The week at glance...International

Accra, Ghana

Banning witch camps: Ghana is planning to close down the “witch camps” in the north of the country where hundreds of people accused of witchcraft, mostly women, live in exile with their children. The deputy minister for women and children’s affairs, Hajia Hawawu Boya Gariba, said she was drafting a bill to make it illegal to accuse someone of being a witch. “This practice has become an indictment on the conscience of our society,” Gariba said. “The labeling of some of our kinsmen and women as witches and wizards and banishing them into camps where they live in inhuman and deplorable conditions is a violation of their fundamental human rights.”

Somewhere in Libya?

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Qaddafi speaks: After three weeks of public silence, ousted Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi issued an audio message this week predicting his return to power. “What is happening in Libya is a charade which can only take place thanks to the air raids, which will not last forever,” Qaddafi said in a message broadcast by Syria’s Al-Rai television. “Do not believe that one regime has been overthrown and another imposed.” Meanwhile, at the U.N. this week, the flag of the new Libyan regime replaced the one Qaddafi used, and the U.N. officially recognized Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the Transitional National Council, as Libya’s interim leader.

Mogadishu, Somalia

Weapons for kids: An Islamist radio station in Somalia has awarded assault rifles and grenades as prizes to the three children who won a Koran-recitation competition this week. Andalus radio said first prize was an AK-47 and $700, second was an AK-47 and $500, and third was two hand grenades and $400. The three children also received religious books. The station is run by al-Shabab, an al Qaida–linked organization the U.S. lists as a terrorist group, which has imposed strict sharia law in the areas of Somalia it controls. It has outlawed movies, most music, and dancing—even at weddings. Punishments include double amputation and stoning.

Sanaa, Yemen

Bloody battle: At least 70 people were killed in Yemen this week in the worst violence since the uprising against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh began, in January. When anti-government protesters, who have been holding a sit-in for weeks, started to march through the streets, security forces and pro-government militias opened fire on them. In response, Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, an army commander who defected to the protesters’ side in March, led his troops against the government forces. “They don’t want to solve the problem peacefully,” opposition leader Yassin Saeed Noman said of the Saleh regime. “They think they can overcome all others by using weapons.” Saleh has been in Saudi Arabia since June recovering from a bomb attack on his compound; his son and other relatives are leading government troops.

Tehran

Americans freed: The two American hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than two years were released this week on bail of $500,000 each. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, and Bauer’s fiancée Sarah Shourd, crossed into Iran by accident while hiking in the Kurdish region of Iraq in 2009. Shourd was released last year, but an Iranian court convicted the two men of spying and sentenced them to eight years in prison. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had announced last week that they would be freed, but the court delayed the release as part of a power struggle between the president and the judiciary. The bail for Bauer and Fattal was paid by the government of Oman, which also flew the two out of Iran.

Kabul

Peace negotiator assassinated: Afghans all but abandoned hopes of a negotiated peace deal with the Taliban this week after a suicide bomber killed the head of the High Peace Council, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani. He had been leading the negotiations with the Taliban. The attacker claimed to be carrying a “very important and positive message” from the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and, after waiting for days, was granted a personal meeting with Rabbani in his heavily guarded home. As he greeted Rabbani with a hug, he set off a bomb in his turban. The Taliban denied responsibility for the killing, and Afghan officials said they suspected the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based militant group blamed for the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul earlier this month. “Nobody can replace Rabbani,” said government minister Nematullah Shahrani. “He had relations with all these tribes.”

Sikkim, India

Deadly earthquake: A magnitude 6.8 earthquake in northeastern India this week killed at least 100 people and caused massive landslides. The death toll would have been far higher had the quake hit elsewhere in India, but Sikkim, in the Himalayas near the Tibetan border, is one of the country’s least densely populated states. Even so, thousands of people were stranded as landslides blocked roads, and property damage was estimated at more than $20 billion. “Relief work is going on at war footing,” said Pawan Chamling, Sikkim’s chief minister. “All the roads are broken and damaged. All the water pipelines are damaged. All the electric lines are damaged and disrupted.”