Weekly News Wrap: Monday, August 11, 2014

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

Africa

• Rwanda has placed a German student with Ebola-like symptoms in isolation, and is waiting for test results checking for the deadly tropical disease, the health ministry says. Guinea has announced the closure of its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia because of the virus and the World Health Organization has declared Ebola an international health emergency. 
• Fighting between al-Shabab and government and African Union (AU) troops in the central Hiran region has left 18 people dead on both sides, the Somalian armed group has said.
• South Sudan refugees residing in a UN camp are living in knee-deep, sewage-contaminated floodwater, forcing some families to sleep standing up so they can hold their children out of the water, an international aid group has said.

Asia

• China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on Japan to “make practical efforts to overcome existing political obstacles between the two sides” during an informal meeting with his Japanese counterpart during an ASEAN summit in Myanmar.
• The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia sentenced the top two surviving cadres of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime to life in jail on Thursday, delivering a semblance of justice for one of the darkest and bloodiest chapters of the twentieth century.

Europe

• Ukrainian government forces are preparing for the final stage of recapturing the city of Donetsk from pro-Russian separatist rebels after making significant gains that have divided rebel forces, a military spokesman has said.
• Moscow banned imports of most food from the West on Thursday in retaliation against sanctions over Ukraine, a stronger than expected measure that isolates Russian consumers from world trade to a degree unseen since Soviet days.
• Support for Scottish independence has fallen following a TV debate this week and the campaign to split the United Kingdom will need a dramatic turnaround if it is to win a forthcoming referendum, a poll showed on Saturday.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Three suspected al-Qaeda fighters have been killed in a drone strike in Yemen’s central province of Maareb, security officials have said.
• Israel and the Palestinians held their fire early on Monday at the start of a new 72-hour ceasefire proposed by Egypt. An Israeli delegation has arrived in Cairo for indirect negotiations with Palestinian factions on bringing and end to more than a month of violence that has devastated the enclave of Gaza. 
• The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, and another senior staff member have been denied entry to Egypt after being held at Cairo’s international airport for 12 hours.
• Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq’s human rights minister told Reuters on Sunday.

Americas

• Venezuela will close its border with neighboring Colombia at night to prevent smuggling of heavily subsidized fuel and food, a top military officer said on Saturday. 
• U.S. and Iranian officials had a “constructive discussion” about Iran’s nuclear program in Geneva on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said without providing details.

Oceania

• US will start monitoring the South China Sea and has begun talks with Australia on regional defense cooperation.