Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, January 16, 2013

16 Jan Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, January 16, 2013

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that the United States would give Afghanistan its own fleet of aerial surveillance drones and would speed up the handover of detainees held by American forces.
• The European Court of Human Rights has found in Eweida and Others v. The United Kingdom (ECHR court document) that British Airways discriminated against a devoutly Christian employee by making her remove her crucifix while at work.
• Libyan government documents show that Libya authorized payment of almost $200 million to Mauritania months after it extradited Libyan ex-spy chief Senussi to face trial at home in defiance of an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest.
• The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan will hold their second summit in a month on January 24, in a fresh bid to defuse tensions over oil, territory and other disputes.
• Two explosions tore through one of Syria’s biggest universities on the first day of student exams yesterday, killing 87 people and wounding dozens.
• ASIL has posted a new Insight entitled: The World Court Awards Sovereignty Over Several Islands in the Caribbean Sea to Colombia and Fixes a Single Maritime Boundary between Colombia and Nicaragua (.pdf).
• Senator Ron Wyden, a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee demanded in a letter (.pdf) to President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor John Brennan that he and other committee members be allowed to review secret Justice Department legal opinions justifying the killing of American citizens in counterterrorism operations.
• The United States is pushing for more sanctions against North Korea at the UN.
• China is planning a geographical survey of the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
• The Obama administration has notified Congress of its intention to negotiate an International Services Agreement that would take liberalization of trade in services to the next level.
• The BBC News has an item taking you behind the scenes of the ICTY.

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