South Sudanese are voting with their feet. “Refugee flows from South Sudan into Uganda have doubled in the past ten days, bringing the total to more than 52,000 who have entered the country since violence escalated three weeks ago. Kenya has reported the arrival of 1,000 refugees in the same period, while 7,000 have fled to Sudan. In total, 60,000 people have fled the country since violence broke out in Juba last month, bringing the overall number of South Sudanese refugees in neighboring countries since December 2013 to nearly 900,000. The refugees bring disturbing reports that armed groups operating on roads to Uganda are preventing people from fleeing South Sudan. New arrivals from Yei say they received letters warning them to evacuate the town in anticipation of conflict between rebel and government forces.” (UNHCR http://bit.ly/2b0AjKY)
A Gas Attack in Syria…”A Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter was shot down hours earlier. The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) accused President Bashar al Assad of being behind the attack. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons. A spokesman for the Syria Civil Defence said 33 people, mostly women and children, were affected by the gas, which they suspect was chlorine, in Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province.” (Reuters http://reut.rs/2afxo3C)
1 Million People Displaced by India Floods…”The death toll in flooding from heavy monsoon rains in India has climbed past 90, with about a million people taking shelter in government-run relief camps, officials said Tuesday. Incessant downpours have damaged swaths of land, uprooted trees and snapped telephone cables in dozens of districts in the states of Bihar in the east, Assam in the remote northeast and Himachal Pradesh in the north A total of 96 people have been killed in the flooding in the three states over the past week, according to state officials.” (CBC http://bit.ly/2b0B3Q4)
Stat of the day: The foiled coup attempt seeking to unseat the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cost the Turkish economy $100 billion, the trade minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2axQAWC)
Africa
Zambian President Edgar Lungu will resort to “draconian measures” if the opposition tries to disrupt the peace before, during or after the country’s elections next week, his spokesman said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2atLixS)
South Africa’s municipal election season has been deadly for candidates and party activists, with more than 12 killed ahead of today’s vote. (AP http://yhoo.it/2atLYTJ)
Ghana’s economy is losing more than two billion dollars a year due to the impact of child malnutrition, which has driven up healthcare costs, strained the education system and hindered the productivity of the workforce, a study said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2asIjSV)
A Kenyan man who chopped off his wife’s hands with a machete because she had not conceived a child must face the full force of the law to deter other perpetrators of widespread domestic violence in Kenya, women’s rights activists said on Tuesday. (TRF http://tmsnrt.rs/2b0B3Qe)
An African Union peacekeeper in Somalia has been sentenced to a year in prison and demoted in rank for selling military supplies and fuel in the black market in Mogadishu. (VOA http://bit.ly/2aszlv7)
Five Islamists were killed as Nigerian troops thwarted a Boko Haram attack near the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of the seven-year insurgency, the army said on Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2asATFt)
Hundreds of drivers signed up with ride-hailing service Uber in Kenya went on strike on Tuesday to protest against fare cuts. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2asIbmx)
Somalia’s next government should ensure a law is passed banning all forms of female genital mutilation, a U.N. official said on Tuesday, describing the deeply entrenched practice as a “horrendous rights violation”. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aGD31b)
MENA
Iraq’s prime minister issued a travel ban on Tuesday for some sitting lawmakers and politicians amid corruption allegations that surfaced during the questioning in parliament of the country’s defense minister. (AP http://yhoo.it/2atLLjw)
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon indicated Tuesday that the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen won’t be returned to a U.N. blacklist for violating child rights despite his “very strong concerns” about the protection of children in the war-torn country. (AP http://yhoo.it/2aszkax)
The bodies of 120 migrants believed to have been trying to reach Italy by boat from Libya have been found off the Libyan coast over the past 10 days, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2axQDl3)
Asia
A British-Iranian aid worker, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, detained since early April and accused by hardline Revolutionary Guards of trying to overthrow Iran’s government has appeared in court for the first time, her family said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2atLcpV)
A high-profile Hong Kong pro-independence leader said Tuesday he had been barred from standing in upcoming parliamentary elections — the latest candidate backing separation from mainland China to be disqualified. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2asHRUQ)
India: Female workers in western Maharashtra’s sugarcane fields routinely face abuse and rape by landlords and middlemen who enslave them through debt bondage, activists say. (TRF http://yhoo.it/2axP0nL)
Every week, scientists in southern China release three million bacteria-infected mosquitoes on a 2 mile long island in a bid to wipe out diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and Zika. (VOA http://bit.ly/2atLrkB)
The Americas
Venezuela’s election board said on Monday the opposition successfully collected 1 percent of voter signatures in every state in the first phase of their push for a referendum to recall socialist President Nicolas Maduro. (VOA http://bit.ly/2aGE9tx)
Brazil’s federal police said they had arrested two people and raided properties on Tuesday over alleged corruption at building firm Queiroz Galvao, widening a sweeping investigation focused on state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2asIhdX)
U.S. President Obama and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong restated their commitment to passing the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. (VOA http://bit.ly/2atLOfk)
Health officials in northern Mexico have refused to authorize an abortion for a 13-year-old girl who was raped by a family acquaintance after a judge downgraded the crime to a charge of sexual coercion. (Guardian http://bit.ly/2asAhzo)
In a blunt and virtually unprecedented presidential rebuke, Barack Obama on Tuesday described Donald Trump as “unfit” to be president and called on Republicans to disown him. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2aGDtV1)
Mexican banks, determined to avoid a return to past woes, are reining in lending to the country’s indebted state governments, some of whose leaders have recently become the focus of corruption allegations. (VOA http://bit.ly/2aGDTLc)
…and the rest
A child has died of anthrax in Siberia in the first fatal outbreak of the bacterial disease reported in Russia in 75 years, the regional governor’s office said on Tuesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/2atLUUd)
Britain’s state-funded health service is responsible for paying for an HIV-prevention drug that has been called a “game changer” in the fight against AIDS, a court ruled Tuesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/2asIbCO)
Germany’s Federal Office for Statistics says some 42,300 unaccompanied minors entered the country from abroad last year. (AP http://yhoo.it/2aLcRni)
Opinion/Blogs
Congress has failed to fund Zika response and now, as predicted, it’s come to the USA. (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/2b0G4Ii)
Is Peacebuilding Failing in Africa? (Carnegie Corporation http://bit.ly/2aGAA6B)
Experts Call for Greater Private Sector Role in Agriculture (New Times http://bit.ly/2aGA4FF)
AP FACT CHECK: Trump gets much wrong on Ukraine http://yhoo.it/2aL87xS
South Africa: Electoral Tremors Are Shaking Ruling Party. How Will It Respond? (The Conversation http://bit.ly/2aGBnEI)
Can Cash Transfers Reduce HIV Incidence in Young People? (Key Correspondents http://bit.ly/2aswIt8)
Secret aid worker: the UK NGO sector is facing a funding crisis (Guardian http://bit.ly/2asH5ax)
This punk band uses English to get across — to some — their feminist message (PRI’s the World http://bit.ly/2asycDN)
New Alliance to Shore Up Food Security Launched in Africa (IPS http://bit.ly/2asyuuv)
Why Africa Should Be At the Heart of the UK’s Brexit Strategy (African Arguments http://bit.ly/2asyKt8)
If evicting people were an Olympic event, Brazil would win gold (IRIN http://bit.ly/2atL75F)