The week at a glance...International

Moscow

Protests against Putin victory: Some 20,000 protesters marching in below-zero temperatures in Moscow this week accused Vladimir Putin of stealing the presidential election. Putin, who was president from 2000 to 2008 and prime minister since then, was declared the winner with nearly 65 percent of the vote. He will now serve a six-year term and can legally pursue another one, potentially leaving him in office until 2024. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors elections, said the vote was neither free nor fair. “The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain,” said the OSCE’s Tonino Picula. “This was not the case in Russia.”

Beijing

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

Build more weapons: China is upping its military spending by 11 percent this year, and will pass the $100 billion mark for the first time. The new defense budget, announced this week, continues a trend of rapidly increasing military spending in recent years; last year’s budget was 13 percent higher than the previous year’s. The figure would be even higher if it included China’s space programs, many of which have military applications. By 2015 China’s military spending will surpass that of all 12 of its Asia-Pacific neighbors combined. Still, the U.S. military budget is nearly seven times that of China.

Tehran

President in trouble: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered a huge setback this week when his supporters were trounced in Iran’s parliamentary elections. Hard-line parties loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took a reported 75 percent of the vote amid what authorities claimed was a record-breaking turnout. Reformers, who were not allowed to field candidates, disputed that claim, saying the polling places in Tehran were mostly empty. A joke going around the Internet in Iran said that “80 percent of the people are sitting at home watching 70 percent of the population vote on TV.” Khamenei has floated the idea of abolishing the position of president, once Ahmadinejad’s second term ends next year, and replacing it with a prime minister chosen by parliament.

Homs, Syria

Fleeing the carnage: Hundreds of families with small children, clutching whatever they could carry in plastic bags, staggered across the Syrian border into Lebanon this week to flee Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown in Homs. “What are we supposed to do? People are sitting in their homes and they are hitting us with tanks. Those who can, flee, and those who can’t will die sitting down,” said refugee Hassana Abu Firas. Last week, Syrian troops took back the neighborhood of Baba Amr, which had been held by rebels for several months. Refugees say the troops killed dozens of residents execution-style and burned homes of those believed to be supporting the rebels. U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos traveled to Homs this week after repeatedly being denied entry, and was allowed to make a brief visit to the embattled enclave of Baba Amr.

Cairo

Scandal claims MP: A member of Egypt’s new democratically elected parliament resigned in disgrace this week after lying about a nose job. Anwar al-Balkimy, of the ultraconservative Islamist al-Nour party, told his colleagues that his face was bandaged because he had been robbed and beaten by gunmen. His story prompted other lawmakers to visit him in the hospital and call for an investigation into security lapses. After the doctors tattled on him, outraged party leaders expelled him. Egyptian Islamists frown on plastic surgery.

Brazzaville, Republic of Congo

Arms depot explodes: More than 300 people were killed in Brazzaville this week when an armory caught fire, setting off a chain reaction of explosions that sent shells and rockets flying into the capital for three days. All the buildings within a one-mile radius of the depot were totally flattened, including three schools and two churches that were packed when the explosions began, during Sunday services. Morgues and hospitals piled up with dead and wounded victims, and dozens of children wandered the streets in a daze, looking for their parents. “It’s like a tsunami without water,” said Security Minister Raymond Zephirin Mboulou. France, the country’s former colonizer, sent medical teams and tons of aid supplies.