09 May Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, May 9, 2012
09.05.12
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- The Arab League has joined the ICRC in warning of a civil war within Syria; a UN envoy bolsters this claim with reports that arms are flowing in both directions between neighboring Lebanon and Syria.
- Citizens of North Carolina have voted to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, dealing a setback to LGBT-rights activists and those in favor of equal treatment for all citizens.
- Yesterday, we told you about the Al Jazeera journalist expelled from China, Melissa Chan. Today, Foreign Policy gives us an account of perhaps why she was expelled and the BBC’s Beijing correspondent discusses Chinese officials’ Orwellian behaviour in making her an “unperson“.
- The NY Times has an account of the various diplomatic twists behind the scenes in Beijing and Washington in the Chen case.
- Iran is now accepting payments for crude oil in renminbi, a move that allows Iran to resist US unilateral sanctions and that allows Beijing to move the exchange rate risk to its trading partners and reduces its need for large US dollar reserves.
- A UN nuclear weapons inspector from the IAEA was killed yesterday in a car accident in Iran and another was injured.
- The US has resumed military training aimed at countering al-Qaeda in Yemen.
- And speaking of al-Qaeda, the suspect behind the foiled al-Qaeda airline bombing plot was a CIA informant, working for both US and Saudi intelligence. Foreign Policy has more about the varying accounts from media outlets on this story, calling it the “fog of terror.”
- Professor Schabas tells us on his blog about Liechtenstein’s becoming the first State Party to the Rome Statute to ratify the aggression amendment, the first of thirty ratifications needed before the amendment can take effect in 2017.
- The ICTR Appeals Chamber has reversed some part of the convictions of Aloys Ntabakuze and reduced his sentence from life to 35 years imprisonment. Two other appeals were dismissed.
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