The week at glance...International

Beijing

Enter the dragon: As the Chinese celebrated the start of the Year of the Dragon this week, hospitals across Asia prepared for a baby boom. Children born under that sign of the Chinese zodiac are supposedly destined to be intelligent and wealthy. In 2000, which roughly coincided with the last dragon year, births went up by more than 5 percent in Hong Kong, and China expects a similar rise this year. But being born a dragon isn’t all good luck. “More people means more competition,” said sociologist Tong Yuying of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, so dragon babies have to work harder to get ahead. K.M. Wong, president of the Malaysia Feng Shui Association, thinks they are up to the challenge. “When the dragon wants to do something, there will be no stopping him,” he said.

Tehran

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Iran undaunted: Iran reacted with bravado this week to the European Union’s immediate ban on all new contracts for Iranian oil and its promise to phase out existing ones by July 1. Tehran said new customers would be found to replace the EU’s 27 member states, which buy about 18 percent of Iran’s oil output. “Europe will be the loser, and Iran will earn more because of high prices,” said an oil ministry spokesman. China, Iran’s biggest oil customer, has opposed sanctions, and neither South Korea nor Japan has yielded to U.S. pressure to join the embargo. Early this week the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by British and French frigates, passed through the Strait of Hormuz, but Tehran said the Revolutionary Guard still plans to stage naval exercises in the strait later this month.

Damascus, Syria

Observer mission thwarted: The Arab League’s observer mission in Syria looked shakier than ever this week after Syria rejected its call for President Bashar al-Assad to resign to make room for a unity government. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states withdrew their 55 members of the mission in protest, but Syrian officials said they would allow the league’s remaining 110 monitors to stay another month. The Arab League mission, launched in December, has had little effect in stemming the conflict between the anti-regime movement and government security forces, which the U.N. said have killed more than 5,000 people since last March. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem scorned the league’s efforts to seek support for its peace plan at the U.N. Security Council. “They can head to New York or to the moon,” Moualem said. “So long as we’re not paying for their tickets, it is none of our concern.”

Sanaa, Yemen

Saleh leaves: Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has finally stepped down, following a year of turmoil that left hundreds dead. Saleh flew to the U.S. for medical treatment this week after the parliament granted him immunity from prosecution. In a televised farewell speech, Saleh asked “for forgiveness from all my people, men and women, for any shortcomings during my 33-year rule.” Yemen continues to face political instability, food shortages, and a powerful Islamist insurgency in the south. New presidential elections are scheduled for Feb. 21.

Hiimo Gaabo, Somalia

Hostages freed: U.S. Navy SEALs swooped into a remote region of Somalia this week and freed two hostages from their Somali kidnappers. The Pentagon said the special-operations team approached the abductors’ hideout on foot after being dropped down by parachute. After a firefight, the commandos—members of the same SEAL Team 6 unit that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last May—flew off in helicopters with the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, who were abducted last October while driving to a local airport. The Pentagon reported no casualties among the U.S. commandos and said all nine captors were killed in the assault. “We thank the United States,” said Mohamed Ahmed Alim, a local Somali leader. “Pirates have ruined the whole region’s ethics. They are mafia.”

Port St. Johns, South Africa

Deadliest beach closed: After the sixth fatal shark attack in five years, South African authorities this week closed the world’s most shark-imperiled beach. Lungisani Msungubana, 25, the latest victim to be killed at Second Beach in the town of Port St. Johns, was wading in waist-deep water when he was attacked by a Zambezi, or bull, shark, sometimes referred to as the “pit bull of the ocean.” Witnesses said the shark severed Msungubana’s left arm and caused deep wounds to his chest and stomach. He was pulled to shore by lifeguards but died at the scene. “His injuries were severe, but while he was fighting for his life he was shouting for others to get out of the water,” said a provincial health spokesman. The beach will be closed for several months while the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board conducts an investigation.

Kano, Nigeria

City under attack: The Islamist militant group Boko Haram killed at least 185 people and injured many more in a coordinated series of bomb and gun attacks in the city of Kano last week. Explosions ripped apart police buildings, passport offices, and other government targets across the city, while scores of gunmen, some dressed in police or other uniforms, killed officials. The attack on Kano—a city of some 9 million people, and the largest in the Muslim-dominated north of the country—is the bloodiest yet carried out by Boko Haram, which has killed an estimated 935 Nigerians since 2009 in its declared aim to overthrow the national government and install an Islamic state. President Goodluck Jonathan said that “all those involved in that dastardly act would be made to face the full wrath of the law,” but residents said that many police, overwhelmed by the attacks, have stopped wearing their uniforms.

Bani Walid, Libya

Qaddafi forces retake town: Fighters loyal to the late Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi have seized back the town of Bani Walid and raised the old regime’s green flag, in the most serious challenge yet to the provisional government’s efforts to stabilize the country. About 150 Qaddafi loyalists reportedly killed four pro-government militiamen in clashes to regain the town, a longtime Qaddafi stronghold about 110 miles southeast of the capital, Tripoli. Bani Walid was one of the last towns to fall to the new government after it gained control of the capital in August, and was the scene of prolonged fighting in November. Skirmishes between rival militias have been common since Libya was officially “liberated,” on Oct. 23. The country’s new leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has warned that such clashes risk starting a new civil war.