The week at a glance...Europe

Dublin

Queen’s historic visit: In a trip laden with symbolism, Queen Elizabeth II this week became the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland since the country became independent from Britain in 1922. As thousands of police patrolled Dublin, in the largest security operation in Irish history, the queen laid a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance, a memorial to those who died in the struggle to free Ireland from British rule. “It is at last possible to say that the relationship between Britain and Ireland is simply normal,” The Irish Times said in an editorial. One small pipe bomb was found and defused on a bus near Dublin before the queen arrived; nobody claimed responsibility.

Paris

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First Family expands: Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is pregnant, according to Sarkozy’s father. Germany’s Bild newspaper quoted Sarkozy’s father, Pal Sarkozy, as saying, “Neither wants to know the gender beforehand, but I’m certain it will be a girl, and beautiful like Carla.” Bruni, 43, has one son from an earlier relationship, while Sarkozy, 56, has three sons from two previous marriages. Sarkozy’s office wouldn’t confirm the news, saying it does not comment on the president’s private life. French analysts said a baby could help boost Sarkozy’s re-election chances next April. Sarkozy is deeply unpopular, and some polls suggest he could be knocked out in the first round of the election, coming in third after whoever runs for the Socialists and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front.

Vatican City

Sex-abuse guidelines: The Vatican has ordered Roman Catholic bishops to establish national guidelines on dealing with priests who sexually abuse children. Bishops are instructed to report suspected abuse to the police, unless the information emerged during confession. But victims’ groups said the new guidelines were inadequate because they did not penalize bishops for failing to report abusive priests or for transferring them to other parishes. “They are merely recommendations, not binding policy,” said a spokesperson of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. U.S. bishops are not affected by the order, as they already adopted a zero-tolerance policy for abusive priests in 2002.

Munich

Demjanjuk convicted: Ending a legal saga that lasted decades, former U.S. citizen John Demjanjuk, 91, was sentenced last week to five years in prison for his role overseeing the deaths of thousands of Jews as a Nazi concentration camp guard. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was an autoworker in the U.S. for more than 30 years after World War II, until he was misidentified by Holocaust survivors as “Ivan the Terrible,” a notoriously sadistic Nazi at the Treblinka extermination camp. He was sentenced to death in Israel in 1988, but his conviction was later overturned when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that he was not Ivan the Terrible but a different guard at a different camp. He was deported to Germany in 2009 to stand trial as an accessory to the murder of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor camp.