Atlantic Ocean
Titanic commemorated: Cities around the world marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic this week with memorial services and exhibits. On board the MS Balmoral, a cruise ship that retraced the Titanic’s route, thousands of people prayed and cast wreaths on the spot where it went down, some 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The Titanic was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg, and it sank less than three hours later, in a tragedy that shocked the world. Only 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew survived. In many of the memorial services, choirs sang “Nearer My God to Thee,” the hymn that the Titanic’s band was playing in the ship’s last moments afloat.
London
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Bad translation: Britain’s first Muslim peer was suspended by the Labor Party this week after it was wrongly reported that he had put a $16 million bounty on the head of President Obama. Speaking at a reception in Pakistan, Lord Nazir Ahmed spoke angrily of the U.S.’s $10 million bounty on Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a Pakistani suspected of masterminding the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. In Urdu, Ahmed said he wanted to raise $16 million “so that George W. Bush and Tony Blair can be brought to the International Court of Justice on war crimes charges.” A Pakistani newspaper then reported that Ahmed was offering the money for the capture of Bush and Obama. A Labor Party spokesman said the party was investigating what Ahmed actually said. Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan, conceded he’d accused Bush and Blair of “war crimes,’’ but denied offering “a bounty’’ on anyone.
Oslo
Breivik pleads not guilty: Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing extremist who admitted killing 77 people last July, pleaded not guilty this week. Reading a statement aloud for more than an hour, he told the court he had acted “in self-defense” on behalf of ethnic Norwegians and that he “would do it again.” Though unmoved by an account of the carnage he had caused, Breivik wept during the showing of his own propaganda video because, he said, “it told of the death of my people.” He claims that the ruling Labor Party, which ran the youth camp where he shot most of his victims, has allowed a “Muslim invasion” of Norway. One of the three lay judges in the case—who play a jury-like role—had to be replaced for blogging that Breivik deserved the death penalty, a punishment that does not exist in Norway. If the court deems him sane and convicts him, Breivik faces a maximum of 21 years in prison.
Milan
Strippers dressed as nuns: Two women in nun costumes stripped for Silvio Berlusconi and then had paid sex with him, a model who attended one of the former Italian prime minister’s “bunga-bunga” parties testified this week. Model Imane Fadil said Berlusconi gave her $2,600 and told her not to be offended at the sight of the strippers. One of the women, she said, was later given a political appointment in Berlusconi’s party. Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul who resigned from the premiership in disgrace last year amid sex scandals and allegations of bribery and fraud, is on trial in Milan for abuse of office. Prosecutors allege that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute and then lied to police and other officials to cover up the crime.
