Weekly News Wrap: Monday, December 1, 2014

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

Africa

• Gambia’s foreign minister said the West African country would sever all dialogue with the European Union and rejected what he said were attempts by the bloc to use its aid budget to force Gambia to revoke a tough new law against homosexuality.
• A peacekeeping force in Darfur had become a security burden and should leave, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Sunday, escalating a row that has already led to the closure a joint United Nations-African Union office in Khartoum.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• An Egyptian court has designated the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group a “terrorist organisation” and banned it in the country.
• A U.S.-led coalition carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against Islamic State militants in the northern province of Raqqa on Saturday, a monitoring group said.
• At least 50 fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been killed in the past 24 hours in Syria’s Kobane, the biggest loss endured by the group since it launched its assault on the strategic border city on September 16.
• Arab League foreign ministers endorsed on Saturday a draft resolution setting a timeframe for the creation of a Palestinian state and said they would formally present it to the United Nations Security Council for a vote within days.

Asia

• Afghan forces are ill-equipped to fight Taliban without NATO, according to Afghan district police chief Ahmadullah Anwari.
• A brief meeting between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday salvaged a summit of South Asian leaders, with all eight countries clinching a last-minute deal to create a regional electricity grid.
• Two Hong Kong student leaders were banned from a large area in Mong Kok as a condition of bail on Thursday after they were arrested during scuffles as police cleared one of the largest protest sites that have choked the city for weeks.

Europe

• The mother of a German woman killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine in July is suing the Ukrainian authorities at the European Court of Human Rights for failing to close their airspace, a German paper reported.
• Nearly 300 people are facing prosecution in Germany for supporting Islamic State, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has said, adding that it was a sign that anti-terrorism laws were working and tougher legislation was not needed.
• A clear majority of Swiss voters have in a referendum decided against drastically limiting immigration to the country. According to final results, 74.1 percent of those participating in Sunday’s referendum voted “no” on limiting net immigration to fewer than 17,000 people a year.
• Russia urged the European Union on Saturday to lift sanctions against Moscow and promised to waive its food embargo, but a top EU official rejected such a move as the bloc imposed fresh measures on Ukrainian rebels.
• Prime Minister David Cameron could campaign for Britain to leave the European Union if it stops him restricting EU migrants’ access to his country’s welfare system, he hinted on Friday, but said he was confident it wouldn’t come to that.
• Croatia’s prime minister said on Friday he had scrapped a planned trip to Serbia next month due to Belgrade’s failure to distance itself from comments made by a Serbian ultra-nationalist recently freed from a U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Americas

• The UN Committee on Torture has released its concluding observations on Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela, Australia, Burundi, USA, Croatia and Kazakhstan.
• Argentina has charged HSBC with aiding more than 4,000 clients to evade taxes by stashing their money in secret Swiss bank accounts, the country’s AFIP tax authority said on Thursday.
• Colombia’s main rebel group has freed army General Ruben Dario Alzate, who was captured two weeks ago. President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted the general and his two companions had been released by the FARC to the ICRC and representatives of Cuba and Norway and they were in good condition.

Oceania

• A pair of heavily pregnant refugees were refusing to disembark from a bus in the northern Australian city of Darwin for the third day on Monday in protest against attempts to force them into detention for the remainder of their pregnancies.

UN/World

• The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has reached nearly 7,000 in West Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.
• The United Nations’ torture watchdog on Friday expressed “alarm” at reports of torture and abuse by Venezuelan authorities during months of opposition protests this year and urged the country to fully investigate the incidents.