Weekly News Wrap: Monday, October 19, 2015

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

Africa

• In Mozambique, refugees shun Europe for southern Africa; though it is cheaper and less dangerous, refugees staying in Africa still face arduous journeys and unscrupulous traffickers.
• The African Union’s peace and security council on Saturday recommended the organization hasten plans for sending troops to Burundi if violence in the central African nation worsens and called for investigations into rights abuses there.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• The United States approved conditional sanctions waivers for Iran on Sunday, though it cautioned they would not take effect until Tehran has curbed its nuclear program as required under a historic nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14.
• Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said on Saturday it was studying an invitation from the United Nations to attend talks aimed at ending a war between a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi militiamen who control much of the country including the capital.

Asia

• Hundreds of North and South Koreans are preparing for a defining moment in their lives this week–a rare reunion for families separated by the Korean War will take place on Tuesday.
• North Korea on Saturday rejected the idea of resuming talks to end its nuclear program, saying previous such attempts ended in failure, and reiterated its demand that Washington come to the table to negotiate a peace treaty.

Europe

• Thousands of migrants clamored to enter European Union member Croatia from Serbia on Monday after a night spent in the cold and mud of no-man’s land, their passage west slowed by a Slovenian effort to impose limits on the flow to western Europe.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered Turkey the prospect of support for faster progress on its bid to join the European Union in return for cooperation in stemming the flow of refugees and taking back those rejected by Europe.
• The European Court of Human Rights has upheld its verdict over the case of Turkish politician Dogu Perincek, who said “the Armenian Genocide was a great international lie”.
• Nearly half of Germans reject the proposed TTIP trade deal between Europe and the United States, a new opinion poll showed on Friday, almost twice as many as in February 2014.

Americas

• The Colombian government and FARC rebels say they will work together to locate thousands of people who disappeared during more than 50 years of conflict, as the two sides take the final steps towards a peace deal.
• Israel and the United States signaled on Sunday they were starting to put disputes over the Iran nuclear deal behind them, announcing resumed talks on U.S. defense aid for Israel as it hosted Washington’s top general and a joint air force drill.

Oceania

• Australia’s hardline immigration policies overshadowed the launch of its bid to join the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday, with the government and rights lawyers arguing bitterly over a pregnant Somali asylum-seeker who claims she was raped.

UN/World

• The United States and other rich nations are doing less than their fair share to fight climate change under a UN accord due in December, a report by 18 civil society groups says.
• Israel has rejected a Palestinian plea to the United Nations for an international force to police the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
• More than half a million children in Yemen face life-threatening malnutrition as a risk of famine grows, a senior official of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.