Moscow
Secret talks with Israel: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to Moscow in September to urge Russia to rein in Iran, President Dmitri Medvedev confirmed this week. In an interview with CNN, Medvedev also said Israeli officials had assured him in the past that Israel would not launch a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear facilities—although he did not specify whether Netanyahu was one of those officials. Israel denied making any such promise. Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said the Russian president must have misinterpreted Israeli officials. “In any event, he is certainly not authorized to speak for us, and there is no change whatsoever in Israel’s policy,” Ayalon said.
Tokyo
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Halting executions? Japan moved closer to a moratorium on the death penalty this week, when a prominent foe of capital punishment was appointed justice minister. Newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose Keiko Chiba, a member of the Parliamentary League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, to oversee the justice department. Since the justice minister must sign execution warrants,
it’s unlikely that Japan will execute anyone during Chiba’s tenure. Still, polls show broad support for the death penalty among the Japanese public. Last year, 15 inmates were executed, the highest number in decades. Japan is the only industrialized democracy besides the U.S. that employs the death penalty.
Beijing
Swine flu inoculations: China has become the first country to begin a national campaign to vaccinate citizens against H1N1 flu. Swine flu is spreading quickly in China, jumping from 3,000 cases in mid-August to more than 10,000 last week. The Health Ministry said that over the next three months, it plans to vaccinate 65 million people, or 5 percent of its 1.3 billion citizens. The shots are free and voluntary, with priority being given to soldiers, border guards, and university students. Most other countries readying vaccination campaigns, including the U.S., are planning to give priority to health-care workers and at-risk citizens, including pregnant women.
Dungu, Congo
Rebels spread terror: Forced out of Uganda last year, rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army have now moved into Congo and the Central African Republic, where they are kidnapping children. The group, led by cult figure Joseph Kony, is notorious for torturing and maiming people and forcing children to be soldiers and sex slaves. A crackdown by the Ugandan military last December pushed the feared group into neighboring countries. Villagers flee if they hear the LRA may be coming, and over the past few months, 300,000 people have been uprooted. One child soldier who escaped told the BBC that his life with the LRA consisted of “killing people and catching the kids.”
Mohammedia, Morocco
Picnic protest: Moroccan authorities detained dozens of people last week for trying to stage a mass picnic to protest a law banning public eating during Ramadan fasting hours. The Moroccan Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms spread word via Facebook that the protest picnic would be held in the town of Mohammedia. But authorities were monitoring the site, and protesters arriving at the local train station were met by riot police and rounded up. The thwarted protest had its intended effect, though: The ban on public eating is now a hot topic of debate in the Moroccan blogosphere. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marked by fasting during daylight hours, ended this week.
