UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon insisted that US drone strikes must operate within international law, and make “every effort to avoid mistakes and civilian casualties.”
Egyptian militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claimed that a strike that killed four of its fighters in the Sinai peninsula was carried out by an Israeli drone.
The closing of the US embassy in Yemen has coinicided with drone strikes and clashes in Marib province, and a gun-battle between rival factions in the capital Sanaa.
President Obama’s speech outlining plans to restrict drone strikes and renew efforts to close Guantánamo Bay did little more than reiterate existing policy.
Rep. Barbara Lee called for the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to be repealed, warning that the alternative could be a “state of perpetual war forever.”
India is protesting what it calls an incursion by some 30 Chinese troops from across the Line of Control in the Himalayas, while Tibetans charge stepped up repression.
As the Friends of Syria summit opened in Istanbul, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced $100 million in new “non-lethal” aid to the Syrian opposition.
Pakistan strongly condemned a US drone attack in North Waziristan region that killed four. The US promptly responded with a new drone strike on a village in South Waziristan.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson warned that Burkina Faso is at risk of being destabilized by the conflict in neighboring Mali.
The UN Security Council unanimously approved the first-ever “offensive” UN peacekeeping brigade to battle rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Chinese TV broadcast images of a Burmese drug lord and his accomplices on their way to a death chamber in Yunnan, prompting online protests from rights activists in Beijing.
Some 100 US troops have been mobilized to Niger to establish a drone base, while across the border in northern Mali French-led forces face growing jihadist resistance.
