Weekly News Wrap: Monday, January 11, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of 2016 of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• Mali’s chief prosecutor said on Saturday that it has evidence that jihadist al-Qaida splinter group Al Mourabitoun, led by veteran leader veteran militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was behind a November attack on a luxury hotel that killed 20 people.
• Dozens of Ethiopian and Somali migrants died in the waters off the breakaway Somalia region of Somaliland when their vessel failed mechanically in the course of the voyage and drifted in the sea, a regional Somaliland official said.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• More than 100 Syrian refugees have been forcibly returned to their conflict-ridden country by Lebanese authorities after arriving at Beirut’s airport en route to Turkey, Amnesty International said on Friday.
• Aid convoys headed for a besieged Syrian town where thousands are trapped and the United Nations says people are reported to have died of starvation.
• The death toll of Russian air strikes in Syria’s Idlib province has nearly reached 100, as several dozen of those who were critically injured in the attacks on Saturday have died, a volunteer rescue group reports.
• Nine fighters from a Shi’ite Muslim militia battling Islamic State were killed in northern Iraq when an Iraqi army aircraft fired at them in error, security and militia sources said on Sunday.
• Arab foreign ministers condemned attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran and warned on Sunday that the country would face wider opposition if it continued its “interference” in the internal affairs of Arab states.
• A “projectile” struck a clinic supported by international medical group Medecins Sans Frontieres in north Yemen on Sunday, killing four people, MSF said, another in a series of attacks on its facilities in the war-torn country.

Asia

• The United States deployed a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight over its ally South Korea on Sunday, a show of force following North Korea’s nuclear test last week.
• South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts aimed at North Korea push the rivals to the “brink of war,” a top North Korean official has told a propaganda rally, in the isolated country’s first official response to the sonic barrage across its border.
• Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States sat down on Monday for talks to resurrect a stalled Afghan peace process and end nearly 15 years of bloodshed, even as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies.
• Russia wants to fight terrorism jointly with the rest of the world, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published on Monday, while again accusing the West of exacerbating international crises that had contributed to it.

Europe

• The Netherlands called on Monday for greater sharing of intelligence data, including lists of suspected foreign fighters and their banking details, at a gathering of global counter-terrorism officials.
• Denmark is amending a proposal to confiscate refugees’ possessions to pay for their stay by raising the amount they will be allowed to keep after coming under fire from the United Nations refugee agency over its immigration policies.
• European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has warned that a Dutch advisory referendum in April on the bloc’s association agreement with Ukraine could lead to a “continental crisis” if voters reject the treaty.

Americas

• Mexico is formally starting extradition proceedings against captured drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the government said late on Sunday, in the strongest sign yet it intends to send him to the United States.
• The United States conducted a drone strike in Afghanistan last week but a spokesman declined to confirm reports it had killed as many as 20 Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Oceania

• A “new deal” blueprint for sweeping reform of Australia’s environment laws that puts climate change at the centre of ­future economic decision-­making is being prepared by a coalition of 40 leading conservation groups in the wake of the Paris climate meeting.

UN/World

• Iran’s foreign minister has complained to the United Nations about Saudi Arabia’s “provocations” toward Tehran, as a diplomatic crisis between the region’s two major powers entered its second week.