The International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to move forward with an investigation into the 2008 Georgia-Russia Conflict. “Prosecutors said there was evidence that up to 113 ethnic Georgian civilians had been killed and up to 18,500 uprooted from their homes as part of a ‘forcible displacement campaign’ conducted by the authorities in South Ossetia, a mainly Russian-speaking province…Judges must now decide whether to authorize a full probe, which would pit Russia, which is not an ICC member, against the permanent European-backed global war crimes court at a time when east-west tensions are at their highest since the Cold War.” (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1OvrM2A)
Sharply Escalating Violence in Israel and Palestine…”Four attacks by Palestinians in Jerusalem and a city 40 miles away killed three Israeli Jews and wounded at least a dozen others in two hours on Tuesday morning, the police said, the most intense eruption so far in two weeks of escalating violence that has alarmed Israel and flummoxed its security forces. The Israeli authorities said two assailants boarded a public bus in Jerusalem and shot and stabbed riders, killing two men. The third Israeli fatality occurred in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem, when a Palestinian worker for the Israeli telephone company rammed the company’s car into pedestrians, then got out and attacked them with a meat cleaver. There were also two stabbings in Ra’anana, a city of 80,000 that is home to many American immigrant families.” (NYT http://nyti.ms/1VQo8oi)
Iran Joins Ground Fight in Syria...Late reports that Iranian ground troops are joining a pro-Assad, Russian backed offensive in Aleppo.
Save The Children offices raided…The offices of Save the Children workers helping asylum-seekers on the Pacific island of Nauru have been raided by police, the aid agency said Tuesday, as debate rages in Australia over new whistleblower laws. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1OzI9JG)
Stat of the day: Global inequality is growing, with half the world’s wealth now in the hands of just 1% of the population, according to a new report by Credit Suisse. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1K7148q)
Africa
Violence against aid groups and general insecurity have plunged the Timbuktu region in northern Mali into a hunger crisis, with tens of thousands of children at increasing risk of dying from malnutrition, according to the United Nations. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1OzGnZg)
Six civilians have been killed in three separate attacks blamed on Ugandan rebels in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local authorities said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1K73Avp)
Burundi asked its former colonial power Belgium to replace its ambassador because it has lost confidence in him, a senior official said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1VQQY2n)
Amnesty International opened an office Tuesday in Nigeria, promising to investigate allegations of abuses from oil pollution and forced evictions to charges of military killings of civilians in the fight against Boko Haram Islamic extremists. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GbKoSj)
Guinea-Bissau’s president has named a new cabinet in a bid to end a two-month political crisis that brought fears of a revival of drug trafficking and instability in the coup-prone West African country. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1VQQZU7)
Tanzania launched a nationwide drive to help parents register their children’s births by mobile phone so the government can better plan health, education and other public services. (TRF http://bit.ly/1OzGnIE)
South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers signed a wage deal with coal producers on Tuesday, ending a strike by the sector’s biggest union that started over a week ago, workers and mining companies said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1OzGnZ8)
African migrants traveling through the Sahara Desert, hoping to ultimately reach Europe, provide overwhelming evidence of smugglers abusing them. (VOA http://bit.ly/1ZA2ZxU)
MENA
Tunisia is under pressure to speed up economic reforms, especially after two deadly attacks this year on its tourism industry, but the government is struggling with internal splits and resistance from trade unions and political opponents. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1VQR2zf)
A British man in Saudi Arabia faces 350 lashes for brewing homemade wine. (WaPo http://wapo.st/1VQoStv)
As a wave of violence sweeps across Jerusalem, victims and perpetrators are often surprised to be reunited — at each other’s bedside in the city’s largest emergency ward. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GbKqJV)
Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament passed a bill on Tuesday approving its nuclear deal with world powers, signaling victory for the government over hardline opponents who worry the accord opens a door to wider rapprochement with the West. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1GbJghp)
A missile test announced by Iran over the weekend was an apparent violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution and Washington will raise the incident at the United Nations, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://reut.rs/1K7p3Et )
Asia
Nepal’s fuel crisis eased slightly Tuesday as the Himalayan nation began issuing gasoline for private vehicles while also reopening a northern border crossing with China that had been damaged by April’s devastating earthquake. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GbKpp9)
A South Korean man believed cured of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome has been rediagnosed with the deadly virus, health officials said on Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GbKmK7)
Thirteen people including seven children were crushed to death in Karachi Tuesday when a rare landslide struck their thatch huts as they slept, officials said. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GbKmtx)
A landslide triggered by torrential rains has killed at least 17 people in eastern Myanmar and forced the evacuation of scores more, state media said on Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1K72mR2)
The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu found itself in political chaos Tuesday following an extraordinary few days in which 14 lawmakers were found guilty of corruption but were then pardoned by one of their own while the president was abroad. (AP http://bit.ly/1VQnF5j)
Myanmar’s election oversight body has decided to proceed with the general election, as scheduled, next month, according to a government announcement Tuesday evening. (VOA http://bit.ly/1QoQ5MV)
The Americas
United Nations officials have met with Guyana’s government to investigate a longstanding border dispute with neighboring Venezuela. (AP http://yhoo.it/1K73zYz)
Puerto Rico officials say the governor of the U.S. territory will present a measure to establish a fiscal control board and help pull the island out of a nearly decade-long economic crisis. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GbKo4z)
Gunmen in Mexico have attacked the former governor of the western state of Colima. Fernando Moreno Pena, who governed Colima from 1997 to 2003, was having breakfast in a restaurant in the state capital when two gunmen opened fire. (BBC http://bbc.in/1Ljbdko)
…and the rest
A 400-page UN report calls for the creation of a special international tribunal to judge peacekeepers accused of serious crimes, including sex crimes. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1QoR6om)
After spending the summer rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean, a ship owned by an American millionaire will attempt to do the same in Southeast Asia. But the Migrant Offshore Aid Station could find itself sailing into a sea of trouble in a region where rules governing the rights of migrants and refugees are harsher and less clear-cut than in Europe. (IRIN http://bit.ly/1MwTmL2)
A U.N. human rights expert is raising doubts about the re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, saying he garnered the highest margin of victory in an election in Europe since World War II. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GbKpFS)
British universities including Oxford, the oldest in the country, are opening their doors to academics fleeing Syria’s civil war, expecting an exchange of ideas based on their research and experiences that will benefit both sides. (VOA http://bit.ly/1Ljbioc)
EU border agency Frontex said on Tuesday that 710,000 migrants entered the European Union in the first nine months of this year, compared to 282,000 in all of 2014, but cautioned that many people were counted twice. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1K73DYf)
European lawmakers rejected a proposal on Tuesday that would have allowed countries to restrict or ban the use of imported GM crops that have secured EU approval. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1K73BQ5)
Opinion/Blogs
#GamerGate vs the United Nations (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1GbMKAx)
Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton shares 3 big ideas (Financial Times http://on.ft.com/1GbM6D1)
Greek aid worker busts seven refugee myths (IRIN http://bit.ly/1K718VL)
How Africa Can Build Inclusive, Safe and Sustainable Cities (The Conversation http://bit.ly/1K706sR)
A no-brainer: How to transition from polio eradication to measles eradication (Devex http://bit.ly/1QoWGaq)
The State of War in Syria (Dart Throwing Chimp http://bit.ly/1Ljfp3t)
Surviving the Night (On the Ground http://nyti.ms/1QoWV59)
If you’ve bought into giving cash to the poor, this should be your next move (Chris Blattman http://bit.ly/1QoX6O0)
1325 a Groundbreaking Initiative for Women, Peace & Security (IPS http://bit.ly/1GbHqND)
Nine ideas to spark innovation in the energy sector (Guardian http://bit.ly/1K71mfF)
India’s Compact with Africa (IPS http://bit.ly/1VQQKs7)
Secret aid worker: 10 of the village girls have been sold (Guardian http://bit.ly/1MwXive)