UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie and UK Government are co-hosting the largest event ever of its kind. “The summit aims to: launch a new international protocol for documenting and investigating sexual violence in conflict, and encourage countries to strengthen domestic laws to enable prosecutions; urge countries to train all soldiers and peacekeepers to prevent sexual violence; increase funding to support survivors of sexual violence; change attitudes towards rape in conflict…The organisers want the event to be the moment the world wakes up and declares that sexual violence is not an inevitable part of war. (BBC http://bbc.in/1q1seJc)
Acute Humanitarian Emergency as Key Iraqi City Falls to Insurgent Group…Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a cross border al-Qaeda linked group. 500,000 people have been displaced and in need of humanitarian relief. “There were no immediate estimates on how many people were killed in the assault…Earlier this year, Islamic State fighters took control of Fallujah, and government forces have been unable to take it back.Mosul is a much bigger, more strategic prize. The city and surrounding Ninevah province, which is on the doorstep of Iraq’s relatively prosperous Kurdish region, are a major export route for Iraqi oil and a gateway to Syria. (Bellingham Herald http://bit.ly/1hMMvQD)
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Africa
A United Nations envoy today renewed the world body’s commitment to supporting ongoing efforts by the Nigerian Government to secure the safe release of the abducted schoolgirls from Chibok, and called for concerted efforts to tackle the insurgency in the north-east of the country. (UN News http://bit.ly/SKp1jc)
Reporting rates are low for sexual crimes committed during conflict in South Sudan and the means to gather the information are extremely limited.Yet hundreds of cases are being reported of women being sexually abused, gang-raped, detained and their young sons castrated – singled out on ethnic lines. (BBC http://bbc.in/1hECK6w)
Madinah Nalukenge, who did not study beyond grade school, is part of a growing trend in Africa where more women are running businesses on a scale that was unthinkable a generation ago. Africa now has the highest growth rate of female-run enterprises across the world, according to the World Bank. (AP http://yhoo.it/1ikJtxv)
More than two-thirds of mines in eastern DR Congo which produced “conflict minerals” four years ago are no longer run by warlords, a report says. (BBC http://bbc.in/1uSgicS)
MENA
Egypt’s President Sisi orders a crackdown on sexual assaults amid growing public anger after women were attacked in Cairo during his inauguration. (BBC http://bbc.in/1uSgskk)
A high-level meeting in Geneva between US and Iranian diplomats comes amid fears that a six-month interim deal may not yield a final agreement before a July deadline. (CSM http://bit.ly/1q1uW1e)
Asia
China is ready for a final settlement of its border disputes with India and prepared to invest more in the South Asian nation if trade rules are eased, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said late yesterday in New Delhi. (Bloomberg http://bloom.bg/1q1uP5X)
Thai “ghost ships” that enslave, brutalise and even kill workers are linked to global shrimp supply chain, Guardian investigation discovers. (Guardian http://bit.ly/SKprpE)
The Americas
Prostitutes more than double their earnings by moonlighting as currency traders in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. They are the foreign exchange counter for sailors in a country where buying and selling dollars in the streets is a crime — and prostitution isn’t. (Bloomberg http://bloom.bg/1iktMq5)
Latin America’s parliaments have failed to protect the forests and to guarantee their sustainable use, despite the fact that a number of countries have laws on forests, legislators from the region said at a global summit in the Mexican capital. (IPS http://bit.ly/1oIrJ4U)
Peru urgently needs a national plan for the management of water over the next two decades, one that will take into account the effects of climate change and the social and environmental conflicts triggered by problems over water. (IPS http://bit.ly/SKoMEN)
Opinion/Blogs
A Useful Data Set on Political Violence that Almost No One Is Using (Dart-throwing Chimp http://bit.ly/1kMF5Mn)
How do we end sexual violence in conflict? (Guardian http://bit.ly/SKpySj)
The FDLR demobilisation gamble reloaded (Ethuin http://bit.ly/1hErjvE)
Markets in Everything, Venezuelan edition (Cherokee Gothic http://bit.ly/1s2Pzfu)
Let’s Create Sub-National Corruption Perception Indexes for the BRICS (Global Anti-Corruption Blog http://bit.ly/1hECnJ9)
Time Running Out for Iran Nuke Negotiations (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1ikJ7qM)
Food shock recovery suggests price spikes went against the grain (Guardian http://bit.ly/1iktqQj)
Research/Reports
A four-day summit on sexual violence in war is taking place in London, the culmination of a two-year campaign to raise awareness. (BBC http://bbc.in/1oIrreq)
Major donor countries will unveil next week a new initiative aimed at strengthening the ability of developing countries’ governments to negotiate complex contracts, particularly around the extractives sector. (IPS http://bit.ly/1hEqaEy)
Do non-contributory pensions work? (Development that Works http://bit.ly/1hErqr3)