Minsk, Belarus
Another rigged election: Supporters of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka won all 110 seats in Belarusian parliamentary elections this week, in a vote international observers said was fraudulent. Lukashenka, who has ruled the former Soviet republic through repression and fraud since 1994, has recently made concessions to the West, releasing political prisoners in advance of the election and assuring Western observers that the contest would be fair. The 400 monitors from Europe’s Organization for Security and Cooperation who supervised the election said they were prohibited from viewing many polling sites and found widespread vote rigging. “This spits in the face of the European community,” said Alexander Kozulin, an opposition leader. Every election since Belarus’ independence in 1991 has been marred by irregularities.
Moscow
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Gorbachev forms party: Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev is forming a new political party with Russian tycoon Aleksandr Lebedev, the billionaire said this week. Lebedev said Gorbachev’s new party would be independent of the Kremlin and would push for legal and economic reform, including “less state capitalism,” and freedom of the press. “He gave our people freedom, but we just can’t learn how to use it,” Lebedev said. Gorbachev, 77, is extremely unpopular in Russia for presiding over the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. The last time he ran for president, in 1996, he got less than 1 percent of the vote.
Beijing
Spacewalkers return: China took a major step in its fledgling space program this week by becoming the third country, after the U.S. and Russia, to send an astronaut on a spacewalk. Zhai Zhigang floated around the Shenzhou VII capsule for 20 minutes as it orbited Earth. Upon returning from the 68-hour mission, he and his two crewmates were paraded through Beijing to cheers and fanfare. “It was a glorious mission,” Zhai said. “I’m proud of my motherland.” China sees its space program as a means of further establishing itself as a prestigious global power. It plans to dock spacecraft at an orbiting space lab by 2011 and place a space station in orbit by 2020. Eventually, China plans to send an astronaut to the moon.
Islamabad, Pakistan
Army chief makes his mark: Pakistan’s army chief named a new intelligence chief and four new corps commanders this week, further consolidating his control over the military and espionage. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over the army last year when then–President Pervez Musharraf relinquished his military post. Since then Kayani has been replacing top generals with those loyal to him. Last month, he ventured into foreign policy when he criticized U.S. incursions into Pakistan, saying he would not tolerate such violations of Pakistani sovereignty. Kayani’s new head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency will be Ahmed Shuja Pasha, former head of security operations in Pakistan’s tribal regions, where the Taliban and al Qaida have regrouped.
Jerusalem
Land for peace: Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stunned Israel this week with a reversal of long-standing Israeli defense doctrine, saying that Israel must give up the West Bank and East Jerusalem to achieve peace with the Palestinians. “This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts,” Olmert told the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Olmert, who resigned last month amid corruption allegations, is currently acting as interim prime minister while his successor as the head of the ruling Kadima party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to assemble a governing coalition. Palestinian officials said it would have been nice if Olmert had taken such a position while he had the power to enforce it.
Cairo
Hostages freed without violence: A group of European tourists who were kidnapped in the Sahara Desert by Sudanese rebels last week were released amid conflicting reports about how they were freed. Egyptian officials said a daring and violent commando raid had rescued the 11 tourists and eight Egyptian tour guides. But the tourists themselves said their kidnappers suddenly told them to leave. “It was nothing dramatic,” said Michele Barrera, a 71-year-old hostage from Italy. “They just shouted, ‘Go, go, go!’ and they packed all of us in one car, allowing us to drive away.” Only when they reached the Egyptian border, after a 200-mile drive, did they see the commandos, the tourists said. The kidnappers, reportedly members of a Darfurian independence group, had asked for $9 million, but Egyptian and Italian officials denied that any ransom was paid.
Somalia
Pirates have mystery tanks: U.S. warships this week pursued and then surrounded Somali pirates aboard a hijacked Ukrainian ship loaded with heavy arms and 33 tanks. Ukraine said the Russian-made tanks and ammunition on the ship were intended for Kenya. But U.S. officials and independent analysts said the tanks were probably headed for rebels in southern Sudan. Arms shipments to the Sudanese rebels have been routed through Kenya in recent months. The pirates apparently hijacked the ship without knowing the nature of its cargo, and demanded a $20 million ransom. The U.S. warships were sent out of concern that the tanks might fall into the hands of Islamic militants in Somalia. As the standoff continued, there were reports of a shootout aboard the Ukranian ship, as the pirates argued among themselves about what to do.
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