Weekly News Wrap: Monday, May 9, 2016

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

Africa

• Three Red Cross staff members kidnapped three days ago in eastern Congo in an attack blamed by a rights group on Rwandan rebels, have been released, the Geneva-based organization said on Friday.
• Dozens of nuns, convened in Gisagara District in Rwanda for the 22nd commemoration of the 1994 Genocide.
• In Nigeria, the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal has affirmed the September 30, 2015 judgement of a Federal High Court in Lagos which convicted and sentenced three members of Boko Haram, to 25 years’ imprisonment each with hard labour.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Syrian warplanes attacked Islamist militants near the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, both sides said, as the government tried to push back a insurgent advance in the area.
• Eight police officers have been killed in a Cairo suburb, the Egyptian interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.
• In Lebanon, many Syrians who fled the war simply want to return home, and have little interest in resettlement.

Asia

• North Korea detained a BBC journalist and ordered his expulsion over his reporting, the broadcaster said on Monday, as a large group of foreign reporters cover a rare congress of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party.
• North Korea said it will strengthen self-defensive nuclear weapons capability in a decision adopted at a congress of its ruling Workers’ Party congress, its KCNA news agency reported on Monday, in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Europe

• A British vote to leave the European Union next month could make the country more vulnerable to militant attacks and cause instability across the continent, two former senior British intelligence officials said.
• Documents leaked by Greenpeace have shed light on closed door negotiations between the EU and the US over TTIP.
• President Tayyip Erdogan told the European Union on Friday that Turkey would not make changes to its terrorism laws required under a deal to curb migration, and declared: “we’re going our way, you go yours”.

Americas

• The Pentagon has acknowledged for the first time it has deployed its troops to Yemen more than a year after pulling out following military intervention by the Arab-led coalition.
• Upcoming detainee reviews at Guantanamo highlight the plight of dozens of men languishing in US prison, some for more than 15 years.

Oceania

• The New Zealand government has reiterated its concerns about human rights abuses in Indonesia’s Papua region.

UN/World

• United Nations human rights experts on Saturday urged Sri Lanka, which is under scrutiny for its human rights record during the 26-year Tamil insurgency, to implement judicial reforms to speed up prosecutions.
• More than 50 mass graves have been discovered in territory formerly controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq, including three burial pits in a football field, the UN envoy has said.