Grozny, Russia
Terror in Chechnya: Islamist militants stormed Chechnya’s parliament building this week, shouting “God is great” as they set off a bomb and sprayed machine-gun fire. Six people were killed and 20 wounded; the four attackers blew themselves up. It was the latest in a string of attacks in Chechnya, despite heightened security in Grozny for a visit by Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev. Last month, insurgents attacked the home village of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a brutal strongman installed by the Kremlin to pacify the region in the wake of two separatist wars. Kadyrov said the parliament attack showed that the insurgents were “truly devils—not human beings.” Human-rights groups say Kadyrov’s tactics of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering suspected insurgents only makes matters worse.
Beijing
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Leader ascends: Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was promoted this week to vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, a key post that’s perceived to be a steppingstone toward the top job in 2013, when President Hu Jintao’s second term ends. Hu held that same military post before he was named head of the Communist Party in 2002 and president in 2003. “Based on today’s announcement, he’ll be the next leader,” said Jin Zhong, editor of Hong Kong–based Open Magazine. Xi, the son of a revolutionary hero, is a strong supporter of free-market reforms. Not much is known about his views on political dissent, but his family has been on the receiving end of Communist repression: His father was purged by Mao Tse-tung and spent 16 years in jail, and the young Xi was required to work in a remote rural village.
Kabul, Afghanistan
Rampant election fraud: Fraud in last month’s Afghan elections was so widespread that nearly one-quarter of the ballots—more than a million votes—have been thrown out. The country’s Independent Election Commission said that cheating took many forms, including ballot stuffing, vote buying, and intimidation by armed men who ordered voters away from polling stations. “That the fraud is that high is disappointing on one hand,” said South African Judge Johann Kriegler, one of two foreigners on a board that investigates electoral complaints, “but on the other, it shows that the IEC is taking its job seriously.” In last year’s disputed presidential election, the IEC was seen as complicit in covering up fraud by supporters of President Hamid Karzai.
Baghdad
Sunnis join al Qaida: Hundreds of Sunni fighters have deserted the U.S.-allied Awakening Councils in recent months and joined al Qaida. Current and former Awakening members told The New York Times that they don’t trust the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and they fear that he intends to forge a governing coalition comprised exclusively of Shiites and closely allied with Shiite Iran. Al-Maliki this week was in Iran, where he received the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and met with his new political ally, radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who lives in self-imposed exile in Iran. Iraqi politics have been deadlocked since the March elections, in which a secular bloc supported by Sunnis won a narrow plurality of the vote but has been unable to muster a parliamentary majority.
Nairobi, Kenya
Obama brother weds teen: One of President Barack Obama’s half-brothers in Kenya has taken a teenager as his third wife. The newest bride of Malik Obama, 52, is Sheila Anyango, 19. The girl’s mother opposed the marriage, saying Obama had been wooing Anyango for years and should have let her finish high school. But Obama said Anyango didn’t want to wait any longer, and he refused to apologize for the marriage. “I am a Muslim and I have the right to marry up to four wives,” he said. “I still have one vacancy.”
Cape Town, South Africa
Vuvuzela recycling: South Africans are coming up with inventive ways to use all those vuvuzelas that have littered the country since the World Cup last summer. A nationwide competition is under way for the best design incorporating the noisy plastic trumpets. Suggestions include a candlestick holder, a lighting fixture for hanging bulbs, an MP3 player, and even an umbrella made from many vuvuzelas superglued together. Local craftsmen will use the winning designs to produce items they can sell. “They’ll get all the money,” the competition website, Wozela.wordpress.com, tells prospective designers. “You’ll get all the glory.”
