Weekly News Wrap: October 3, 2013

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Middle East

• The Security Council has urged the Syrian government to allow cross-border aid deliveries, calling on all parties to Syria’s conflict to agree on humanitarian pauses in fighting and key routes for aid convoys.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin seems optimistic about Syria, saying global powers were “on the right track” with a plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons and could avert military intervention in the conflict if they worked together.
• US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has set the parameters for talks with Iran.
• According to Amnesty International’s recent report, Turkish authorities committed widespread rights abuses in their crackdown on popular demonstrations in June, beating, abusing and harassing protesters, and using unnecessary force.

Asia

• The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University claims that new satellite imagery offers further signs that North Korea has restarted a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.
• Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal has sentenced a senior opposition leader and MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death for war crimes in the country’s bloody struggle for independence.
• After leveling accusations last week, Russia has formally charged two Greenpeace activists with piracy.
• Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, agreed to work to restore a cross-border ceasefire after a spate of shootings in order to improve strained ties.

Africa

• Foreign Policy features an interview with Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, dubbing her “The New Iron Lady.”
• The ICC has issued two arrest warrants: the first for Walter Barasa, who is suspected of tampering with witnesses in the war crimes case against Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto and the second for Charles Ble Goude, accused of working with former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to orchestrate deadly post-election violence.
• Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president, has told Somalia to “put their house in order,” in a sign of frustration at the festering instability in the neighboring country after members of a Somali armed group attacked and killed dozens at a Nairobi shopping mall.
• Tuareg separatists and Malian soldiers exchanged fire in the northern town of Kidal in a sign of escalating tensions after MNLA rebels ended a ceasefire with the newly elected government.
• IntLawGrrls offers a two-part analysis of the recent Appeals Chambers Judgment in the Charles Taylor case here and here.

Europe

• The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has met with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood leaders in a closed-door meeting aimed at reconciliation between the army-backed interim government and opposition groups.
• Hopes that Bosnia’s fractious leaders were near a deal to end a standoff blocking the country’s bid to join the European Union receded, when one top official said they were only “halfway there.“
• At least 50 migrants have drowned and rescuers were trying to save many others from the sea near the Italian island of Lampedusa after a migrant boat caught fire and sank.

Americas

• A judge in Ecuador ordered the arrest of three retired senior military officers and the house arrest of seven more on charges of committing crimes against humanity almost 30 years ago.
• A Brazilian federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Chevron after approving a negotiated settlement, closing a lengthy legal battle over a 2011 oil spill.
• The United States has expelled three Venezuelan diplomats in response to their government’s decision to order three US officials out of Venezuela.
• Despite the fact that the US Government has shutdown, Foreign Policy explains why it is not yet a failed state.