200 rapes reported in Darfur camp

More than 200 women have been raped in a refugee camp in Darfur in the past five weeks, a sign of the worsening humanitarian crisis in the violence-racked Sudanese region, an aid group said Wednesday.

The increased violence came as the U.N. Security Council discussed a draft resolution to replace an understaffed African Union peacekeeping force with a larger, more effective U.N. mission in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003.

The number of rapes in Kalma camp – one of Darfur’s largest with about 100,000 refugees – was one measure of the increased violence throughout the region. Another measure was a rising number of people fleeing their homes, and of attacks on aid workers, said the International Rescue Committee, which collected the information.

The group did not specify who committed the rapes.

Oslo, Norway

Quisling’s home becomes museum

A sprawling mansion used by Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling during World War II opened Wednesday as a center to oppose the intolerance, hatred and treachery he represented.

The Oslo mansion, called Villa Grande, now houses the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Norway. Its displays and research will focus on the Nazi-led genocide of millions of Jews and on the persecution of other minorities.

Almost 60 years after Quisling was executed by Norway for setting up a puppet government that collaborated with German occupation forces, his name remains listed in dictionaries as a synonym for traitor.

Moscow

Crashed jet’s data recorders found

Investigators sifting through the charred wreckage of a Russian airliner that crashed in Ukraine found the plane’s flight recorders, officials said Wednesday.

The voice and data recorders “appear to be in satisfactory condition, but who knows what is inside?” Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said at a news briefing. “It will become clear when they are opened in Moscow.”

Some officials continued to focus on severe weather conditions as factors in Tuesday’s crash, which killed 170 people.

Mogadishu, Somalia

Seaport opens after 11 years

The seaport in the Somali capital reopened Wednesday for the first time in 11 years, the latest sign that the city’s Islamic fundamentalist rulers are trying to restore confidence after more than a decade of anarchy.

Mogadishu International Seaport still must undergo dramatic renovations after so many years of disuse, but it is ready to receive commercial traffic, said Sheik Abdulkadir Ali Omar, a member of the Islamic militia that has taken control of the capital.