The week at a glance...International

Pyongyang, North Korea

Stalinist nightmare: The North Korean regime is starving and torturing its people on a gruesome scale and should be tried for crimes against humanity, U.N. investigators say. A damning report released this week, based on interviews with hundreds of defectors, describes a police state of total indoctrination, where citizens are denied food, raped, beaten, and even summarily executed for minor infractions. Tens of thousands have been worked to death in slave-labor camps. “At the end of the Second World War, so many people said, ‘If only we had known,’” said Australian judge Michael Kirby, who led the investigation. “Well, now the international community does know. There will be no excusing of failure of action.”

New Delhi

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Book on Hindus recalled: Indian writers and free-speech advocates are in an uproar over a publisher’s decision last week to withdraw and pulp a history of Hinduism that some Hindus say trivializes their religion. Citing a colonial-era law that criminalizes any insult to religious feeling, Hindu nationalists hit Penguin India with a lawsuit as soon as it published The Hindus: An Alternative History, by University of Chicago historian Wendy Doniger, five years ago. Now the publisher has agreed to pulp the book, partly out of fear for its employees’ safety. In recent years, Hindu nationalists have become increasingly powerful in politics despite being blamed for anti-Muslim riots. The Hindu far right “has become expert in wielding the weapon of offense to silence critics,” said novelist Hari Kunzru.

Paktika province, Afghanistan

Prisoner swap: The U.S. is negotiating with the Afghan Taliban to trade five Taliban prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay for a captive U.S. soldier. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured in Paktika province in 2009 and is thought to be held by the Haqqani network, an ally of the Taliban. The U.S. proposed the trade two years ago, offering to release the Taliban prisoners one by one to make sure none returned to militancy, but that offer was rejected, and now the U.S. has proposed releasing all five at once. “He’s been gone too long,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. “We want him back.” Last month, officials at the Pentagon said they had seen a video that showed Bergdahl was still alive.

Aleppo, Syria

Civilians die, talks fail: The Syrian regime continued to rain down barrel bombs on civilians in Aleppo, killing hundreds over the past two weeks and sending thousands of refugees fleeing to Turkey and Lebanon. The bombings occurred as peace talks in Geneva were ending in failure last week, with no resumption date set. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Russia for undermining the peace process by funneling arms to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. “They’re, in fact, enabling Assad to double down, which is creating an enormous problem,” he said. “Assad is continuing to try to win this on the battlefield rather than to come to the negotiating table with good faith.”

Harare, Zimbabwe

Ex-congressman arrested: Former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds, who resigned in 1995 after being convicted of statutory rape, was arrested in Zimbabwe this week on pornography charges. The Illinois Democrat was picked up at his Harare hotel room, where he had run up a $24,500 bill and was allegedly taking lewd photos and videos of Zimbabwean models and prostitutes. Reynolds said he was outraged at his treatment, saying he had brought investors to Zimbabwe and lobbied for sanctions to be lifted. While in prison in the U.S. for having sex with an underage campaign worker, Reynolds was also convicted of bank fraud; President Clinton commuted his sentence in 2001.