The week at a glance...International

St. Petersburg, Russia

Art purge: Police removed a painting of Russian President Vladimir Putin dressed in a slinky negligee from a St. Petersburg gallery this week. The painting showed the manly leader tenderly brushing the hair of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who wore a bra. The work’s creator, Konstantin Altunin, quickly fled to France to request asylum. Several other paintings satirizing city and church officials and featuring the gay rights movement’s rainbow flag were also confiscated, and the gallery was shut down. In Russia, insulting or mocking leaders can lead to year-long prison sentences, and the spreading of “gay propaganda” was outlawed in June.

Beijing

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Undone by love: Bo Xilai, disgraced former Communist Party chief of Chongqing, mesmerized the court at his corruption trial this week with a melodramatic tale of passion and jealousy. The case unfolded last year, when Bo’s former police chief Wang Lijun went to the U.S. Consulate saying Bo wanted to kill him because Wang had confronted Bo with evidence that Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, had killed a British businessman. But on the last day of his trial, Bo said Wang actually fled because Bo had discovered his affair with Gu. Bo said he caught Wang in his house, begging Gu to accept him, waving a love letter, and beating himself about the head in abject despair. The trial, covered on social media with a degree of openness unprecedented for China, had already revealed the fabulous levels of wealth that Communist Party officials can attain.

Linfen, China

Boy’s eyes stolen: A suspected Chinese organ trafficker gouged out the eyes of a 6-year-old boy to steal the corneas for the black market. The boy was playing outside his house in Shanxi province last weekend when a woman kidnapped and drugged him. His parents found him hours later with bloody eye sockets, and the eyeballs were found nearby missing the corneas. Organ donation at death is rare in China, so patients must wait years for transplants. Prison officials routinely harvest organs from executed inmates.

Manila

Don’t be a pig: Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, many of them sporting pig masks and shouting “Down with pork!” thronged Manila this week in a mass protest against congressional corruption. The protest was sparked by reports that members of Congress were pocketing millions of dollars from a “pork barrel” fund intended to allow them to dole out money to favored constituent projects. Politicians from all parties have been implicated in the scandal, and many demonstrators wore white to avoid indicating party affiliation.

Baghdad

Wave of killings: Al Qaida is terrorizing Iraqi Shiites with bombings and home invasions, beheading government officials, and slaughtering entire families in their homes. Bombs in Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad killed scores of people this week in restaurants, markets, and even playgrounds, raising fears that the sectarian violence that wracked the country in 2006 is returning. The U.N. said more than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in violent attacks in July, the highest toll in more than five years. Sunnis from the Al Qaida offshoot that calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. Sunnis, the minority that enjoyed power under Saddam Hussein, say they are being persecuted by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government.

Cairo

Muslim Obama theory: A conspiracy theory alleging that President Obama is in league with the ousted Muslim Brotherhood has become widespread on the street in Egypt. Supporters of the military and many of the youth who helped oust Hosni Mubarak point to YouTube videos of a U.S. congressman, Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who claims that the administration is riddled with Islamist spies. “This administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America,” Gohmert has said. Even some state media, now run by the military-imposed government, support the theory, and a billboard outside the foreign ministry actually shows Obama with a long beard.

Mombasa, Kenya

Torn between two lovers: A Kenyan woman has caused a public uproar by taking two husbands. Joyce Wambui, a young widow with twins, couldn’t choose between her two lovers, who were fighting over her. The two, Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani, signed a contract agreeing to share husbandly duties and to jointly care for any resulting children. “She is like the central referee,” said Mwendwa. Polygamy is legal in Kenya, but polyandry is heard-of there, and once the story hit the national media, Mwendwa was fired from his job. “To me as a Muslim and a Kenyan, I don’t accept it,” said Abdhallah Abdulrahman, a local police officer who knows the family. “It is against our religion and our African tradition.”