Weekly News Wrap: Monday, April 18, 2016

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

Africa

• The death toll from a raid carried out by South Sudanese gunmen in western Ethiopia has risen to 208 people and the assailants kidnapped 108 children, an Ethiopian official said on Sunday.
• The United Nations on Sunday condemned a government crackdown in Gambia that it said had led to the death of three opposition party members who were arrested during protests on Thursday.
• The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo said on Saturday it had received new allegations of sexual abuse against its soldiers.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Islamic State’s income and the population under its control have both fallen by about a third, a U.S.-based analysis firm said, describing the declining revenue as a threat to its long-term rule over its self-proclaimed caliphate.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time held his weekly cabinet meeting in the occupied Golan Heights, amid criticism from local Syrian activists.
• The United Nations said on Saturday civilians faced starvation and dehydration in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, where Islamic State is battling other Islamist groups for control.

Asia

• North Korea is likely to conduct its fifth nuclear test in the near future, possibly before its party congress in early May, a media report said on Sunday, citing South Korean government sources based on their reading of activity around the test site.
• A Chinese military aircraft has for the first time publicly landed at a new airport on an island China has built in the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Monday, raising the prospect that China could base fighter jets there.
• Additionally, China’s South China Sea fleets have conducted training drills with upgraded methods that resemble actual combat conditions to increase the fleets’ combat effectiveness, according to an article published by the PLA Daily on Sunday.
• The slow trickle of Afghan refugees returning home is at historic lows, dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands being displaced by ongoing fighting and economic problems, according to United Nations officials.

Europe

• French President Francois Hollande has met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo to boost military ties; the leaders are set to sign an arms deal worth more than $1bn following months of negotiations.
• France will go ahead with construction of the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant in Britain, the French economy minister was quoted as saying by the BBC.
• Britain will face consequences if it votes to leave the European Union, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, the latest warning from a foreign leader about the possible impact of Brexit.

Americas

• The United States has transferred nine Yemeni men to Saudi Arabia from the US military prison at Guantanamo, including an inmate who had been on a hunger strike since 2007, US officials said.
• The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights launched a thinly veiled attack on U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and other presidential hopefuls on Friday, in a speech entitled “The road to violence.”

Oceania

• Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull invoked the spirit of late reformist leader Deng Xiaoping on Friday to urge China to continue opening up to the outside world, as he addressed concerns about Internet freedoms and market access for foreign firms.

UN/World

• The world’s biggest oil producers have failed to reach agreement at an OPEC meeting aimed at freezing output and reassuring markets that a recent recovery in prices could be sustained.
• A Syrian rebel group on Saturday said United Nations-led peace talks had so far been extremely negative and criticized opposition negotiators as divorced from a deteriorating military situation on the ground.
• The United Nations Security Council on Friday condemned North Korea’s failed ballistic missile launch, warning that it was a “clear violation” of U.N. resolutions and the council could take further punitive measures against Pyongyang.