Deadly heat waves are a regular occurrence in India. But this is much worse than in years past. “At least 800 people have died in a major heatwave that has swept across India, melting roads in New Delhi as temperatures neared 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit)… ‘The state government has taken up education programmes through television and other media to tell people not to venture into the outside without a cap, to drink water and other measures,’ said P. Tulsi Rani, special commissioner for disaster management in the state. “We have also requested NGOs and government organisations to open up drinking water camps so that water will be readily available for all the people in the towns.” (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Q8tVgO)
Quote of the Day: “This is not the year of the child but the year of fear, with 2015 already the worst year since 1945 for children being displaced, the worst year for children becoming refugees, the worst year for children seeing their schools attacked.” – former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1PKwIlt)
Africa
Fighting in and around South Sudan’s Leer town has disrupted the hunger-hit region’s crucial planting season, and residents returning to the town urgently need food, water and medical help, aid workers said on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1IYdlBa)
Burundi’s government on Tuesday condemned mounting diplomatic pressure over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid to stand for a third consecutive term, signalling it would not bow to international criticism. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1IYcGQn)
An “alarming spike” in suicide bombings by girls and women used by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria has children in danger of being seen as potential threats, the U.N. children’s agency said Tuesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/1Q8usiN)
A cholera outbreak raging among Burundian refugees in Tanzania has slowed significantly with no new deaths reported in the past five days, the United Nations said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Q8uqHI)
A Bangladeshi peacekeeper was shot dead and another wounded, the United Nations said Tuesday, in the second attack in days in Mali’s capital on what is considered the world’s most dangerous UN mission. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1IYdoNo)
A crippling strike over fuel that brought Nigeria to a near standstill was called off “in the national interest”, a union leader said on Tuesday, as the country limped back normal. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Q8ueIh)
Pioneering HIV/AIDS research at the Africa Centre in Mtubatuba, South Africa, is saving lives and changing our understanding of the resilient virus. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1PKwElv)
Islamist militants from Somalia attacked two police patrols in neighboring Kenya on Tuesday, triggering a gun battle in a rural area hit by a string of cross-border raids, both sides said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1RkNKUy)
The impact of the drought in Southern Africa is looking particularly serious for Zimbabwe, where the economy has been struggling for five years to recover from a catastrophic recession that was marked by billion percent hyperinflation and widespread food shortages. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HIyqzq)
More than 100 million condoms were distributed in Zimbabwe last year, a huge increase on previous years, indicating that more people were practising safe sex in the battle against HIV, authorities said Tuesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1RkNDYY)
African Union observers said on Tuesday that Ethiopia’s parliamentary election held on Sunday was credible except for a few irregularities, but the opposition dismissed the vote as marred by violations including ballot box theft. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1RkNG7f)
MENA
The U.N. food agency is calling for a humanitarian pause in fighting in Syria to let farmers harvest their crops and get them to market. (AP http://yhoo.it/1IYcIaO)
Iraqi forces have launched a counteroffensive to retake areas of Anbar province, including Ramadi, recently captured by fighters from the ISIS. (Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/1dvKEPi)
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian went on trial on espionage charges behind closed doors in Tehran on Tuesday, 10 months after he was arrested at his home and imprisoned, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. (Reuters http://reut.rs/1dvLYSh)
Asia
UN rights experts have criticised South Korea for requiring that foreign English teachers have a negative HIV test to “check values and morality” in order to receive a visa to work. (ABC Australiahttp://ab.co/1HuK8YR)
An international gathering about the plight of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims boasts a star-studded cast, with three Nobel Peace Prize laureates among those calling on the world to wake up to the unfolding tragedy. But fellow winner and pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will not be among them. She wasn’t invited. (AP http://yhoo.it/1Q8urLu)
Nepal banned children from traveling without parents or approved guardians on Tuesday in an unprecedented move to deter human traffickers who authorities fear are targeting vulnerable families after last month’s devastating earthquake. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Q8uuac)
The International Monetary Fund no longer believes China’s tightly controlled currency is undervalued, an IMF official said Tuesday, a stance that might help Beijing in its wrangling with Washington over exchange rate controls. (AP http://yhoo.it/1IYdjtc)
Russia’s rights ombudsman has slammed a controversial law approved by President Vladimir Putin that allows the authorities to ban international NGOs deemed “undesirable.” (AFP http://yhoo.it/1HIygIh)
Malaysian police forensic teams, digging with hoes and shovels, on Tuesday began pulling out bodies from shallow graves found in abandoned jungle camps where an inter-governmental body said hundreds of victims of human traffickers may be buried. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1RkNKny)
The Americas
A commander of Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was among five rebels killed in a bombing raid, the Colombian military says. (BBC http://bbc.in/1cgkOx5)
Venezuela’s public ombudsman denied that jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was on hunger strike or in solitary confinement, saying he “had lunch with his children” the day before. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Huj4sO)
Rescue workers searched on Tuesday for 12 people missing in Texas after torrential rains slammed the state and Oklahoma during the Memorial Day weekend, killing seven people and causing floods that destroyed homes and swept away bridges. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1HIyjnq)
The thaw in relations between the U.S. and Cuba has led to a stunning 36 percent increase in visits by Americans to the island, including thousands who are flying into Cuba from third countries like Mexico in order to sidestep U.S. restrictions on tourism. (AP http://yhoo.it/1HIynn8)
…and the rest
The battle to eliminate extreme poverty will require rich western nations to step up their financial help and spend at least half their aid budgets in the world’s poorest countries, a leading development campaign group said on Tuesday. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1cgkBKn)
Participants in the European Union’s carbon market expect average prices to rise for the first time in four years, an annual survey published by the International Emissions Trading Association showed on Tuesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1IYdjcL)
The world’s leading migration group is urging the European Union to accept far more asylum seekers than the 20,000 it has planned to take under a new EU scheme to resettle people in need of protection. (AP http://yhoo.it/1Q8utmP)
Opinion/Blogs
Global Dispatches Podcast episode 66: The Nicholas Burns interview. http://bit.ly/1AvAx73
Why proposed WHO reforms aren’t enough to deal with the next epidemic (Monkey Cage http://wapo.st/1Huovry)
Here’s what’s missing in AfDB’s 1st gender equality index (Devex http://bit.ly/1PKFIqx)
The geek heretic (Chris Blattman http://bit.ly/1dv7Ywq)
How clamping down on tax avoidance can unlock billions for development (Guardian http://bit.ly/1cgkwGA)
Tobacco Taxes Too Effective to Overlook in Financing for Development (IPS http://bit.ly/1esa4NX)
The limits of debunking only the pseudoscience of race (Africa is a Country http://bit.ly/1FBwWDm)
Joe Hockey on aid on Q&A (DevPolicy http://bit.ly/1FBwYLt)
Why EU ministers must endorse aid targets (Devex http://bit.ly/1dv8drk)