The week at a glance...Europe

Geneva

Rampant abuse of women: More than a third of all women around the world are victims of physical or sexual violence by their partners, the World Health Organization said in its first worldwide survey on the topic. “Violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. The domestic violence rate was highest in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, where 37 percent of women report being abused, and lowest in North America, with 23 percent. More than 600 million women live in countries where wife-beating is not a crime. The WHO urged that health-care workers regularly screen for domestic violence.

Rome

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No Schindler here: The Vatican is standing by an Italian police officer revered for saving Jews during World War II, despite new evidence that he was actually a Nazi collaborator. Giovanni Palatucci was credited with saving 5,000 Jews as police chief in Fiume, a port in what is now Croatia. But researchers at the Centro Primo Levi in New York City say that the town had just 500 Jews, more than 80 percent of whom ended up at Auschwitz—largely thanks to Palatucci. He was killed in Dachau after the Nazis accused him of embezzlement, and his uncle allegedly concocted a tale of heroism to secure his family a pension. Italian authorities embraced that story and named squares and streets after Palatucci. An article in the Vatican newspaper said the revision aimed “to smear a Catholic involved in rescuing Jews.”