Moscow's Ethnic Riots Signal Official Xenophobia
When riots hit Moscow on Oct. 13, sparked by a murder for which a migrant worker from the Caucasus was blamed, Russian authorities were forced to make a choice: condemn xenophobia or embrace it. They chose to embrace it. Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's new mayor, sided with the violent mob of ethnic Russians who attacked the city's migrant workers. Instead of defending the victims, Sobyanin ordered police to arrest hundreds of migrants, and his orders were carried out seemingly at random. Instead of pledging to fix the damaged businesses, Sobyanin ordered them shut for using migrant labor. "It's their own fault," he told reporters after the riots.
His response followed the logic of this summer's mayoral elections, the first to bring xenophobia into mainstream Russian politics. Previously, the elites around President Vladimir Putin had avoided the issue of migrant labor, leaving it to fringe parties and ultranationalists. But Sobyanin, Putin's former chief of staff, made it the core of his campaign, playing on Russians' fears of being overrun by foreign laborers. When he issued several orders throughout August for police to arrest thousands of migrants, critics said he was pandering to the xenophobes. But a month after he won the vote, the mob turned Sobyanin's rhetoric into violence, with many rioters chanting, "Russia for Russians." Muscovites brace for worse to come.
MALTA
'We are just building a cemetery.'
Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta, urging E.U. action after several overcrowded boats carrying migrants--mostly from North Africa--capsized in the Mediterranean, killing hundreds; Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta announced plans to boost surveillance to make the journey safer
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HOUSEHOLD-WEALTH CHANGES IN THE PAST YEAR
A new global wealth report by Credit Suisse shows percentages of gains and losses:
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+60%
Libya
+18%
Azerbaijan
+13%
U.S.
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-11%
Egypt
-16%
Argentina
-21%
Japan
The Explainer
Why MERS Could Become a Global Threat
A year after it was first reported, researchers still know little about Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the virus responsible for at least 60 deaths in 138 cases--mostly in Saudi Arabia. The fear is that the influx of some 2 million Muslim pilgrims for the hajj this month could provide optimal conditions for transforming a regional outbreak into a global one:
• INCONCLUSIVE RESEARCH
Scientists initially nabbed a bat as the natural reservoir--RNA of the virus or a similar one was found in bat feces--and say wildlife or domestic animals might be intermediaries in spreading the virus to humans. That path of transmission isn't understood.
• INADEQUATE SURVEILLANCE
Researchers know animals are involved, but some fault the Saudis for lax efforts in finding evidence. The kingdom has boosted human sampling, but the hunt for clues from animals is just getting under way.