Weekday News Wrap: Monday, July 9, 2012

09 Jul Weekday News Wrap: Monday, July 9, 2012

• Survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre re-enacted their escape in Bosnia this weekend ahead of Ratko Mladic’s trial, which resumed today at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
• Tomorrow, the International Criminal Court will deliver the sentence and reparations order for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, convicted March 14, 2012 of conscripting and enlisting child soldiers and using them to participate in hostilities.
• Reuters offers an analysis showing that the crisis in Syria reflects the limitations of Turkish power.
• Additionally in Syria news, amid President Al-Assad leveling accusations at the United States of working to “destabilize” Syria via aid given to “gangs,” al-Assad is meeting with Kofi Annan in Damascus to begin talks. US Secretary of State Clinton says that the “days are numbered” for the Assad regime. 
• Palestinian President Abbas has given permission to exhume Yasser Arafat’s remains to verify the hypothesis that Arafat died of polonium poisoning.
• Another potential territorial dispute surfaces, this time in the East China Sea, where China has condemned a Japanese government plan to purchase a series of islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese, from a private investor.
• Russia’s Constitutional Court has cleared the way for WTO ratification after it held that Russia’s Accession Agreement was constitutional.
• South Sudan marks its first anniversary as a country with celebration and praise but also the realization that many challenges remain for the nation.
• Political and religious parties have begun a “long march” to protest the recently re-opened NATO supply lines connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Rebels have seized towns in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the Ugandan border.
• Fox News reports that Iran says it has a plan to close the Strait of Hormuz if its interests are seriously threatened.
• Foreign Policy in Focus describes why KSM may never be convicted for the murder of Daniel Pearl as his trial has been tainted by allegations of torture.
• The New Yorker ponders whether Afghanistan will fall out into a civil war in “After America.”

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