Politics this week

Egypt remained in the throes of political upheaval as large numbers of demonstrators again demanded the departure of President Hosni Mubarak. Strikes spread among doctors, steelworkers and at facilities along the Suez Canal. Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, held the first direct negotiations with protest leaders, among them members of the previously ostracised Muslim Brotherhood. See article

Tunisia's interim president assumed the power to rule by decree, as the interior ministry suspended the former ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally. Its officials will no longer be allowed to meet and its offices are to be closed down. See article

Kuwait's interior minister resigned from the government following revelations about torture in prisons. The Kuwaiti emir accepted the resignation after critics called for political reforms in the wake of demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia.

The head of the Sudanese government, Omar al-Bashir, accepted the result of the secessionist referendum in ten southern provinces that is expected to lead to the formation in July of an independent state, which will probably be called South Sudan. According to the final count, 98.8% of the almost 3.9m registered voters approved the split.

Gross injustice

Cuba charged Alan Gross, whom the United States describes as an aid worker, with plotting against the state, a crime that carries a 20-year prison sentence. Mr Gross was arrested in December 2009 while working for the Cuba Democracy Project, an American government programme aimed at promoting political change. Cuban officials said he was distributing satellite dishes, which are illegal on the island, to Jewish groups.

Haiti's outgoing government issued a diplomatic passport to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former president who has lived in exile in South Africa since being ousted seven years ago. His American lawyer said that Mr Aristide, a popular but divisive figure, wants to return home “as soon as he can”.

Brazil's new government announced cuts of 50 billion reais ($30 billion) in budgeted spending for 2011, as it seeks to cool an overheated economy. Inflation for January was 0.8%, taking the annual figure to 6%.

An historic dispute

Cambodia's prime minister said that skirmishes with Thailand around a disputed site on their border had escalated into “a real war”. Both sides engaged in artillery and heavy-machinegun fire. The area under contention is tiny but surrounds an 11th-century Khmer temple complex designated as a World Heritage site. Cambodian troops apparently fortified the temple. See article

A Taliban suicide-bomber attacked an army recruiting camp in Mardan in north-west Pakistan, killing and injuring dozens of people.

The UN issued a special alert about the drought afflicting China this winter. China's official media called it the worst drought in 60 years. The state media also claimed that Shandong province, the most important centre for wheat, has had its worst season in 200 years. China has been self-sufficient in grains, though demand is huge. If it starts to import wheat, world prices are likely to rocket.

Taiwan said it had arrested one of its generals as a spy for China. General Lo Hsien-che is thought to have been working for the mainland for at least five years. Relations between Taiwan and China have improved under Taiwan's Kuomintang government.

North Korea and South Korea sent military delegations to meet in the demilitarised zone, their first such encounter since the North shelled the island of Yeonpyeong in November, killing three civilians. The South's cheek-turning was for naught: the North Korean colonel and his attaché stormed out of the meeting, leaving the talks in a state of “collapse”—and perhaps angling for further concessions.

Indonesians were shocked by two attacks against religious minorities. Four members of the Ahmadi sect were beaten to death by a mob of orthodox Muslims in western Java while police stood by, doing little to protect the victims. In central Java, meanwhile, a mob burned down Christian churches.

Centrifugal forces

Two more moderate Democrats in Congress decided to call it a day. Jim Webb said he would not seek re-election as senator for Virginia next year, and Jane Harman said she was stepping down from her Los Angeles congressional seat to head a foreign-policy think-tank.

Congressional Republicans aligned to the tea-party movement helped to defeat a measure in the House that would extend provisions in the Patriot Act related to government surveillance and access to library records. The measure will be voted on again soon.

Florida's governor unveiled a budget that proposes spending cuts of $4.6 billion in programmes such as Medicaid, but also lowers property and corporate taxes by $4 billion.

The mask starts to slip

Prosecutors in Italy asked a judge to put Silvio Berlusconi on a fast track to a trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his office to cover it up. Mr Berlusconi called the charges “disgusting”. But the judge is expected to give her approval, and the trial could begin within months. See article

France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told his cabinet to take their holidays at home. This came after scandals revealed that the prime minister, François Fillon, accepted free boat and plane trips from Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, and the foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, had taken flights paid for by a friend of the former Tunisian president. See article

Doku Umarov, a notorious Chechen terrorist leader, said that he had ordered last month's suicide-bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, which killed 36 people. The Russian police arrested the siblings of the man they claim was the suicide-bomber.

In a speech in Munich, David Cameron claimed that “state multiculturalism” had failed and had led many Britons to live segregated lives. The British prime minister wants to foster a stronger sense of national identity. He made his speech on the day that the English Defence League, a far-right group, marched through Luton, a town with a large Muslim population. See article