Rebels have hit army headquarters in Damascus planting bombs targeting high-level officers. More US drone strikes in Yemen kill at least eight, including five suspected of having al-Qaeda ties, while a Yemeni warplane missed its intended target and killed 10 civilians. Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to resume flights between capital cities for the first time in almost five months. Archbishop Desmond...
Calls for Papers The Southern Illinois University Law Journal is seeking scholarly legal articles from newer legal scholars for possible inclusion in a special Symposium issue, Guantanamo Bay: What Next?, on legal issues arising from the continued detention and trial of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Full submissions (in Microsoft Word) should be in by November 19, 2012. The International Organizations Interest Group of the American Society of...
France and the United Kingdom reported at the Security Council that all options are on the table regarding Syria. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that he will speak on Iran at the UN General Assembly in a speech next month. An IAEA report has indicated that Iran has increased its stockpiles of enriched uranium and has doubled its centrifuges. Approximately 80%...
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni has said that Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, but will not give up its right to peaceful energy at the summit for the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has asked the leaders of Iran at the summit to prove that the nuclear development in their country is for peaceful...
French authorities have opened up a murder inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004 at a Paris hospital, following allegations earlier this year that he may have died of polonium poisoning. India's Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national convicted for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. A Pakistani newspaper has reported that Al Qaeda recruited two Somali...
Basil Katz at Reuters has an article about Section 502 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012. This section lifts the Central Bank of Iran's immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976 and effectively neuters the Bank's defences in a case pending before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in...
In an effort not to stoke tensions any further, Japan's central government has declined authorization to the Tokyo Metropolitan Authorities to survey the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Japan's territorial tensions with South Korea hinder their bilateral free trade negotiations. The EU has called on Gambia to halt executions of death row inmates after Amnesty International reported that 9 were executed last Thursday, and all remaining inmates are scheduled...
Libya has set a date for the trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, despite the calls for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. More from Jurist can be found here. Israel claimed that South Africa is acting like an "apartheid state" with its new move to mark goods coming from the West Bank with made in...
Egypt has requested a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Despite the claims put forth by Julian Assange, the US says it has no case against him for which he could potentially be extradited. In Guantanamo Bay, tropical storm Isaac has delayed hearings for five detainees charged in the 9/11 attacks. The head of the IAEA has said he is "not too...
The IAEA has confirmed that it will engage in new talks with Iran on Friday. Iran has unveiled a new short-range missile and introduced plans to build a new missile-defense system in a show of readiness for any potential Israeli attack. Were a conflict to break out between Israel and Iran, it could cost Israel's economy upwards of $42 billion, according to...
As UN monitors left Syria, fighting progressed to suburbs of Damascus. US president Barack Obama has said that if Syria's government were to use chemical weapons, the US would be forced to act. German politicians have said that they will give no leeway to Greece regarding financial reform. Israel has positioned an Iron Dome, a rocket interceptor and destroyer, on the Egyptian border...
Julian Assange has thanked Ecuador's president Rafael Correa for the "courage he has shown" in granting him political asylum in his first public appearance from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. While Britain still denies Assange safe passage from London, Correa chastised the UK for their threats to storm the embassy to remove Assange, calling them "vulgar, inconsiderate and intolerable." He also...
