Former UNGA President Arrested in Bribery Scheme

Ashe, incidentally, served as the President of the General Assembly in a critical year of diplomacy around the Sustainable Development Goals. “A top United Nations official and a billionaire real estate developer from the Chinese territory of Macau were accused on Tuesday of engaging in a broad corruption scheme, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. The former president of the United Nations General Assembly, John W. Ashe, was one of six people identified in a criminal complaint outlining a bribery scheme that involved more than $1 million in payments from sources in China for assistance in real estate deals and other business interests.” (NYT http://nyti.ms/1FVvAqL)

MSF Hospital Bombing: USA Again Alters Story…”US special operations forces – not their Afghan allies – called in the deadly airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, the US commander has conceded. Shortly before General John Campbell, the commander of the US and Nato war in Afghanistan, testified to a Senate panel, the president of Doctors Without Borders – also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – said the US and Afghanistan had made an “admission of a war crime”. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1Q5tDZc)

A Sadly Predictable consequence of the ebola outbreak…Maternal and newborn deaths in Sierra Leone have soared since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as fear of being infected and mistrust of health workers deter pregnant women from giving birth in health facilities, researchers said. (TRF http://bit.ly/1Oj6ZO6)

Stat(s) of the Day…Economic growth is set to slow in Sub-Saharan Africa to 3.7 percent this year, its weakest pace since 2009, mainly due to the drop in commodity prices, the World Bank said. (VOA http://bit.ly/1VBZirS) …and the IMF predicts 3.8 percent GDP growth. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LweIcK)

Africa

Top security and ruling party officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo appear to have “hired thugs” to attack peaceful demonstrators last month in Kinshasa, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GuV35b)

South Sudan’s rebels warned Tuesday the government risks a “return to war” by undermining a peace deal as aid agencies reported a fresh upsurge in the 21-month conflict. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GuVSLt)

Somali journalists and rights groups on Tuesday condemned the arrest of two colleagues and the closure of a key television station by the government. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Lwh1MP)

The opposition in oil-rich Congo vowed a fight to the finish after the government called an October referendum on allowing veteran leader Denis Sassou Nguesso to run for a controversial third term. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Lwhajc)

Tens of millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa are going hungry due to erratic weather and the situation is set to worsen as the El Nino weather pattern reaches its peak, the Red Cross said as it launched funding appeals for six countries. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1Oj71W8)

A French court has dropped a long-running case against a Rwandan priest suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a source at the prosecutor’s office said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1VDoKIl)

Ghana’s government suspended seven out of 12 high court judges on Monday in the wake of allegations of bribery stemming from a documentary made by an investigative journalist. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1VDoLMx)

Renewable energy sources could supply nearly a quarter of Africa’s power needs by 2030, more than four times the current levels, according to a report published Monday by the International Renewable Energy Agency. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GuV1dN)

MENA

All international aid organisations have left the embattled Afghan city of Kunduz following a US air strike on a hospital run by medical charity MSF and amid heavy fighting, the UN said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Lwh0s8)

More than 114,000 people have fled war-torn Yemen, and the figure could reach at least 200,000 by the end of 2016, aid officials said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GuV2OO)

The friends of a Yemeni man who set himself ablaze Monday say he took the action because he did not receive support promised to him by the U.N. refugee agency. (VOA http://bit.ly/1Q5ns7k)

A loosely-coordinated group of Syrian rebel factions earmarked by U.S. officials as a proxy army to partner with in northern Syria lacks coherence and reliability, warn analysts and rival rebel commanders. (VOA http://bit.ly/1VBZibw)

Nearly 100 migrants are reported to have died in the Mediterranean off Libya since Sunday, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday, citing unconfirmed reports from the Libyan Red Crescent. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1Oj73gw)

Asia

Thai journalist Mutita Chuachang has won the 2015 Agence France-Presse Kate Webb Prize for her powerful and persistent reporting of royal defamation cases that have multiplied under the country’s military rulers. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1hoQL91)

The Asian Development Bank is part-funding expansion of a water resources project in southwest Bangladesh that has sharply increased agriculture production and benefited nearly 200,000 people, it said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1GuVT1T)

The Americas

Fourteen people have died amid historic rainfall in South Carolina, the state’s governor said on Tuesday, as residents grappled with the damage wrought by flooding on their homes, roads and water supply. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Lwg7zK)

The International Monetary Fund faces a chilly reception as it meets this week in Latin America, the region that has been most hostile toward its policy prescriptions. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Q5tOnk)

The U.S. deported fewer immigrants over the past 12 months than at any time since 2006, according to government figures obtained by The Associated Press. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LwgSsI)

Venezuela’s foreign minister on Monday blasted her U.S. counterpart John Kerry for questioning the country’s democratic credentials ahead of legislative elections the ruling socialists are forecast to lose. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Lgf6Kl)

The death toll from a landslide that devastated a Guatemalan village has risen to 161 as emergency workers continue pulling bodies from the mud and debris, officials said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GuV0X6)

U.S. Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz lashed out Monday against the Obama administration’s plan to accept refugees from war-torn Syria, calling it “nothing short of crazy” because he believes some are Islamic State group terrorists. (AP http://yhoo.it/1Q5tuoJ)

…and the rest

China’s slowdown and tumbling commodity prices will push global economic growth this year to the lowest level since the recession year 2009, the International Monetary Fund predicted Tuesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LwhgYa)

The 134-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations, has reaffirmed the overarching objective of eradicating poverty, “which remains the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.” (IPS http://bit.ly/1Lw9ayR)

The first global Catholic LGBT network attempted to reach out to bishops meeting to debate the Church’s approach to the family, as liberals hope for an opening up towards sexual minorities. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1jbDHpl)

Opinion/Blogs

The Global South Will Make Its Contribution to Fighting Climate Change (IPS http://bit.ly/1Q5nnR8)

When a School Markets Students as Charity Cases (Tiny Spark http://bit.ly/1LgbY0S)

Tory development successes undermined by ‘aidwashing’ and dirty tactics (Guardian http://bit.ly/1Q5uE3s)

Bitcoin for good? – From the dark web to the light (IRIN http://bit.ly/1Q5nTPf)

Somalia: The Return of the Pirates? (Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/1Q5mWXd)

With the Trans-Pacific Partnership, there is always a ‘but’ (GlobalPost http://bit.ly/1Q5n4Wy)

Confessions of a humanitarian: I only know 10 words of the local language (Guardian http://bit.ly/1jbHuDb)

Isaac is a lucky boy (Ryan Briggs http://bit.ly/1Oja7JH)

Ebola Panic Peaked in America a Year Ago. What Were We Thinking? (Slate http://slate.me/1Oja7Jy)

The Competitive World of Child-Sponsorship Marketing (The New Yorker http://nyr.kr/1VDsc5F)

How USAID’s Secret Think Tank Funding Hurts the Poor (Huff Po http://huff.to/1VDsbPi)

International development and the ‘f’ word (Kirsty Evidence http://bit.ly/1VDsdXh)