A Coalition of Tuareg separatists launched a reprisal attack a week after a government backed coalition violated a tenuous ceasefire. The Algerian-brokered peace process is looking totally doomed at this point. “Moussa Ag Attaher of the Coordination of Azawad Movements said that they attacked the town of Tenenkou in the central Mopti region. He said the violence was a reaction to the attack against the town of Menaka last week by groups allied with the government, which broke a cease-fire agreement…Armed groups allied with the government attacked the northern town of Menaka last week, starting a surge of attacks by the coalition of separatists groups, also known by the acronym CMA. The violence threatens a peace accord meant to be signed May 15 between various armed groups, separatists and the government.” (NYT http://nyti.ms/1GY40pr)
Sore losers or bad choice? “A partnership of government contractors including John Snow, Inc. is protesting the U.S. Agency for International Development’s decision to award its largest-ever contract to a group led by development consulting firm Chemonics International. The Global Health Supply Chain — Procurement and Supply Management project is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract, by far the largest in a suite of contracts worth up to $10.5 billion over the next eight years — and USAID’s largest-ever single award, according to an agency representative. The program is meant to support the delivery and distribution of a range of global health commodities used to prevent and to treat illnesses, including HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.” (Devex http://bit.ly/1EVgNcR)
Quote of the Day: “These meetings will define our future and will set the level of ambition of the international community for the years and decades to come,” European Union Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica, referring to the Financing for Development Summit in July and the SDG Summit in September, (IPS http://bit.ly/1GYM7K3)
Horrific Child-Centered News Story of the Day: Paraguayan authorities have ruled out abortion for a pregnant 10-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather, unless she develops complications that put her life in danger. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1KKf7ns)
Uplifting Child-Centered News Story of the Day: Armed factions in Central African Republic agreed on Tuesday to free all child soldiers and other children used as sex slaves or menial workers, boosting U.N.-driven efforts at national reconciliation after two years of turmoil. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1JOwVjE)
Africa
Burundi’s constitutional court has approved President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term, it said in a statement, as dozens of protesters marched in the capital to say they would “never accept” a campaign they call illegal. Meanwhile, the vice -president of the court fled the country. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1DR2PUh)
Troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed 16 Ugandan rebels in two days of clashes in the troubled northeast of the country, a military spokesman announced on Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JoQkUJ)
Niger has evacuated thousands of Nigerian refugees sheltering from Boko Haram fighters on Lake Chad’s Karamga island, a military official told Reuters on Tuesday, as the armies of four west African nations battle to quash the Islamist militants. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ACwksX)
A South Sudanese opposition leader who has spoken out against both sides in the civil war said Tuesday that he has been freed from a week of house arrest. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1ciJw0S)
Zimbabwe will import 700,000 tons of corn to avert hunger after annual crop yields shrunk by nearly half due to poor rains, the national television network reported Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1ciJtSx)
US Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that war-torn Somalia was facing a better future, as he made a landmark visit as the most senior US official to visit since Washington’s doomed military intervention more than two decades ago. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JoQpb3)
New efforts by the Rockefeller Foundation are working to strengthen African economies as they face a growing number of young people, and challenges to their economies from the effects of climate change. (VOA http://bit.ly/1ACARM2)
MENA
One of the main hospitals in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo has been forced to close indefinitely after being targeted by rockets and barrel bombs, said MSF. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JoQmMx)
UNICEF said on Tuesday it had delivered aid to families driven out of an embattled Palestinian refugee camp outside Syria’s capital into areas to which UNICEF has had no access for two years. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1JoQsUq)
Qatar is to build seven “cities” to house more than a quarter of a million migrant laborers building major infrastructure and projects for the 2022 World Cup, officials said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1ciJwhp)
The United Nations said on Tuesday it had launched its third major push in as many years to find common ground between the warring parties in Syria and for the first time said it hoped Syria’s armed opposition groups might come to Geneva. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ciJiXq)
Around forty migrants died in the Mediterranean on Sunday, according to survivors of the journey who arrived on the southern Italian island of Sicily on Tuesday, local Save the Children spokeswoman Giovanna Di Benedetto said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ciJjL7)
Qatar’s labour minister said he hopes the country’s controversial “kafala” system, which critics have likened to modern-day slavery, will be abolished before the end of this year. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JOwSEd)
Asia
A row has broken out between Nepal and some international agencies over the handling of aid that poured into the country after last month’s devastating earthquake, with each side blaming the other for confusion and delays in getting help to victims. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1JoQpbb)
A second suspected human trafficking camp has been discovered in Thailand near the Malaysian border, police said on Tuesday, following a search by authorities of a mountain where 26 bodies were found in shallow graves at the weekend. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1DR2PDH)
A child protection organization has called on Cambodia to take tougher action against foreigners accused of child sex crimes after a U.S. man charged with grooming girls as young as three lived freely for three years before facing trial. (TRF http://yhoo.it/1ciLePB)
Thailand’s belated crackdown on human trafficking has created new dangers for desperate migrants as people smuggling gangs try to evade capture, leaving the weak to fend for themselves. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JOwWUC)
China will expand its bans on coal burning to include suburban areas as well as city centers in efforts to tackle air pollution, the top energy agency said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ciJnud)
Unrest is brewing in India among Assam’s so-called Tea Tribes, whose forefathers were brought here by British planters from neighboring Bihar and Odisha more than a century ago, as changing weather patterns upset the economics of the industry. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1JOwWnB)
Indonesia will stop sending new domestic workers to 21 Middle Eastern countries, reports said on Tuesday, after the recent execution of two Indonesian women in Saudi Arabia angered Jakarta. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JOwXb9)
The Americas
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denied Monday that he is formally under investigation for influence peddling on behalf of construction giant Odebrecht. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1JOwUfi)
Costa Rica has almost reached its goal of an energy mix based solely on renewable sources, harnessing solar, wind and geothermal power, as well as the energy of the country’s rivers. (IPS http://bit.ly/1KKf4rG)
Brazil has registered nearly 746,000 cases of the mosquito-borne disease dengue fever this year with nine states experiencing an epidemic, the health ministry announced. (BBC http://bbc.in/1GYLTmj)
PR stunt of the day: A Brazilian state environmental secretary has plunged into the polluted waters of Guanabara Bay as part of a televised stunt meant to assuage worries about health risks faced by sailors competing in the 2016 Olympics. (AP http://yhoo.it/1JOwTs1)
…and the rest
An Austrian men’s magazine has printed its latest edition using blood from people who are HIV-positive in order to counter the “stigma” often attached to the virus that causes AIDS, its chief editor said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1ciJu93)
The European Union agreed a deal on Tuesday to start reforming the EU Emissions Trading System from Jan. 1 2019, EU sources said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ciLe2g)
Opinion/Blogs
Nepal quake fund move is PR fiasco (IRIN http://bit.ly/1ciRWFr)
Irene, A Ugandan Prostitute, Explains How To Use A Condom (Goats and Soda http://n.pr/1ciTT4x)
The Senate must act fast to confirm Gayle Smith (The Hill http://bit.ly/1JOAC8S)
Victims at the ICC – Who’s Representing Who? (Justice in Conflict http://bit.ly/1c2idXQ)
A funny thing happened on the way to the refugee camp… (Guardian http://bit.ly/1GYLDUr)
The value of volunteering at home (WhyDev http://bit.ly/1c2k5Qc)
An HIV Outbreak in Rural Indiana is a Global Health Story Set in the USA (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1c2jcqV)
A Woman in Guédiawaye: Family Planning for Health and Development in Senegal (CSIS video http://bit.ly/1EVqJmT)
Healthy Diets for Healthy Lives (Inter Press Service http://bit.ly/1KKf3nu)
How serious are Guinea protests? (IRIN http://bit.ly/1GYMmVn)
The impact of voluntourism (Roving Bandit http://bit.ly/1KK9jKE)
Open thread – will foreign aid affect how you vote in the UK elections? (Guardian http://bit.ly/1GYLIr7)