The week at a glance ... International

last updated 8 January 2015

Harare, Zimbabwe

Power-sharing crisis: The power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, begun in February 2009, appeared close to a breaking point this week. Opposition leader Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in the 2008 election but withdrew from the runoff after 200 of his supporters were murdered and thousands more beaten up. Tsvangirai voiced “disgust” last weekend that Mugabe had appointed ambassadors, judges, and provincial governors without consulting him, as required by the power-sharing arrangement, brokered by South Africa. He also accused Mugabe of a racist vendetta against Roy Bennett, Tsvangirai’s choice for deputy agriculture minister. Bennett, who is white, was acquitted earlier this year of plotting to oust Mugabe, and the president has refused to swear him in as a minister.

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Settlement deal rejected: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week offered to extend a freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people.” The Palestinian Authority, which suspended talks with Israel after a 10-month construction moratorium expired in September, rejected the proposal. Palestinians are “prepared to end the conflict,” said Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli government advisor, “but for them to accept Israel as a Jewish state is for them to negate their whole narrative.” The Israeli Cabinet this week approved a controversial proposal to compel non-Jews applying for Israeli citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel “as a Jewish and democratic state.” Before becoming law, the bill must be approved by parliament.

Kunar province, Afghanistan

Hostage dead by friendly fire? A Scottish aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban may have been killed by U.S. troops as they tried to free her last week, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. Military reports previously had indicated that Linda Norgrove, 36, died when one of her captors exploded a suicide vest. But Gen. David Petraeus, NATO commander in Afghanistan, told the British government that it now appeared Norgrove may have died as a result of a U.S. grenade thrown during the failed rescue. The disclosure prompted second-guessing in the British press, with some wondering whether U.S. special forces had been over-aggressive in the rescue attempt. Hague cautioned against hasty analysis, saying the Americans had “risked their lives to rescue a British subject.”

Beijing

Nobel crackdown: Infuriated by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo last week, the government placed Liu’s wife under house arrest and cut off her phone. Liu, 54, a key figure in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, dedicated the award to the “lost souls” of Tiananmen. Chinese authorities in Beijing called the prize an “obscenity,” while an editorial in the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper called it a provocation motivated by the West’s “extraordinary terror of China’s rise and model.” Liu was visited in jail on Sunday by his wife, Liu Zia, before she was detained. At least three Chinese dissidents who celebrated Liu’s prize have also been arrested.

Madang, Papua New Guinea

Cult leader convicted: A cult leader who styled himself “Black Jesus,” and boasted of having had sex with more than 400 of his “flower girl” followers, was found guilty last week on four counts of rape. Steven Tari, 39, a former Lutheran minister who attracted more than 6,000 disciples to his jungle-based sect, was arrested in 2007 after eluding police for more than a year in remote villages. Tari preached that it was God’s will for young girls to be “married” to him. “It was religious and was not wrong,” he said. Despite allegations that the cult practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice, Tari had been charged only with rape.

Pyongyang, North Korea

Succession signs: In an unprecedented move, foreign media were invited to witness a massive military parade last weekend at which North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, looking frail and sickly, was photographed alongside his son and apparent heir, Kim Jong Un. One day before the event, Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, who lives in China and speaks nearly fluent English, said, “Personally, I am against third-generation dynastic succession.” Kim Jong Nam, 39, was once thought to be his father’s likely successor. But he said his father appears to have chosen his younger brother instead. “I don’t regret it and I’m not interested in it, so I don’t mind,” he said. “I am ready to help my brother at any time overseas if he needs me to.”