The shortages come as winter is setting in. “Almost six months after Nepal was devastated by a massive earthquake, relief efforts are literally running on fumes. Tankers are unable to drive across the border from India. The country is running out of fuel. Will aid agencies be able to stock up remote, mountainous communities before they are cut off by the first winter snows? India blames violent protests in areas of Nepal’s frontier sparked by anger over a new constitution for blocking fuel convoys. Nepali officials accuse India of imposing an unofficial blockade. Political differences aside, the fuel shortage is hurting people, especially those high in the mountains who lost a great deal in the disaster. (IRIN http://bit.ly/1MnP0RX)
Quote of the Day: “Think of Deaton as an economist who looks more closely at what poor households consume to get a better sense of their living standards and possible paths for economic development,” Tyler Cowen, on Nobel Economics prize winner Angus Deaton (Marginal Revolution http://bit.ly/1MsVtj1)
Stat of the Day: Women are contributing around 3 trillion dollars to global health care, but nearly half of this labor is unpaid, unrecognized and unaccounted for. (The Health Site http://bit.ly/1MsUcsd)
Africa
Less than half of the world’s countries have equal numbers of girls and boys in school with not one sub-Saharan African nation achieving equality, according to a United Nations report released on Monday to mark International Day of the Girl Child. (TRF http://yhoo.it/1OxMEo6)
Uganda said it would start withdrawing troops from South Sudan on Monday, in compliance with a peace deal warring sides have signed, a move that will please other regional and Western powers who feared the their presence could worsen fighting. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1MsZVOU)
A central pillar of the peace accords that ended a civil war in Burundi a decade ago – integrating former Hutu rebels into the Tutsi-dominated army to create a more ethnically balanced force – is looking distinctly wobbly. (IRIN http://bit.ly/1Zwm83J)
All seven opposition leaders who contested Guinea’s presidential election against incumbent Alpha Conde said on Monday the results of the vote held on Sunday should be annulled because of fraud. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1MsZVyh)
Dow Chemical Co plans to triple its revenue from sub-Saharan Africa in the next five years and is investing in offices, local staff and manufacturing plants on the continent to meet that target, its head of the region said. (Reuters http://reut.rs/1MsVzr4)
Rwanda’s parliament opened debate on Monday on amending the constitution to let strongman and President Paul Kagame run for a third consecutive term in 2017. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1OxMywN)
Last month, Mozambique said it had removed all known land mines with the help of the United Nations and international demining groups, ending a massive project that began after its civil war ended more than two decades ago. Yet demining teams are still removing ammunition remnants at the former military depot in Malhazine, a densely populated neighborhood on the edge of Maputo, the capital. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMxJa)
No Justice for Cecil. Authorities in Zimbabwe have decided not to charge the American dentist who hunted and killed one of Africa’s most beloved lions, saying Walter Palmer went through the proper channels before he set out on the savanna with a bow and arrow. (WaPo http://wapo.st/1MsUpfc)
MENA
Human rights group Amnesty International accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes in airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, claiming hundreds of civilians have been killed in strikes on residential areas. (VOA http://bit.ly/1jsXwYS)
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday that ISIS is the chief suspect in twin bombings that killed at least 97 people in the capital, Ankara, on Friday. (CNN http://cnn.it/1MsUxv6)
Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, imprisoned in Tehran for more than 14 months, has been convicted in an espionage trial that ended in August, Iranian state television reported. (WaPo http://wapo.st/1MsUEGZ)
The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan removed four ministers from his cabinet on Monday and the speaker of parliament was barred from entering the capital in an escalating political crisis that threatens to destabilize the region. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1OxMzRm)
U.S. forces have carried out an air drop of small arms ammunition to Syrian Arab rebels in northern Syria, barely two weeks after Russia raised the stakes by intervening in the war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad. (Reuters http://reut.rs/1MsUMGn)
Saudi Arabia: The death toll from last month’s stampede at the hajj has risen to at least 1,587, according to tallies given by foreign officials, making it the deadliest incident in the pilgrimage’s history. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1jsXqQR)
Asia
A female U.N. worker was shot and killed on Monday while traveling to work in the city of Kandahar, an Afghan official said. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMAEQ)
Nepal’s new prime minister took the oath of office Monday and appointed the leaders of groups that are protesting the new constitution as his deputies. (AP http://yhoo.it/1jsXAb1)
Voting has ended in the first phase of elections in India’s Bihar state in what is being seen as a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. (BBC http://bbc.in/1MsVJhY)
The race for the Philippine presidency next year began on Monday with the country’s vice president being the first major contender to register his candidacy to lead one of Asia’s most unwieldy democracies. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMGwp)
The Missionaries of Charity, the Roman Catholic order founded by Mother Teresa, has decided to close its adoption services in India after the country amended its rules to make single parents eligible to adopt. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMA7T)
Ford Motor Co. is investing $1.8 billion to develop technologies aimed at attracting Chinese car buyers, underlining China’s importance to automakers despite slowing sales growth. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMH3g)
The Americas
Police will no longer be stationed outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has sought refuge since 2012. (BBC http://bbc.in/1Lhhqx6)
Like a dark cloud, the bitter fight between Argentina and a group of holdout creditors in the U.S. has hung over South America’s second largest economy for years, preventing the country from accessing international credit markets. (AP http://yhoo.it/1OxMCfW)
The mayor of a town in western Guatemala has been lynched by a group of locals who accused him of ordering an attack on his political rival. Mayor Basilio Juracan died after being beaten and set alight in Concepcion, Solola province, on Sunday. (BBC http://bbc.in/1OuhaB2)
…and the rest
The European Union’s current relocation scheme for refugees is “not enough” to address the scope of the problem, the head of the UNHCR said on Monday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1OxMxJf)
National pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, even if fully implemented, would cap global warming at 3 degrees Celsius rather than the 2 degrees targeted to avoid dangerous consequences, the European Commission said on Monday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1jsXu36)
Opinion/Blogs
This comic from 2013 skewers the SDGs before they existed (Humanosphere http://bit.ly/1LhkhpR)
How The UN Can Help Women Make More Peace (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1ZwoAY7)
International Day of the Girl Must Start with Good Laws (IPS http://bit.ly/1OufWFY)
Gates Foundation: 3 emerging funding priorities you should know (Devex http://bit.ly/1ZwoShq)
Will we see branches of McDonald’s in Tehran any time soon? (Guardian http://bit.ly/1OxL5GT)
A Metronome Can Help Set The CPR Beat (NPR http://n.pr/1OugkEo)
Why Angus Deaton Deserved the Nobel Prize in Economics (Foreign Policy http://atfp.co/1QlWx7A)
Historic famines and episodes of mass intentional starvation (Reinventing Peace http://bit.ly/1Mt6tgn)
The New Global Hunger Index on Conflict and Hunger: 5 Things to Note (Development Horizons http://bit.ly/1QlX2yp)
‘The Courage to Act’: What Bernanke saw at the global financial crisis (The Interpreter http://bit.ly/1QlX896)