Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, February 2, 2016

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

Africa

• The African Union has decided against sending peacekeepers to crisis-hit Burundi after the embattled government said that any such move would be considered an invasion.
• Campaigners have called on Egypt to immediately release a 17-year-old Somali refugee who has been held for nearly six months.
• At least three men were killed in a village in Kenya’s coastal Lamu county in the early hours of Sunday during a raid claimed by Somalia-based armed group al-Shabab.
• At least 86 people, including a number of children, have been killed in a series of attacks on a village in north-eastern Nigeria, according to officials.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Mortars and rockets fired at Saudi Arabian towns and villages have killed 375 civilians, including 63 children, since the start of the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen in late March, Riyadh said on Monday.
• Russia’s air force has carried out 468 sorties in Syria over the past week, hitting more than 1,300 “terrorist” targets, Russian news agencies quoted Russia’s Defense Ministry as saying on Monday.
• The United States is willing to deploy Apache attack helicopters and advisers to help Iraq retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State as it considers options to speed up the campaign against the militant group, a top U.S. general said on Monday.
• United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern that a stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and Palestinians is reaching the point of no return for a two-state solution.

Asia

• German Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere promised Afghanistan financial help to help reintegrate returned migrants during a visit to Kabul on Monday overshadowed by the latest in a series of deadly suicide bomb attacks.
• China accused the United States on Monday of seeking maritime hegemony in the name of freedom of navigation after a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of a disputed island in the South China Sea.

Europe

• More than 10,000 unaccompanied refugee and migrant children have disappeared in Europe, the EU police agency Europol said on Sunday, fearing many have been whisked into sex trafficking rings or the slave trade.
• Nearly two dozen nations gather in Rome on Tuesday to plot their fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq and how to choke off its rise in Libya.
• France and Belgium vowed on Monday to intensify cooperation in the fight against Islamist radicals, including a more rapid exchange of information on potential militants and efforts to prevent forgery of documents.
• Prime Minister David Cameron and European Council President Donald Tusk failed on Sunday to reach a deal on Britain’s EU renegotiation after talks in London, but agreed to another 24 hours of “crucial” discussions.

Americas

• A special mission sent by the Organization of American States met Haiti’s President Michel Martelly on Sunday as part of intensifying efforts to resolve an electoral crisis that threatens stability in the Caribbean nation.

Oceania

• Human Rights Watch blasted Australia’s asylum-seeker policy as “abusive” and says a serious rethink is needed to restore the country’s standing globally; HRW also has said in its yearly report that Australia, while having a solid record on civil and political rights, was failing to respect international standards for asylum seekers and this was taking “a heavy human toll”.

UN/World

• Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai will seek to inspire world leaders at a conference in London on Thursday to commit $1.4 billion this year to give Syrian refugee children access to education, she told Reuters on Sunday.
• The World Health Organization calls the spread of the Zika virus “explosive” and merits being declared an international emergency. It estimates up to 4 million people in the Americas could be infected over the next 12 months.
• Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, peace negotiators in Colombia or Greek islanders helping Syrian refugees were among tips for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize at the deadline for nominations on Monday.
• Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran should reconcile and help resolve tensions in the Middle East, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.
• The United Nations has said that there should be no amnesty for people suspected of committing war crimes as talks aimed at ending Syria’s war continued to struggle in Geneva.
• The United Nations’ top human rights official urged Turkey on Monday to investigate the shooting of unarmed people 10 days ago in its largely Kurdish southeast and said any members of the security forces committing rights abuses should be prosecuted.