Moscow
Where’s Snowden working? NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has settled into his new life in Russia by taking an IT job at “a major Russian website,” his lawyer said last week. Initial reports said Snowden had begun working for the Facebook-like social networking site VKontakte, but the company said he never accepted its job offer. Whatever his employment situation, the American exile rarely leaves his secret residence, and Russian analysts said he seems to be closely guarded by the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence service. Snowden’s father, Lon, visited him recently and said his son is learning Russian. “He is safe, secure, and happy,” Lon Snowden said, “and committed to the choice he made.”
Taiyuan, China
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Wave of terrorism? China has suffered a second apparent terrorist attack in two weeks. In a coordinated strike during morning rush hour, seven shrapnel bombs exploded near the provincial Communist Party headquarters in Taiyuan, killing one person and injuring eight. Attacks on government offices by people with specific grievances against local officials are not unheard-of, but this attack 325 miles southwest of Beijing seemed intended to target the party itself. “Personally I think this incident features characteristics of a terrorist attack,” Li Wei, a Chinese terrorism expert, told The Wall Street Journal. “Obviously it was well plotted.” Last week, three ethnic Uighurs carried out an apparent suicide car bombing in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing two bystanders.
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Mutineers to be executed: In the largest trial of its kind, Bangladesh this week sentenced 152 soldiers to death for mutiny while hundreds more got lesser sentences. Angry that regular army troops got higher pay, thousands of border guards from the Bangladeshi Rifles turned on their leaders at an annual conference in Dhaka in 2009, killing dozens of officers and raping and killing some officers’ wives. The uprising spread across the country, briefly threatening the newly elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay protested the sentences, saying the mass trial “failed to meet the most fundamental standards of due process.”
Gulf of Aden
Pirates curbed: Somali pirate attacks on shipping have plummeted this year, thanks to a surge in Western naval patrols and the addition of armed guards to commercial ships. Raiders have ambushed just 17 ships off the Somali coast so far this year, compared with 99 attacks last year, the United Nations said. Nonetheless, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “ships still do not enjoy a peaceful transit off the coast of Somalia.” What’s more, the success has a downside: Many of the pirates have shifted to smuggling arms and charcoal for al Qaida–linked militant groups active in the region such as al-Shabab, the group that carried out the killing spree at Kenya’s Westgate mall.
Ramallah, West Bank
Arafat poisoned? Preliminary tests show that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with polonium, as his widow has long contended. Swiss scientists tested Arafat’s exhumed remains and found a polonium level at least 18 times higher than normal. They said the results “moderately support the proposition that the death was the consequence of poisoning.” In 2004, Arafat fell suddenly sick just after eating dinner in Ramallah and died four weeks later in a Paris hospital. “What we have got is the smoking gun—the thing that caused his illness and was given to him with malice,” said British forensic expert David Barclay. The results of separate tests on the remains by two other forensic teams, one from France and one from Russia, have not yet been released.
Cairo
Morsi defiant: Egypt’s ousted president, Mohammed Morsi, is refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court trying him for inciting murder and violence. Morsi, who was deposed in July in a military coup after months of protests, entered no plea as his trial opened this week, saying he is still the elected president. Morsi is accused of ordering his forces to fire on unarmed protesters in December 2012. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 civilians, mostly Muslim Brotherhood supporters, have been killed in protests against the military-installed government since Morsi was removed, and the new government is reportedly seeking immunity for the military for those deaths. Morsi’s trial was adjourned until January 2014.
Kinshasa, Congo
Rebels give up: The M23 rebel group has laid down its arms, ending a two-year insurgency that has killed hundreds of civilians. The rebels lost stronghold after stronghold in recent weeks, after Rwanda stopped supporting them and the U.N. sent a new force to assist the Congolese military. Previous peace deals on rebellions in Congo never lasted, partly because they gave rebels amnesty and allowed their military units to remain intact under nominal Congolese army command. This deal dissolves rebel units and requires commanders accused of war crimes to face Congolese courts. “This is a critical and exciting step in the right direction,” said Russ Feingold, U.S. special envoy to the region.
