Weekly News Wrap: Monday, June 22nd, 2015

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

Africa

• South Africa’s main opposition on Sunday called for a full investigation into the government’s failure to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is due to face charges of genocide at the International Criminal Court.
• Somali armed group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for an attack on a military compound in Mogadishu where Somali intelligence officials train, claiming it killed “many intelligence forces”.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• More than 20 air strikes by Arab forces hit targets controlled by Houthi rebels across Yemen late on Sunday, residents said.
• An Israeli war plane has struck a remote area in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to destroy a downed Israeli drone, a Lebanese security source said.
• France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday it was unclear whether an international deal could be reached on Iran’s nuclear program by a June 30 deadline.
• U.S. and coalition forces launched 18 air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq on Saturday, with four each in Tal Afar and Mosul, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Asia

• China inaugurated a new land crossing into Tibet on Monday for Indian pilgrims who wish to visit one of the holiest sites in both Hinduism and Buddhism, state media said, as the two countries seek to set aside differences and improve ties.
• An Indonesian court rejected a French national’s last-ditch appeal against the death sentence on Monday, making him the latest foreigner to face execution for drug offences and likely to prompt an angry response from France.
• Malaysia has stepped up health screenings at all entry points into the country, after the first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was reported in neighboring Thailand last week.
• The Philippines will hold separate naval exercises with U.S. and Japanese forces this week on a Philippine island that is not far from the disputed Spratly archipelago, where China’s rapid creation of seven island outposts is stoking regional tensions.
• South Korea and Japan marked the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties on Monday with a push to mend relations strained by a territorial dispute and a feud over Japan’s wartime past. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida held talks with his South Korean counterpart on Sunday in a bid to mend ties strained by a territorial dispute and a feud over “comfort women” forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels.

Europe

• European Union foreign ministers extended economic sanctions on Russia until Jan. 31 on Monday, keeping up pressure on Moscow to help resolve the Ukraine conflict.
• One of the pan-Arab television network Al Jazeera’s best known journalists, Ahmed Mansour, was remanded in custody by a German judge after being detained at Egypt’s request, the public prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.

Americas

• Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday that senior Obama administration officials had raised U.S. concerns with him about India’s handling of intellectual property rights during his U.S. visit this week.
• Venezuela’s foreign ministry has accused a group of Brazilian senators of seeking to destabilize the country during a brief visit on Thursday and denied their safety was under threat.

UN/World

• Kakuma camp in northern Kenya is expanding by nearly a half, the U.N. refugee agency said on Saturday, to house refugees fleeing nearby South Sudan as hopes fade for peace in the world’s newest nation.
• The UN refugee agency has said that the record number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people globally is “a reflection of a world in chaos“.