07 Jul Weekly News Wrap: Monday, July 7, 2014
07.07.14
|
0 Comments
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:
Africa
- West African countries and international health organizations adopted a fresh strategy on Thursday to fight the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic, which has killed hundreds of people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Asia
- India summoned a senior U.S. diplomat to explain reports that the U.S. National Security Agency was authorized to spy on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party before he took office, and to seek assurances this would not happen in future.
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has arrived in China for her seventh visit since 2005, with economic ties topping the agenda and a high-powered business delegation in tow.
- Australia has confirmed it handed over a boatload of asylum seekers to Sri Lankan authorities in a transfer at sea, drawing outrage from rights groups who fear those on board could face persecution when they go home.
Europe
- Ukraine’s president has called the capture of the Pro-Russian separatist stronghold of Slovyansk a “turning point” in the fight for control of the country’s east.
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said allegations that a German man worked as a double agent for U.S. intelligence were serious and, if true, were a clear contradiction of what cooperation between partners is supposed to be about.
- French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Thursday to encourage separatists in eastern Ukraine to reach an agreement with the Ukrainian authorities, the French president’s office said.
Middle East and Northern Africa
- A 12-year-old girl has been killed and eight other civilians wounded in an Iraqi airstrike on a Kurdish-held town in Iraq’s northern province of Salahuddin, a Kurdish security forces official said.
- Israel does not expect world powers to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran by a late July deadline, a government minister said on Friday, accusing Tehran of maintaining a “hard line” at talks under way in Vienna.
- Around 30 Islamic State fighters broke out of a makeshift jail where rival Syrian Islamists had been holding them, a monitoring group said on Friday as it detailed the latest territorial gains by the al Qaeda offshoot.
- Clashes in the north Yemen town of Omran continued on Sunday between the army and fighters from the Houthi movement after at least 104 people were killed on Saturday, while in the south six soldiers were shot dead by al Qaeda militants.
- Israeli air strikes killed seven Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the Islamist group said, in the deadliest attacks in a surge of violence exacerbated by the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli youths and a Palestinian teen.
Americas
- Enhanced international police cooperation during the World Cup has led to the arrest of a fugitive wanted for torture and murder during Argentina’s “dirty war” against leftists four decades ago, Brazilian authorities said on Thursday.
- U.S. military advisors have secretly operated in Somalia since around 2007 and Washington plans to deepen its security assistance to help the country fend off threats by Islamist militant group al Shabaab, U.S. officials said.
- Airlines with direct flights to the United States have been told to tighten screening of mobile phones and shoes in response to intelligence reports of increased threats from al Qaeda-affiliated militant groups, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
UN/Other
- Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan circulated a draft resolution to the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Thursday that seeks to boost cross-border humanitarian access in Syria but it was not immediately clear if Russia and China would support the move.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.