Baghdad
British hostage crisis: Iraqi insurgents have threatened to kill five British hostages unless Britain withdraws all its troops from Iraq starting next week. The five—a computer consultant and his four bodyguards—were kidnapped last May, in a daylight raid on the Iraqi Finance Ministry building. A video of one of them, released this week along with the kidnappers’ demand, was the first time any of them had been seen since then. The kidnappers, a splinter group of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, said the hostages had confessed that they “came to loot our wealth under the fake cover of being consultants.” Britain has fewer than 5,500 troops in Iraq. Some 500 are due to come home by Christmas and another 2,000 next year.
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Islamabad, Pakistan
Bhutto and Sharif join forces: Pakistan’s two main opposition figures, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, joined forces this week to plan their strategy to wrest power from President Pervez Musharraf. Elections to replace the parliament, currently dominated by Musharraf allies, are scheduled for January. Meeting for the first time since returning from their separate exiles, the two said they would come up with common criteria for how to judge the fairness of those elections. It’s unclear, though, whether they can present a united front. Sharif was barred from running this week on the grounds that he was once convicted of corruption, and he has called for a boycott of the vote. Bhutto, who was similarly convicted, obtained a presidential pardon before returning to Pakistan, and says she plans to participate in the election.
Kabul
Suicide bomber aims at NATO: A Taliban car bomber struck near a NATO convoy in Kabul this week, injuring at least 22 Afghan civilians. The suicide attack came just after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived on a surprise visit to meet Afghan leaders and NATO commanders. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the bomber meant to strike the NATO convoy, but detonated early. This has been the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion that toppled the Taliban regime. Pentagon officials said the rise in violence was partly due to a bumper poppy crop, which allows insurgents to buy weapons with profits from the heroin trade.
Beijing
Picturing the moon: China has proudly released pictures relayed from its first lunar probe, saying the photos show that the unmanned moon mission, launched in October, is a complete success. “The Chinese people’s dream for more than 1,000 years of flying to the moon is beginning to materialize,” said Premier Minister Wen Jiabao. Some Chinese bloggers promptly raised doubts about the photos, though, saying that the images appeared identical to some NASA pictures. Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the mission, tried to quash the forgery rumors. “A careful examination shows some small differences,” Ouyang said, particularly in the number of craters visible.
Bali, Indonesia
Last-minute greening: Indonesia rushed to plant 79 million trees this week, as environmentalists began arriving for a U.N. climate-change summit. “We will show Indonesia’s strong commitment and action to preserve the environment and save our planet,” said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as he planted saplings at a photo op. Indonesia is the third biggest producer of greenhouse gases, behind the U.S. and China. It also has the highest rate of deforestation in the world, largely because of illegal logging that every year cuts down the equivalent of a forest the size of Switzerland.
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