Weekly News Wrap: Monday, January 27, 2014

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• The International Criminal Court  has scrapped a planned February 5 start date for the trial of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after prosecutors asked for more time to strengthen their case (ICC press release here).
• At least eight people were killed in mob violence in Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, as senior officers from the Seleka rebel movement fled the city.

Asia

• India and Japan’s talks on nuclear cooperation have gained momentum over the past few months and the two hope for an agreement on civilian nuclear energy soon.
• The head of Japan’s influential public broadcaster has used his first public comments to say that Japan’s World War Two policy of forcing conquered foreign women into sex slavery was “common in any country at war.”
• In Thailand, an anti-government protest leader was killed in Bangkok, shot in the head while speaking during a protest rally.
• The Philippine military has launched a major offensive against a splinter rebel group, two days after negotiations with the country’s main Muslim rebel group to end a decades-long insurgency that has killed tens of thousands successfully ended.
• North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the execution of his uncle’s entire family, including his children and relatives serving as ambassadors to Cuba and Malaysia, according to South Korea’s state news agency, Yonhap.

Americas

• The U.S. military carried out a missile strike in Somalia targeting a suspected militant leader with ties to al Qaeda and al Shabaab.
• The U.S. National Security Agency is involved in industrial espionage and will grab any intelligence it can get its hands on regardless of its value to national security, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden told a German TV network.

Middle East

• Women and children in the besieged districts of the city of Homs can leave “immediately,” the Syrian government has said as peace talks between it and the country’s opposition continues.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly will insist that Jewish settlers in the West Bank have a right to remain under Palestinian rule in any future peace deal.
• Iraqi government forces battling al Qaeda-linked militants intensified air strikes and artillery fire on the rebel-held city of Falluja.

Europe

• Thousands of people in the Ukrainian capital Kiev have mourned a protester shot dead during clashes, as demonstrations against President Viktor Yanukovich continued despite sweeping concessions offered by the embattled leader.
• In London supporters of a far-right Hungarian politician have been labeled “Nazi scum” as he arrived in the British capital for a rally.
• German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed fears that too many immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria were moving to Germany, saying his country had benefited from European Union integration more than any other.