The week at a glance ... Europe

Geneva

Swine flu is over: The swine flu pandemic has officially ended, the World Health Organization said this week. “We are now moving into the post-pandemic period,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. Since being declared a pandemic last year, the H1N1 virus has killed more than 18,000 people—far fewer than the hundreds of thousands that experts initially feared. Chan credited “pure good luck” for the lower death toll, citing the failure of the virus to mutate to a more lethal strain and the prompt development of an effective vaccine. The WHO expects remnants of H1N1 to continue to circulate for several years, posing about the same threat to public health as other strains of flu.

The Hague, Netherlands

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Fashion model’s ‘blood diamonds’: The war-crimes trial of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor took a bizarre turn this week as supermodel Naomi Campbell was accused of lying about a gift of uncut diamonds from Taylor. Prosecutors seek to prove that Taylor trafficked in blood diamonds—gems that are used to buy arms—to fund his brutal wars in West Africa. At the International Criminal Court, Campbell admitted receiving three uncut stones in her room after a 1997 dinner party at Nelson Mandela’s house, at which Taylor was also a guest, but she said she didn’t know who had sent them. Actress Mia Farrow, another guest at the party, testified that Campbell had bragged of receiving the diamonds from Taylor. Campbell’s former agent, Carole White, testified that the model had discussed diamonds with Taylor at dinner. “Naomi, I think, was flirting with him,” she said, “and he was flirting back.”

Hamburg, Germany

9/11 mosque closed: German police have closed the Hamburg mosque attended by the 9/11 hijackers, saying it once again had become a meeting place for extremists. The mosque was home base for Mohamed Atta and two other 9/11 pilots, as well as for some of the plotters of the attacks. It has been under surveillance since 2001, and German intelligence officials say it’s back to functioning as a jihadist hub. “Young men are being turned into religious fanatics there,” said Christoph Althaus, Hamburg’s top security official. He said dozens of worshippers from the mosque are known to have attended military training camps in Uzbekistan and Pakistan.