The week at a glance...International

Kushevat, Russia

Another Putin stunt: Russians mocked President Vladimir Putin last week for his latest act of staged heroism: piloting a motorized glider to lead young cranes on their first migration. Russian websites reported that some of the endangered Siberian cranes, which were raised in captivity and needed to be shown where to head for the winter, were injured during preparation for the photo op, while others simply failed to follow Putin’s lead. Many sites posted doctored images of Putin with a bird beak or dressed as an Angry Bird. Putin fired back, comparing the cranes that didn’t follow him to the many Russians who have been protesting his rule over the past six months. “The ones that didn’t fly were the weak cranes,” he said.

Beijing

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Missing veep: Vice President Xi Jinping has stopped appearing in public, and Chinese authorities won’t say what’s happened to him. Xi, who is slated to become president and party head in a few weeks at the Communist Party congress, hasn’t been seen for two weeks and has given no reason for skipping several scheduled meetings with foreign leaders. An initial rumor held that Xi had injured his back, but the authorities’ continued silence has spurred Chinese Internet users to speculate more wildly—that he had a stroke or a heart attack, or even was targeted in a car crash as revenge for the recent ouster of disgraced Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai. Asked if Xi was still alive, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said only, “I hope you will ask a serious question.”

Mumbai, India

That’s not funny: The arrest of a cartoonist for depicting parliament as a toilet has stirred up a debate about freedom of speech in India. Aseem Trivedi’s drawings criticizing corruption in the Indian government ran afoul of India’s sedition law, which prohibits speech that attempts to cause “hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection” toward the government. India’s media is calling for the charges to be dropped completely and the sedition law repealed. “These charges are nonsense,” said Markandey Katju, head of the Press Council of India.

Karachi, Pakistan

Factory infernos: More than 300 people were burned or suffocated to death as fires raged through factories in two Pakistani cities this week. Most of the dead were among the 1,500 workers at a cramped clothing factory in Karachi. “People started screaming for their lives,” said survivor Mohammad Asif, 20. Finding the doors locked, workers heaved machines to break the iron bars covering the windows and jumped out, some from several stories up. The other fire, at a Lahore shoe factory, claimed 25 lives; there, too, the workers were locked in. Police were seeking the managers and owners of both factories. Industrial safeguards are lax in Pakistan, where factory owners routinely bribe officials to ignore the lack of emergency exits and sprinklers.

Bagram, Afghanistan

U.S. hands over prison: The U.S. has transferred control of its huge prison at Bagram Airfield to the Afghan government, despite concerns over treatment of the 3,000 prisoners there. The U.S. military set up the prison in 2002 and tortured Afghan prisoners there, killing at least two. In 2004 and 2005, 15 U.S. soldiers were charged with abuses; one was convicted and five others pleaded guilty. While U.S. interrogation techniques have since been overhauled, some Afghan prisoners say abuse has continued--—and that they now fear their treatment under Afghan authorities will be worse. The Afghan justice system is notoriously corrupt, and prisoners have reported being beaten or arrested without cause and required to pay bribes to get out.

Jerusalem

Red line: The rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama broke into the open this week, with Netanyahu angrily saying that unless the international community spelled out exactly which Iranian actions would trigger a military response, it had no “moral right” to call for Israeli restraint. “Every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs,” Netanyahu said. “I say, Wait for what? Wait until what?’’After Netanyahu’s statement, he and Obama spoke by phone and “reaffirmed that they are united in their determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” the White House said. Israeli media reported, however, that Obama is so annoyed with Netanyahu that he deliberately turned down a meeting with him at the U.N. later this month. The White House blamed that snub on “scheduling problems.’’

Mogadishu, Somalia

Violent new start: A day after Somalia’s parliament named Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the country’s president this week, two explosions killed at least five people outside the hotel where he was holding a press conference. Mohamud’s selection had come as a surprise because the civic activist and academic is not a clan leader and has never held political office-—a possible asset given the corruption that has plagued previous governments. African Union troops recently recaptured Mogadishu from al-Shabab, an al Qaida–linked Islamist group, but the militants still control most of southern Somalia, and quickly claimed responsibility for the blasts.