Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, September 8, 2015

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

Africa

• Kenya plans to launch a military offensive against Islamist militants who have set up bases in a remote forest at the northern tip of its Indian Ocean coastline bordering Somalia, a police official said on Monday.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Iran’s president has said his country is ready to hold talks with the United States and Saudi Arabia on ways to resolve the Syrian civil war.
• Several Turkish soldiers have been killed and others wounded in a major attack in Hakkari province carried out by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), according to both the Kurdish group and official Turkish media.
• A Saudi-led alliance has deployed 10,000 troops to Yemen, Qatari news channel Al Jazeera said on Tuesday, in an apparent sign of determination to rout Iran-allied Houthi forces after they killed at least 60 Gulf Arab soldiers on Friday.
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters have captured the last major oilfield under Syrian government control during deadly clashes over a vast central desert zone, a monitoring group said.

Asia

• North and South Korea have agreed to reunite families torn apart by the Korean War six decades ago near the heavily fortified border next month, according to a statement from the South.
• An air strike by U.S.-led coalition forces has killed Afghan counter-narcotics police in a “friendly fire” incident in southern Helmand province, Afghan officials said on Monday.

Europe

• Britain will not hesitate to carry out more deadly drone strikes against militants in Syria planning attacks on the United Kingdom, defense minister Michael Fallon said on Tuesday, as he defended the killing of a British Islamic State fighter; Prime Minister Cameron told parliament on Monday that he had approved an air strike against a vehicle carrying a British jihadist in Syria who he said was plotting attacks against Britain.
• The European Commission announced a 500 million euro ($557 million) package of measures on Monday to provide relief for farmers stung by slumping prices, triggered partly by the loss of exports to Russia due to EU sanctions against the country.
• EU President Donald Tusk has warned that the refugee crisis affecting Europe was part of an “exodus” from war-torn countries that could last years.
• France’s President Francois Hollande has announced his country will take in 24,000 refugees over the next two years, while it is understood Germany will take 31,000 additional people under a European plan which is strongly opposed by Hungary.
• Germany told its European partners they must take in more refugees on Monday as it struggles to cope with record numbers of asylum seekers and as police in Hungary used pepper spray on migrants who broke out of a reception center at the border.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday fighting has died down in east Ukraine since a new truce was put in place on Sept. 1 but blamed Kiev for not moving forward on other provisions of a peace plan brokered by Germany and France.
• British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered an embarrassing defeat in parliament on Monday after Euroskeptic members of his Conservatives joined forces with opposition lawmakers to reject proposed rules for a European Union membership referendum.
• Denmark has placed advertisements in four Lebanese newspapers announcing tighter regulations and cuts in provisions for asylum seekers; the advertisement published on Monday said that social assistance for newly arrived refugees was being reduced by up to 50 percent.

Americas

• A U.S.-led coalition conducted 11 air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq on Sunday, as well as four strikes targeting the militant group in Syria, according to a statement released on Monday.
• The United States is rethinking its strategy for battling the Islamic State in Syria, the New York Times reported on Monday, with the Pentagon looking into moving more fighters into safer zones, providing better intelligence and improving the skills of trained rebels.

Oceania

• Opposition to a landmark free trade deal with China is driven by racism and xenophobia, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday, as his political opponents dug in their heels over what they say are weaknesses in its labor provisions.

UN/World

• Judges at the International Criminal Court have asked South African authorities to explain why they failed to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in June when he attended a conference.