Weekly News Wrap: Monday, May 2, 2016

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

Africa

• Kenya’s president set fire to thousands of elephant tusks and rhino horns, destroying a stockpile that would have been worth a fortune to smugglers and sending a message that trade in the animal parts must be stopped.
• Nigerian gas exports to the US have dropped to zero. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said that the global oil and gas sector would need additional $10 trillion investment to save the industry from total collapse due to the present investment cut, occasioned by low oil prices.
• Nigerian troops on Friday discovered a Boko Haram factory bomb making factory, an official has said.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Yemen’s al Qaeda branch on Saturday confirmed it had withdrawn from the Yemeni seaport of Mukalla a week after government and Emirati soldiers seized the city used by Islamist militants to amass a fortune amid the chaos of civil war.

Asia

• The US military has said that a deadly air strike on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan last year was a mistake and therefore not a war crime. Survivors demand an independent investigation. Jens posts his thoughts here.
• China and Japan both expressed a willingness to improve strained relations on Saturday after a rare meeting between their two foreign ministers in Beijing, though China said Japan should stop pushing the notion that China is a threat.
• India and the United States are in talks to help each other track submarines in the Indian Ocean, military officials say, a move that could further tighten defense ties between New Delhi and Washington as China steps up its undersea activities.

Europe

• Germany will ask the European Commission to allow an extension of temporary border controls within the Schengen zone of passport-free travel beyond mid-May, Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere said on Saturday.
• The number of British people who want to stay in the European Union has risen over the past four weeks, an online poll by market research company Opinium Research for the Observer newspaper showed on Saturday.
• If Finland joined NATO it would lead to a serious crisis with neighboring Russia, a report commissioned by the Finnish government said on Friday.
• French and U.S. jets destroyed an Islamic State site in Iraq used by the hardline Sunni Muslim insurgents to build large quantities of bombs and vehicles for suicide attacks, the French Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
• A German government official denied on Sunday a magazine report which said Berlin might end its unconditional support for Israel due to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s increasing frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies.

Americas

• U.S.-led coalition drones struck an Islamic State explosives depot in the northern Syrian town of Dabiq after receiving intelligence from Ankara, Turkish military sources said on Sunday.
• Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Friday praised Cuban President Raul Castro for embracing the realities of the modern world after a meeting with the Communist leader that marked a further step in Cuba’s thaw with the West.

Oceania

• Australia on Friday proposed changes to simplify its anti money-laundering and terrorism financing laws, notably extending the regulations to include intermediaries and professions currently not required to report suspicious transactions.

UN/World

• The United Nations on Friday suggested it would be willing to assist in a dispute between Tehran and Washington after Iran requested U.N. help in convincing the United States to stop what the Islamic Republic says are violations of state immunity.
• The UN Security Council has voted to restore the UN mission in disputed Western Sahara and bring the peacekeeping force back to full operations after Morocco expelled international civilian staff.