It was 104 degrees fahrenheit (40 celcius) in Aleppo yesterday. “Up to two million people in Syria’s Aleppo have gone without running water for the past four days, the United Nations warned Tuesday, describing the situation as “catastrophic”. The UN children’s agency said that the fierce fighting that has rocked Aleppo in recent weeks had damaged the electricity networks needed to pump water supplies throughout the divided city. ‘Children and families in Aleppo are facing a catastrophic situation,’ Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, said in a statement. ‘These cuts are coming amid a heatwave, putting children at a grave risk of waterborne diseases,” she said, stressing that “getting clean water running again cannot wait for the fighting to stop. Children’s lives are in serious danger.’ (AFP http://yhoo.it/2bd2Lxd)

Election Trouble in Zambia…Election officials and candidates in Zambia’s presidential vote on Tuesday condemned fresh outbreaks of violence between rival supporters, as concerns grow that the relatively stable country could face worsening unrest. Just 18 months after President Edgar Lungu narrowly won a snap election, he and the main challenger Hakainde Hichilema face off again in Thursday’s poll in a field of nine candidates. The stakes are high, with Lungu battling to retain the office he secured only last year, and Hichilema pushing to finally secure victory after four previous attempts. On Monday, supporters of Lungu’s Patriotic Front (PF) attacked an open-top campaign bus of Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) in the Mtendere district of Lusaka. UPND activists fled as rocks smashed into the vehicle, internet video footage showed, while several injuries were reported during other skirmishes in the district. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2ayjTfF)

Stat of the day: The International Organization for Migration estimates that over 260,000 refugees and other migrants have arrived in Europe this year after crossing the Mediterranean Sea and that more than 3,100 have died attempting to cross. (AP http://yhoo.it/2aK0lT3)

Africa

Congolese authorities have refused to renew the visa of a prominent American human rights activist, the government said on Tuesday, a decision that follows expulsions of other foreign researchers in a tense election year. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bh5Lo9)

Farmers in Nigeria’s crisis-hit northeast urgently need help to start growing crops again, the U.N. food agency said on Tuesday, warning that a failure to get people back on their feet could open the door to radicalisation. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2b0yQ6V)

Sierra Leone and Liberia risk new deadly epidemics akin to the impact of the Ebola virus due to lack of clean water and hygienic conditions in most homes, an NGO warned Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2aDExqs)

Five soldiers are missing after clashes with militants in central Mali at the weekend, military officials said on Tuesday, in the latest in a string of attacks on army and U.N. forces claimed by the Islamist group Ansar Dine. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aykSfN)

Sudanese authorities on Tuesday warned residents living near the banks of the Nile in the capital, Khartoum, to take extreme precautions in anticipation of possible flooding caused by heavy rainfall, after more than 70 people were killed in flooding elsewhere in Sudan last week. (VOA http://bit.ly/2ayjNVz)

Thousands more workers at South African power stations plan to join a strike on Wednesday over pay at state-run utility Eskom, their union said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aDExGY)

Kenya’s president said on Tuesday he would seek re-election next year and transform his coalition of small parties into one party to shore up his power base, a move aimed at seeing off another likely challenge by the opposition leader. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2aDECdv)

Zambia is in talks with the International Monetary Fund over a possible financing deal, after conceding its budget deficit, which has averaged 4.8 percent of gross domestic product in the last two years, was unsustainable. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2b0xqJu)

A splinter group of Nigerian oil militants accuses former President Goodluck Jonathan and other politicians in the oil-rich Niger Delta of sponsoring attacks on oil installations that have slashed the West African nation’s petroleum production. (VOA http://bit.ly/2aK2hdU)

South Africa’s president, speaking to mark the nation’s Women’s Day on Tuesday, avoided making any reference to an anti-rape protest against him on live television days earlier. Others did not. (NYT http://nyti.ms/2bdru4z)

MENA

The United Nations has called for urgent aid access to Syria’s Aleppo, warning civilians are at grave risk including from severe water shortages after fighting intensified for the city. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2aK0OVl)

At least 13 people were killed on Tuesday in the first air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition on the Yemeni capital in five months, residents said, as the head of the U.N. expressed concern about the escalation in the fighting. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bd2lqN)

The United States delivered 50 armored vehicles, 40 artillery pieces and 50 grenade launchers to the Lebanese army on Tuesday, part of its efforts to bolster Lebanon against a threat from militant groups in neighboring, conflict-ridden Syria. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aykZrP)

Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that the dismissal by Egypt’s president of the country’s top anti-graft official and his subsequent conviction for “disseminating false news” violated free speech and set a dangerous precedent. (AP http://yhoo.it/2ayicPi)

Asia

The Philippines has posted a record number of new HIV infections, prompting campaigners to call on authorities to step up efforts to battle the potentially deadly disease. (VOA http://bit.ly/2b0zlhd)

Fierce fighting in Helmand has sent thousands of Afghans fleeing to the capital of the southern opium-rich province, sparking a humanitarian crisis as Taliban insurgents besiege the city despite intensified US air strikes. (AFP http://bit.ly/2bd1Oou)

Pakistan on Tuesday began burying 74 people, most of them lawyers, killed in a attack on a hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta, as lawyers staged a nationwide strike and heaped pressure on the government to do more against militants. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aylXEv)

The lawyer of prominent Iranian journalist says a court has sentenced his client to three years in prison on charges of insulting authorities and spreading propaganda against the ruling system. (AP http://yhoo.it/2aykA8M)

China plans to spend a total of $65 billion on around 4,800 separate projects aimed at improving the quality of its water supplies, the environment ministry said late on Monday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bd1uWQ)

The United Nations urged the Maldives on Tuesday not to carry out planned executions for convicts on death row and to uphold a moratorium the Indian Ocean archipelago had respected for decades. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2aPMaxp)

The Americas

The Brazilian Senate Tuesday will begin voting on whether or not to begin an impeachment trial of embattled President Dilma Rousseff that could officially hand over power to her former vice president — current interim president — Michel Temer. (VOA http://bit.ly/2b0xU2l)

Cuban officials say the Obama Administration, for the past two years, has encouraged the illegal and unsafe migration of tens of thousands of Cubans to the United States. (Humanosphere http://buff.ly/2bhaJS9)

The Brazilian government has decided not to move ahead with the Sao Luiz do Tapajos hydroelectric dam project in the Amazon for the time being, Mines and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2ayimGz)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is playing the “China-bashing card” in an attempt to rescue his falling poll numbers but has no real ideas to resolve the two nations’ differences, China’s official news agency said Tuesday. (VOA http://bit.ly/2b0xRna)

…and the rest

A vocal critic of the UK’s aid spending target has been appointed as Priti Patel’s new adviser at the Department for International Development, raising further questions about the continued commitment of the new secretary of state to meeting the objective. (Guardian http://bit.ly/2aPLSGL)

Macedonian authorities on Tuesday raised the death toll from a heavy storm that hit the capital Skopje over the weekend to 22, and said a 16-month-old girl remains missing. (AP http://yhoo.it/2bh9n9Y)

Opinion/Blogs

Congress really shouldn’t threaten to cut funding for UN-backed nuclear explosion monitors around the world. (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/2aJbL9E)

How can sex workers negotiate condom use with their romantic partners? (Guardian http://bit.ly/2bcPnJi)

An entire generation of a city’s lawyers was killed in Pakistan (WaPo  wapo.st/2bcuzk9)

Ethiopia Protests Highlight Growing Solidarity Between Oromia, Amhara Regions (VOA http://bit.ly/2bcWyRX)

It’s just a game: mega-events and development (WhyDev http://buff.ly/2aylXEm)

Does SSR improve security in developing countries? (SSR Resource Center http://buff.ly/2aylzGb)

What does Brexit mean for UK climate action? (ODI http://buff.ly/2b0EqGa)

When gender data became cool (Devex http://buff.ly/2aymear)

India’s poor sanitation is damaging millions of children. There’s no excuse (Guardian http://bit.ly/2aDyLFf)

Zambia’s 2016 elections: democracy hovering on the precipice (The Conversation http://buff.ly/2b6eMUN)

Donald Trump: Keep Your Hands Off the Foreign-Policy Ideas (Foreign Policy http://buff.ly/2aDHNlz)