Birth control mandate: The Philippine Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring government health centers to distribute free condoms and contraceptive pills. The law passed in 2012 but hasn’t been implemented yet because church groups sued to block it. The Philippines is about 80 percent Catholic and has one the highest birth rates in the region and a high rate of maternal mortality. “This monumental decision upholds the separation of church and state,” said Rep. Edcel Lagman, the law’s main author.

Indian Ocean, west of Australia

Pings heard: Pings believed to be from the black box of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were picked up again this week, days after they were first heard in the Indian Ocean. “I believe we are searching in the right area, but we need to visually identify wreckage before we can confirm with certainty,” said Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the Australian officer leading the search. The international effort includes 14 ships and 15 military and civilian aircraft, and is set to be the most expensive in history, at a cost of at least $44 million so far. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country, which has borne the brunt of the expenses, was acting out of “international citizenship” but added that “at some point, there might need to be a reckoning” to recoup part of the cost.

Nairobi, Kenya

Somali roundup: Kenyan police detained 3,000 people, mostly Somalis, in a security sweep this week after a series of terror attacks. The attacks, targeting churches and markets, are believed to be the work of al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist group that took over Nairobi’s Westgate mall last year, killing at least 67 people. Most of the detainees were released, but 82 Somalis were deported. Kenya has been a particular target for al-Shabab since 2011, when it sent troops into Somalia to fight the Islamists after they kidnapped tourists and aid workers in Kenya.

Kigali, Rwanda

After the genocide: Rwandans gathered this week to mourn those killed in the 1994 genocide and celebrate the nation’s recovery. The genocide, which saw nearly a million Tutsis slaughtered by rampaging Hutu mobs over a three-month period, was the fastest killing spree in history. More than half the country’s current population was born afterward, thousands of them the product of rapes. Much of the ceremony was devoted to educating children through re-enactments of the genocide and of the history of colonialism, which encouraged tribal resentment. Many of the killers fled abroad and are still free. “We shall continue to pursue them,” said Rwandan justice official Jean Bosco Mutangana. “You cannot have reconciliation without real, true justice being done.”

Pretoria, South Africa

Pistorius gets emotional: Howling and sobbing, Oscar Pistorius took the witness stand for the first time this week, describing how he fatally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, after mistaking her for an intruder. The amputee Olympian, who is charged with premeditated murder, took off his prosthetic legs to show the court how vulnerable he felt when he thought he heard a burglar climbing through a bathroom window in the middle of the night. Pistorius fired four shots at the closed bathroom door, he said, before realizing his girlfriend might be inside. He broke down as he recounted finding Steenkamp slumped on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. “I sat over Reeva and I cried,” Pistorius said. He began weeping loudly, becoming so overwrought that the trial had to be adjourned.