Weekly News Wrap: Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• Somali rebel group al-Shabab says it has seized an armed drone after it crashed in Somalia’s southern Gedo region.
• Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for a purported bomb attack on a passenger plane in Somalia earlier this month, saying it was targeted at Western officials and Turkish NATO forces.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• At least 21 people have been killed and dozens others injured in suspected Russian air strikes and rocket attacks on a school and three hospitals in separate locations in northern Syria, Al Jazeera has learned.
• France and Turkey have called the bombing of two schools and five hospitals in Syria “war crimes”, while hopes for a ceasefire faded as President Bashar al-Assad played down prospects of a truce.
• Turkey is about to conclude a deal with Israel on “all issues”, a Turkish official said on Tuesday, a sign the two former allies may be moving toward a compensation agreement for the killing of 10 Turkish activists by Israeli commandos in 2010.
• Documenting war and harsh reality of life, some Syrian media outlets are now based in Turkey informing those back home.
• For the past week, Turkish military forces have been shelling targets in northern Syria held by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party, a group designated by Turkey as a terrorist organisation, leading to speculation about “ethnic cleansing.”

Asia

• U.S. President Barack Obama and allies from Southeast Asia will turn their attention to China on Tuesday on the second day of a summit intended to improve commercial links and provide a united front on maritime disputes with Beijing.
• President Barack Obama’s top national security adviser Susan Rice said on Monday that she expects China will support new international sanctions on North Korea for its recent rocket launches.

Europe

• David Cameron fended off changes on Tuesday to a draft deal he has cut to help keep Britain in the EU, as the European parliament said it could not guarantee to pass the reforms.
• In a European transit camp, women and girls explain why they feel safer sleeping out in the cold.
• Belgian police raided homes in Brussels on Tuesday and arrested 10 people on suspicion of operating a recruitment ring for the armed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
• Migrants avoiding Austria’s new border control point will not find easier routes elsewhere, Chancellor Werner Faymann told a news conference on Tuesday, because countries along the migration route had coordinated a “domino effect” of border restrictions.
• Sweden, which received most child refugees in 2015, tries to find some of Europe’s tens of thousands of missing kids.
• The European Union ended five years of sanctions against Belarus and its authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday, citing improving human rights as the bloc seeks more friends in Russia’s back yard.

Americas

• The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State with 30 strikes in Syria and Iraq on Monday, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operations said in a statement.

Oceania

• Australia’s immigration policy has been criticised after a hospital in Brisbane refused to discharge an asylum-seeker baby facing deportation.
• China rapped Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Tuesday ahead of her visit to Beijing after she said Australia recognized the Philippines’ right to seek arbitration in its dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea.
• Recent economic and political volatility in Asia and the rest of the world are spurring closer strategic cooperation between Tokyo and Canberra, Australia’s Foreign Minister said on Tuesday.

UN/World

• The U.N. Syria envoy held talks with Syria’s foreign minister on Tuesday aimed at securing a cessation of hostilities and “unhindered” delivery of humanitarian aid to areas besieged by all parties, a U.N. spokesman said.
• Around 5,700 structures in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi and its outskirts have incurred some level of damage since mid-2014, and almost 2,000 buildings have been destroyed, the United Nations said on Monday, citing satellite images.