Weekday News Wrap: Friday, October 19, 2012

19 Oct Weekday News Wrap: Friday, October 19, 2012

• Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, Rwanda and South Korea have been elected for a two year term as UN Security Council members. They will replace Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa from 1 January 2013.
• North Korea has threatened with violence if activists in South Korea release balloons with propaganda messages into North Korea next week.
• One day after a drone strike killed eight suspected al-Qaeda members, an attack on a government military base in South Yemen has killed 12 members of the military.
• Kenya’s Court of Appeal has overruled a 2010 High Court judgment which had held that Kenyan courts only had jurisdiction to hear piracy cases that had occurred in Kenya’s territorial waters, but not for piracy in international waters.
• Russia’s Prime Minister Medvedev has suggested that it may not sign onto an extension of the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, invoking the lack of commercial gain resulting from its participation in the regime.
• The WTO Appellate Body has circulated its report on China — Countervailing and Anti-Dumping Duties on Grain Oriented Flat-rolled Electrical Steel from the United States, in which it upheld the Panel’s decision.
• EU leaders have agreed to a single eurozone banking supervisor. And although the eurozone may be going through a crisis, Latvia is still on track to become its 18th member in 2014.
• The Supreme Court of Honduras has confirmed the earlier decision by its Constitutional Chamber condemning the “model cities” idea as unconstitutional.

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