The week at a glance...International

Moscow

Ballet brutality: The chief of the Bolshoi Ballet had acid thrown in his face by a masked assailant last week, perhaps due to artistic rivalry. Sergei Filin, a dancer who rose to be artistic director of the prestigious company in 2011, was attacked while getting out of his car. Third-degree burns cover his face and head, and while he probably won’t entirely lose his eyesight, he requires facial reconstruction. The Bolshoi is a hypercompetitive body, and in Soviet days dancers would sometimes put crushed glass in rivals’ pointe shoes. Russian media have reported on a bitter rivalry between Filin and principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who has appealed to President Vladimir Putin to fire Filin and appoint him instead. Tsiskaridze called the attack “a monstrous crime,” and no charges have been filed.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Breakthrough for women: In a groundbreaking decision, Saudi King Abdullah has appointed 30 women to the Shura Council, the advisory body that drafts laws, reviews the budget, debates major issues, and is the closest thing the kingdom has to a parliament. From now on, at least 30 of the 150 appointed members will be women. “Because women will now share the duties of the Council and be treated and seen as equal to men, these significant tasks can hardly be considered symbolic,” said the Saudi Gazette. The female members of the body will have their own seating area and a separate door. Saudi women still can’t drive or leave the house without a male guardian.

Tehran

Public hangings: In a grisly public spectacle, Iran hanged two muggers from a crane in Tehran this week. The two young men were caught on security video in November stabbing a man and robbing him of some $20 worth of property. After the video was shown on state television, there was a public clamor for a speedy trial and execution. Most of the hundreds of executions in Iran each year take place in prisons, but last year at least 55 were carried out in public as authorities tried to tamp down a rising crime rate. Earlier this month, authorities assigned the case of Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor arrested last year for organizing underground Christian churches, to a judge who is notorious for meting out death sentences.

Camp Bastion, Afghanistan

Harry offends: Britain’s Prince Harry managed to offend everyone this week by comparing killing Taliban insurgents to playing video games. Harry, known to his unit as Capt. Wales, just completed a four-month tour of duty piloting Apache attack helicopters in Afghanistan. He told reporters he had indeed killed some of the enemy, adding, “It’s a joy for me because I’m one of these people who like playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I would like to think that I am quite useful.” The British press groaned, the Afghan government said Harry had handed the Taliban a propaganda victory, and the Taliban said the prince’s comments showed that, like other Western soldiers, he had “mental problems.”

Bali, Indonesia

Death for grandma: An Indonesian court has sentenced a British woman to death by firing squad for smuggling cocaine, even though the prosecution only requested a jail sentence of 15 years. Lindsay Sandiford was arrested last year after customs officials found nearly 5 kilos of cocaine, worth $2.4 million, in the lining of her suitcase. Sandiford, a 56-year-old grandmother, said a co-defendant in the case had threatened to kill her son if she did not smuggle the drugs. But Indonesian authorities said she was part of a drug gang involving three other Britons and an Indian.

Wellington, New Zealand

Cats vs. birds: An anti-cat campaign in New Zealand is pitting bird enthusiasts against defensive cat lovers. New Zealand has almost no native land mammals, leaving their ecological niches free for birds, many of them flightless. Yet since cats arrived on the archipelago, some 40 percent of New Zealand’s bird species have become extinct, and many of those remaining are endangered—including the iconic kiwi. Businessman Gareth Morgan has launched the Cats to Go movement, urging people to bell their cats, keep them indoors, and not replace them when they die, but his rhetoric has alienated many. His website once showed kittens photoshopped with devil horns and bloody fangs. One local newspaper called Morgan an “animal racist” who favors one species over another.