Weekly News Wrap: Monday, July 28, 2014

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

Africa

• The Liberian government has closed most of the West African nation’s border crossings and introduced stringent health measures to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus that has killed at least 660 people across the region.
• Nigerian Boko Haram militants kidnapped the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister and killed at least three people on Sunday in a cross-border attack involving more than 200 assailants in the northern town of Kolofata, Cameroon officials said.

Asia

• China will hold military exercises in southeast coastal areas beginning on Tuesday, the Ministry of National Defence said on Sunday. 
•  The U.S. government urged Pakistan on Friday to prevent displaced Haqqani militants from returning to their traditional sanctuary after a Pakistani military offensive near the Afghanistan border.
• Indian officials indicated late on Wednesday that they would not be able to support the implementation of the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) unless they see their concerns on food security addressed, according to multiple media reports.

Europe

• International experts have been forced to abandon their plans to visit the site where the Malaysian airliner crashed because of fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian troops in the area. 
• Russia reacted angrily on Saturday to additional sanctions imposed by the European Union over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis, saying they would hamper cooperation on security issues and undermine the fight against terrorism and organized crime.
• Norway closed part of the airspace over its second city Bergen and tightened border checks on Saturday, two days after the country upped security following what it described as a “terror alert”.
• British police have arrested two people in London on suspicion of conspiracy to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) and placed a young girl in the care of social services, a police statement said on Saturday.
• France is to repatriate the bodies of all 118 people who were aboard an Air Algerie plane that crashed in Mali, as it declared an unofficial three-day period of mourning.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• European nations and the US have called on their citizens to leave Libya as heavy fighting between troops loyal to a renegade general and militias in the eastern city of Benghazi left more than 36 people dead.
• U.S.-Israeli tensions rise as hostilities in Gaza subside.
• Syrian army said on Sunday it recaptured a gas field east of the central city of Homs that was seized by hardline Islamic State fighters earlier this month.
• The UN has sent its first humanitarian aid convoy into rebel-held areas of Syria without government consent on Thursday, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon accused warring parties of denying assistance to millions as a tactic of war.
• Egypt summoned the Turkish charge d’affaires on Saturday for the second time in a month to complain about comments by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan deemed insulting to the leadership in Cairo, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

Americas

• A former Venezuelan military intelligence head detained on the Caribbean island of Aruba over U.S accusations of drug-trafficking was released and flew home on Sunday.
• President Barack Obama has urged the leaders of three Central American countries to work with him to stem the flow of child migrants who have surged across the US border, warned that most of them would not be allowed to stay.
• EU and Ecuadorian negotiators have agreed upon terms that will allow Quito to join an existing trade agreement that Brussels has with Colombia and Peru, officials confirmed last week, bringing to a close a prolonged – and sometimes acrimonious – process dating back several years.

Oceania

• The first of 157 asylum-seekers who attempted to enter Australia by boat arrived on the country’s mainland on Sunday, after being held at sea for weeks

UN/Other

• The UN has reported alarming rates of malnutrition in the Somali capital where aid agencies cannot meet the needs of 350,000 people due to insufficient funds, drought and conflict.
• UN aid chiefs have begged donors to increase efforts to stave off a looming famine in South Sudan, where a third of the population are in crisis after months of war.
• The new UN human rights envoy for Myanmar has expressed serious concern about conditions in camps for more than 100,000 mostly minority Muslims displaced by violence led by Buddhist extremists, and has warned that the country’s human rights situation may be deteriorating.
• The UN atomic watchdog IAEA said it needs 1 million euros in extra funding to help pay for its monitoring of a four-month extension of an interim nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
• The U.N. civil aviation agency will hold a broad international meeting to discuss airline safety in the industry’s most coordinated response to the downing of a Malaysian airliner, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.