Weekly News Wrap: Monday, September 22, 2014

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

Africa

• Four civilians were killed in the remote north of Cameroon in a cross-border attack by Boko Haram fighters, state-run radio reported. 
• Fighters from Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram stormed the northeastern town of Mainok on Friday, sparking a gun battle that killed at least 36 people and continued into Saturday, two security sources said.
• Chad’s government accused the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Mali on Friday of failing to relieve its contingent in the country’s volatile north and neglecting to support it, a day after five Chadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Forty migrants were missing after the raft that carried them sank around 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) from eastern Libya, an Italian coast guard official said on Sunday. 
• Tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds have crossed into Turkey over the past two days, fleeing an advance by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), who have seized dozens of villages close to the border, the UN’s refugee agency says.
• Iran is taking further action to comply with the terms of an extended interim agreement with six world powers over its disputed atomic activities, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report obtained by Reuters on Friday showed.

Asia

• An American recently sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean court pretended to have secret U.S. information and was deliberately arrested in a bid to become famous and meet U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae in a North Korean prison, state media said on Saturday. 

Europe

• Germany and France will try to reconcile divergent visions of how to fix Europe’s economy on Monday when Manuel Valls makes his first visit to Berlin as French prime minister and holds talks with Angela Merkel. 
• Survivors of German victims of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 downed over Ukraine plan to sue the country and its president for manslaughter by negligence in 298 cases, the lawyer representing them said on Sunday.
• The European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear an appeal by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi against his conviction for tax fraud in August 2013, Berlusconi’s lawyer said on Friday.
• Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania launched a joint military force on Friday that Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said could start its first exercises in the tense region in the next year.
• Sweden said two Russian warplanes entered its airspace this week, calling the intrusion a “serious violation” and sending a protest to Moscow’s ambassador in the Nordic country.
• Though Scotland voted 55% in favor of staying with the rest of the United Kingdom, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland could declare itself independent without a referendum in the future.

Americas

• The United States will not stand in the way of Venezuela securing a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council in 2015-16 after Latin American and Caribbean states unanimously endorsed its bid, U.N. diplomats and U.S. sources say. 

Oceania

• The Australian government will introduce tough new legislation in parliament next week to tackle terrorism, news media reports say, in the aftermath of the biggest crackdown in the country’s history. 
• New Zealand may vote next year on changing its flag, newly re-elected prime minister John Key said on Monday, as the country looks to assert an identity independent of colonial ties to Britain.

UN

• World leaders gather in New York at the UN General Assembly this week to tackle a host of crises: the violence Islamic State militants are wreaking in Iraq and Syria, the exponential spread of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa and deadlocked negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
• The United Nations Relief and Works agency for Palestine Refugees has urged the international community to block Israeli plans to relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouin from the central West Bank, in fear the move could lead to further violations of UN charter.
• The International Monetary Fund will hold off on disbursing the next tranche of Bosnia’s aid program until the Balkan country implements agreed economic policies, most likely after the October election, a senior IMF official said on Friday.