Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, April 15, 2014

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

Africa

• Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 60 people in an attack on a village in northeast Nigeria, while a separate attack killed eight people at a teacher training college. 
• Nigeria will mount a massive security operation to protect a World Economic Forum on Africa planned in Abuja next month, following the bomb attack by suspected Islamist militants on the capital’s outskirts on Monday.
• A militia leader accused of kidnap, rape and cannibalism has surrendered alongside around 40 of his followers in Democratic Republic of Congo.
• EU and African leaders meeting in Brussels last week pledged to deepen trade and investment ties between their two continents, with both sides calling for a “fundamental shift” in cooperation.

Asia

• India’s highest court has recognized the existence of a third gender that is neither male nor female in a landmark judgement hailed by the transgender community.
• China condemned Britain for interfering in its domestic affairs, in response to a human rights report, a day after the British government said Beijing had called off human rights talks.
• Japan and Australia have clinched a bilateral trade deal.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• The trials have begun in Tripoli against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and his younger brother, Saadi, on charges including murder and plundering state coffers. Their co-accused include the former intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi and former prime ministers, al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi and Bouzid Dorda.
• Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states that do not recognize it, looking to establish diplomatic ties based on a common fear of Iran according Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
• Israel described as “unacceptable” remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability.
• Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the “grave news” that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had carried out two poison gas attacks last week was a challenge to “international will”.

Europe

• Britain’s aerospace and defense industries warned that the sector could lose its global competitive edge as a result of Scotland’s bid for independence.
• Ukraine has said an “anti-terrorist operation” against pro-Moscow separatists is under way, as Russia declared Ukraine on the brink of a civil war.

Americas

• A Russian fighter jet has made close-range passes for more than 90 minutes near a US warship in the Black Sea amid diplomatic tensions over Ukraine, the US reports.
• Iran requested a special meeting of a UN committee on the United States’ refusal to grant a visa to Tehran’s new U.N. ambassador appointee, describing the decision as a dangerous precedent that could harm international diplomacy.

UN/Other

• Nepal would weaken the foundations of “genuine and lasting” peace after a decade-long civil war if it gave amnesties for serious crimes committed during the conflict, according to Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.