Search: kony 2012

22 May Weekday News Wrap: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Iraq is buying US-made drones in order to carry out surveillance over their oil fields. After a suicide bomber kills 90 people in Yemen, al-Qaeda vows more attacks until the US-backed campaign against militants stops. The US is apparently weighing their stance on secrecy of the drone program employed to carry out targeted killings, according to the Wall Street Journal. Former dictator of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, will face a second genocide trial after a judge ordered he could be prosecuted for ordering a 1982 massacre that...

16 Oct Weekday News Wrap: Tuesday, October 16, 2012

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assumed responsibility for last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Commentary on this move from PrawfsBlawg can be found here and Foreign Policy analysis, here. The International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia begins trying its last suspect, Goran Hadzic, today. Also on the ICTY docket today, Radovan Karadzic has begun his defense by denying the charges and instead saying he should be rewarded for reducing suffering. According to the OIC’s Secretary General, Western opposition has made...

06 Jul Weekday News Wrap: July 6, 2012

The Transnational Federal Government of Somalia has signed an action plan backed by the UN to stop the use of child soldiers. Ex-Argentine president Jorge Videla was sentenced to 50 years in prison for stealing babies from prisoners during Argentina’s “Dirty War.” The Foreign Minister of Iraq claims that al-Qaeda is flowing into Syria, posing potential threats to the stability of the entire region. An online poll on a state-owned news network in Iran showed a large majority of responses favoring suspension of the uranium enrichment programme...

04 Apr Weekday News Wrap: Wednesday, April 4, 2012

A part of the Syrian peace plan, brokered at the behest of Kofi Annan, includes the deployment of 250 UN peacekeepers for a ceasefire monitoring mission, scheduled for arrival in Syria in the next 48 hours. Russia accuses the “Friends of Syria” group that met in Istanbul over the weekend of undermining the UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan. After bombs exploded over the weekend, killing 13 in the south of Thailand, police officials fear more attacks based in religious tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in...

05 May Weekend Roundup: April 28 – May 4, 2012

This week on Opinio Juris, Chen Guangcheng’s escape to the US Embassy in Beijing did not go unnoticed. In a first post, Julian Ku discussed how Chen would not get political asylum at the Embassy. Peter Spiro followed up with his thoughts on diplomatic asylum. After Chen’s departure from the US Embassy, Julian asked whether the US or China violated international law. Julian also had a closer look at the content and legal status of the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement that Obama went to sign in Afghanistan. Duncan...

02 Nov Weekday News Wrap: Friday, November 2, 2012

An Israeli censor has allowed the publication of an interview with the commando who killed the PLO’s Abu Jihad in 1988. International human rights groups have welcomed China’s decision to introduce a new organ donation system that will no longer rely on organs of executed prisoners. Sri Lanka has been pressed at the UN to prosecute war crimes. Jurist highlights the International Commission of Jurists’ report about the abuses. Foreign Policy offers a piece detailing the dire situation facing Syrian refugees as winter approaches. The World Bank...

27 May U.S. Detention Needs Circa 2012

Cross-posted at Balkinization Bobby Chesney writes back with a thoughtful post responding to my question about whether the United States has forward-going detention needs in its counterterrorism operations that are currently unmet by the 2001 statute known as the AUMF. The question arises in light of Congress’ current debate over whether to pass (as the House already has) new legislation essentially extending and broadening existing use of force authority it passed in 2001. Before I engage Bobby’s suggestions, a quick note principally to our readers not as steeped...

17 Aug Weekday News Wrap: Friday, August 17, 2012

The big news yesterday was that Ecuador granted WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, political asylum, angering Britain. Swedish and British authorities are critical of the decision, while UK authorities are refusing to grant Assange safe passage out of London. One of Assange’s attorneys, Baltazar Garzon, has entertained the idea of taking this dispute between Ecuador and the UK to the International Court of Justice, if the British authorities do not allow him safe passage. Amid threats that the British will terminate diplomatic status for the Ecuadorian embassy, EJIL:Talk!...

01 Jun Weekday News Wrap: Friday, June 1, 2012

Syria has claimed that anti-government forces carried out the massacre in Houla in order to spur other nations into intervening. The UN and other nations have expressed concern that Syria is on the brink of a sectarian civil war. Russia and the US have been trading accusations about the situation in Syria. Anne-Marie Slaughter at FP posits that Syria is not a problem from hell…but if we don’t act quickly, it will be. A Syrian rebel group is claiming to hold 11 Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria...

05 Apr Weekday News Wrap: Thursday, April 5, 2012

As an advance group of UN peacekeepers arrived in Syria for talks on the monitoring of the ceasefire, violence erupted again. Russia is seeking more influence in the Syrian situation, and has invited the Syrian foreign minister and representatives of the Syrian opposition for separate talks in Moscow, on 10 April and 17-18 April respectively. Russia also urges other states not to arm the Syrian opposition. The Pentagon has referred Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 others to trial by military commission in Guantanamo Bay for their roles...