Moscow
U.S. accused of meddling: Russian President Vladimir Putin this week accused the U.S. government of deliberately trying to undermine the upcoming Russian parliamentary elections, and warned that Russia was building up its military so that “no one puts his runny nose into our affairs.” His outburst came after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a leading democracy-promoting group, announced it would not even try to verify the fairness of the Russian elections. The organization said the Russian government had made it so difficult for its 70 observers to monitor the voting that it could not provide assurances that the election was fair. Putin’s United Russia party is expected to win by a landslide in this year’s elections and help Putin maintain power even after he steps down from the presidency next year, as required by the constitution. Last weekend, authorities violently broke up several rallies by opposition parties.
Nairobi, Kenya
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Women as sex tourists: Older white women have begun traveling to Kenya to have flings with younger Kenyan men. Locals who live near coastal resorts estimate that around one-fifth of female tourists in their 50s and 60s are trawling for sex, offering to buy young men clothing and meals in return for their services and their company. “It’s not evil,” Jake Grieves-Cook, chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, said of the practice. “But it’s certainly something we frown upon.” One 64-year-old British woman, who gave her name as Allie, told a Reuters reporter that she and a
friend had spent a month cruising Kenya’s beaches; her latest catch was a 23-year-old, 6-foot-4 man from the Maasi tribe, who was sporting an expensive new pair of sunglasses. “We both get something we want—what’s the negative?’’ Allie asked.
Khartoum, Sudan
British teacher arrested for blasphemy: A British teacher in Sudan faced a possible 40 lashes this week for allowing her second-graders to name a teddy bear after the prophet Mohammed. Gillian Gibbons, 54, was teaching the class about voting by letting the kids pick the name for the class mascot. Mohammed, a common name in the majority-Muslim country, was the overwhelming favorite of the children. But their parents were not amused, and authorities arrested Gibbons on suspicion of blasphemy. “To give the name of Mohammed to this teddy bear, it was considered an insult by some parents,” said Mutrif Siddig, Sudan’s undersecretary for foreign affairs. The British Foreign Office asked the Sudanese government to let Gibbons off with a warning.
Cairo
YouTube pulls torture videos: An Egyptian human-rights activist who posted videos on the Web of Egyptian police allegedly torturing people said this week that YouTube had suspended his account. “They sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content,” said activist Wael Abbas. Some of Abbas’ video clips have been instrumental in procuring rare convictions of police officers, and he says the removal of his videos is a setback for human rights and freedom. Google, which owns YouTube, did not respond to inquiries about the suspension.
Tehran
Cracking down on books: Iran’s Islamic government this week banned Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores, the latest Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez novel, adding it to a growing list of literary works deemed unfit for Iranian eyes. Since Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi took office as minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance two years ago, more than 70 percent of books previously deemed acceptable have been banned, including many classics of Persian and world literature. Iran was the only country in the world to ban Dan Brown’s best-seller The Da Vinci Code, on the grounds that it blasphemed against Jesus, who is revered in Islam as a prophet.
Baghdad
Some U.S. troops go home: The first major drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq began this week. All 5,000 troops of the Third Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, based in Diyala, will be home by mid-December, as part of a plan to reduce the overall U.S. force from its recent peak of 162,000 to about 140,000 by next July. “The redeployment without replacement reflects the overall improved security situation in Iraq,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith. When the drawdown is complete, the U.S. will still have as many troops in Iraq as it did before last spring’s “surge,” and Bush administration officials said there would be a significant U.S. presence in Iraq for many years to come. President Bush this week signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to negotiate an “enduring” military relationship over the next few months.
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