Newsweek December 04, 2015

Brussels—A sniper and an observer from the police special forces keep watch from a balcony near the Grand Place, the central square in Brussels, on November 20, after authorities imposed a lockdown on the capital while they conducted a massive manhunt for suspects involved in the November 13 attacks in Paris. Schools, shops, public transportation and restaurants were closed for several days, and police arrested 21 people as part of a sweeping counterterrorism operation. The chief target of the raids was Salah Abdesalam, who authorities believe took part in the Paris attacks and who was still at large nearly a week later.…

Idomeni, Greece—An Iranian man who sewed his mouth shut in protest at the refusal of Macedonian authorities to let him cross the border sits on railroad tracks with other asylum seekers near a border crossing on November 23. Asked by Reuters where he wanted to go, the man, a 34-year-old electrical engineer named Hamid, was able to say, “To any free country in the world. I cannot go back. I will be hanged.” Slovenia announced it would grant passage only to those fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Macedonia and other Balkan countries quickly followed suit, tightening rules to limit those they consider economic migrants rather than refugees.…

New York—Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst, leaves federal court in Manhattan on November 20, following his release on parole after serving 30 years of a life sentence for violations of the Espionage Act. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for passing classified information to Israel, in return for money. Though he was granted Israeli citizenship in 1996, and despite multiple attempts by Israeli officials to secure his release, Pollard is required to remain in the United States for five years under the conditions of his parole.…

Buenos Aires, Argentina—The city’s mayor, Mauricio Macri, celebrates after winning the presidential election on November 22, ending the 12-year domination of Argentine politics by President Néstor Kirchner, who died in 2007, and his wife, Cristina, who succeeded him in office. A successful businessman and former president of the Boca Juniors football club, the conservative Macri beat Kirchner’s ally Daniel Scioli, securing more than 51 percent of the vote, by appealing to social democrats, liberals and the center-right business community. The Kirchners had governed on a platform of social welfare programs for the poor and protectionist economic policies, but Argentina’s economy struggled under their rule.…

THE GUARDS standing outside the entrance to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali, didn’t have time to react. Around 7 o’clock on the morning of November 20, at least two baseball-cap-wearing men in their early 20s used automatic rifles to gun down the security men, then dashed up 12 steps leading into the lobby. Moments later, a second burst of gunfire rang out. “We could hear gunshots and people screaming,” says Mukesh Chellani, a business development manager. A resident of the hotel for the past 15 years, he and 19 colleagues were at the back of the building when they heard the shots. Terrified, they looked for anything that could protect them from the gunmen’s bullets. “We barricaded the door from the inside with cupboards and tables,”…

ONE DAY AFTER the attacks in Paris on November 13—in which young men affiliated with the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) killed a total of 130 people at six locations across the French capital—a video began making the rounds online. With its dramatic theme music and slick graphics, it looked more like an action film than an Internet release. “We are Anonymous,” the letters on the screen read. “We are uniting humanity. Expect us.” Soon after the video emerged, members of the hacking collective Anonymous began reporting the Twitter accounts of people they believed to be supporters of ISIS to the site’s administrators in the hope that the accounts would then be deleted. Anonymous claims to have already helped take down more than 20,000 ISISfriendly Twitter profiles since the Paris attacks.…