Weekly News Wrap: Monday, November 3, 2014

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

Africa

• The army takeover in Burkina Faso after President Blaise Compaore’s resignation has prompted protests in the capital and international condemnation. Burkina Faso’s army cleared thousands of protesters from the capital and opened fire at state TV headquarters on Sunday, killing one person, as it sought to restore order following the resignation of President Blaise Compaore two days ago.
• Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, has said the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped from the remote town of Chibok in Nigeria’s northeast in April have converted to Islam and been married off.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Iraqi Kurdish fighters have joined the fight against Islamic State militants in Kobani, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by U.S.-led air strikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border town.
• The Islamic State has killed at least 200 people from the Albu Nimr tribe, which had taken up arms against the fighters, police officers cited by news agencies said; women and children were said to be among those executed over the past 10 days in western Iraq’s Anbar province which has been largely overrun by IS.

Asia

• Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty handed down for Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, for atrocities committed more than four decades ago, the latest in a spate of rulings against the Islamist party’s officials.
• Sri Lanka has allowed a Chinese submarine and a warship to dock at its port in the capital Colombo, officials said on Sunday, despite concerns raised by India about China’s warming relations with the Indian Ocean island nation.
• Two children of a passenger on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 have sued the company and the Malaysian government for damages, the first lawsuit to be filed over the aircraft which disappeared in March.

Europe

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned Britain’s David Cameron that putting limits on immigration from other European Union nations would be a “point of no return” that could sharply increase the risk of Britain leaving the EU, a magazine said.
• Russia has recognized the results of a controversial rebel elections in eastern Ukraine which it said would help re-establish “normal life in the region”; Ukranian president Petro Poroshenko has dismissed the vote as a sham.
• Scotland will break away from the United Kingdom within 20 years, the defeated leader of the Scots nationalists predicted on Sunday, after a poll showed a majority of voters would back independence if another referendum were held today.
• A Dutch team took advantage of a pause in fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine on Friday to recover human remains from the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site, the Dutch prime minister said.
• Italy said on Friday it would close a sea rescue mission that has saved the lives of more than 100,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East, a move one rights group warned could lead to a “surge of deaths” in the Mediterranean.

Americas

• The United States has asked for targeted U.N. sanctions to be imposed on Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and two Houthi rebel leaders for threatening the peace and stability of Yemen and obstructing the political process.
• Sierra Leone has accused Canada of discrimination over its decision to suspend visa applications for residents of Ebola-hit nations.
• An Argentine judge has requested that Spain arrest and extradite 20 former Spanish officials, including two ex-government ministers, suspected of human rights violations in the era of dictator Francisco Franco.

Oceania

• In Australia, proposed Abbott government changes to the Migration Act are incompatible with Australia’s international human rights obligations, says a parliamentary committee on human rights chaired by a Liberal senator.

UN/World

• In a report released on Sunday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said global warming is causing rising sea levels, a warmer and more acidic ocean, melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice and more frequent and intense heat waves. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added: “Time is not on our side,” as experts reveal conclusive evidence that humans alter Earth’s climate.
• A new UN draft resolution takes aim at Myanmar’s aggressive campaign to have its Rohingya Muslims identify as a term they reject, urging “access to full citizenship on an equal basis.”