The week at a glance ... International

Khartoum, Sudan

Genocide charge: The International Criminal Court has charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with ordering genocide in Darfur. It’s the first time a sitting head of state has been charged with international law’s most serious crime. Al-Bashir had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where some 300,000 people have been killed and 2 million forced from their homes in a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by ethnic Arab militias allied with al-Bashir’s government. Al-Bashir refuses to recognize the court’s authority and says he will not turn himself in. “Nothing has changed,” said African Union head Jean Ping. “This charge does nothing to solve the problem in Darfur.”

Kampala, Uganda

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Soccer fans slaughtered: Suicide bombers attacked two packed clubs filled with fans watching the World Cup final this week, killing 76 people and wounding scores in the Ugandan capital. Al Shabab, a Somali Islamist group linked to al Qaida, claimed responsibility for the explosions, saying Uganda was targeted because it has troops in Somalia propping up the government that al Shabab is trying to oust. It’s the first time the group, which has imposed strict sharia law across much of Somalia, has struck in another country. “This was a localized cancer, but the cancer has metastasized into a regional crisis,” said Johnnie Carson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “It is a crisis that has bled across borders and is now infecting the international community.”

Sanaa, Yemen

Al Qaida wants you: Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has produced a slick, English-language online magazine, titled Inspire, in an attempt to recruit Westerners to its ranks. Fugitive cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen reportedly targeted for assassination by the Obama administration and now hiding in Yemen, is listed as editor in chief of the publication. The table of contents includes an article by Osama Bin Laden titled “The Way to Save the Earth” and another headlined “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” There’s even a reprinted joke from David Letterman about how a new book documenting the mistakes of former president George W. Bush is merely “volume one.” But the aim of the publication is deadly serious. Its title is taken from a verse in the Koran that seeks to “inspire the believers to fight.”

Delhi

Crackdown on honor killings: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered a commission to consider tougher sentences for honor killings, in the wake of a public outcry over a rash of intrafamily murders. Reports of honor killings—murders of women who “dishonor” their families by getting pregnant out of wedlock or marrying outside their caste—have been on the rise in recent months. In one high-profile case in April, a woman was found suffocated to death after she told her family she was pregnant and engaged to a man from a lower caste. In five cases in a single week in June, both members of the offending couple were killed. In many instances, village councils knew of or even ordered the murders. The commission has been tasked with finding ways to punish council members who condone honor killings.

Makhachkala, Russia

Nest of ‘black widows’: Russian security officials say they have broken up a terrorist cell that was training women as suicide bombers for attacks on major Russian cities. Officials said the six women, ranging in age from 15 to 29, were arrested in the mostly Muslim region of Dagestan and had already written their suicide notes. Four of them were widows of Islamic militants killed fighting Russian forces. Two men were also arrested, including one accused of assisting the two female suicide bombers in the March subway bombings in Moscow, which killed 40 people. Dagestan neighbors the Russian region of Chechnya, the scene of two brutal separatist wars and a prime recruiting ground for the female bombers the Russian press calls “black widows.”

Cairns, Australia

Viva ‘AusVegas’: An Australian lawmaker has proposed establishing a gambling hub at Cairns, the city closest to the Great Barrier Reef. Queensland Independent MP Aidan McLindon said relocating all the state’s gaming machines to one city would curb chronic gambling and provide a boost to tourism. “Pokies have spread like a cancer across Queensland,” McLindon said, using the Australian term for slot machines. He said that “AusVegas” would be family friendly, without “elements of the sleazy you see in Las Vegas.”