A jihadist group is believed to be responsible. “The Malian government said four Malian soldiers, five UN workers and four “terrorists” were killed during the protracted siege at the Byblos Hotel in the central town of Sevare, which was finally brought to an end by security forces early Saturday.The casualties included two Ukrainians, a Nepalese and a South African, according to the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA). No one has claimed responsibility for the attack which has coincided with a surge in jihadist violence spreading through the region in recent months.” (AFP http://yhoo.it/1MWrQHk)
And elsewhere in Mali, another attack…”Gunmen have killed 10 civilians in an attack on the village of Gaberi in northern Mali, a day after a siege at the Hotel Byblos in Sevare ended following a dramatic pre-dawn raid.” (DW http://bit.ly/1MWsip7)
Deadly Typhoon Strikes China and Taiwan…”A typhoon battered China’s east coast on Sunday, killing eight people and forcing authorities to cancel hundreds of flights and evacuate more than 163,000 people. Typhoon Soudelor killed six people in Taiwan earlier on the weekend then moved across the Taiwan Strait and slammed into the mainland’s Fujian province late on Saturday. It churned towards the neighbouring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi on Sunday, the Xinhua state news agency said. The Tropical Storm Risk website downgraded Soudelor to a tropical storm as it moved inland.” (TRF http://tmsnrt.rs/1KXLQGm)
Election Day in Haiti..“Long-postponed legislative elections in Haiti got off to a somewhat troubled start Sunday, with at least one polling station ransacked and lengthy delays at others in the impoverished Caribbean nation. The polls, the first since President Michel Martelly came to power in May 2011, are taking place against a backdrop of fear of violence and expected low voter turnout — and they come months after lawmakers left their posts…In downtown Port-au-Prince, where many voters were forced to wait more than an hour before they could even enter polling stations, unidentified assailants ransacked one post as voters waited to cast their ballots.” (AFP http://bit.ly/1KXMfZC)
Africa
A Rwandan soldier serving with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic shot dead four Rwandan troops and wounded eight others on Saturday, before himself being shot dead, according to the Rwandan Defence Ministry. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1UxDtGd)
Several dozen Ugandans marked Gay Pride on Saturday, cheering that such a parade could go ahead in a country that only last year tried to impose long jail terms for gay sex. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1UxDsC9)
Angolan police clashed with more than 50 anti-government protesters on Saturday in the capital Luanda and detained several of them, including activist Rafael Marques de Morais. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1DFVWfp)
China will build a new coastal highway for Liberia as part of its aid to the country recovering from an Ebola epidemic, Liberia’s foreign minister said on Sunday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1KcsWZz)
Burundi’s prosecutor on Sunday said the killers of a powerful general loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza had been identified, while a human rights activist shot “in reprisal” for his murder was allowed to leave the country. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1KcsZVf)
The party of Ivory Coast’s ex-president Laurent Gbagbo has chosen its leader, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, to run in an Oct. 25 presidential election that will mark its return to electoral politics following a string of boycotts since a brief 2011 war. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1DFVUnM)
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered ministries to use only approved government bank accounts to make payments, the vice president’s office said on Sunday, part of a drive to improve transparency and clamp down on corruption. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1J4OH2I)
Kenya’s Conference of Catholic Bishops declared a boycott of the World Health Organization’s vaccination campaign, saying they needed to “test” whether ingredients contain a derivative of estrogen. (NPR http://n.pr/1MeBd3I)
MENA
For the first time in more than half-a-century, the infant mortality rate in Gaza is on the rise, according to a new study by the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees. (Haaretz http://bit.ly/1KXMvHU )
A major shortage of aid funding for Iraq threatens food assistance relied on by more than two million people, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the country said on Sunday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1KcsYAF)
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross is in Yemen to shine a light on what the agency calls the country’s dire humanitarian crisis. (VOA http://bit.ly/1J4OLiZ)
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian who stabbed and lightly injured an Israeli civilian Sunday at a petrol station in the occupied West Bank, authorities said. (AFP http://bit.ly/1KXMh3F)
Bahraini authorities say they will allow an independent newspaper in the Gulf kingdom to resume publishing days after ordering it temporarily suspended. (AP http://yhoo.it/1J4OhJZ)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday warned against what he called unfounded claims that Syria has chemical weapons, as the United Nations Security Council investigates deadly chlorine gas attacks. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1KcsY3B)
Asia
The number of people affected by flooding across Myanmar was approaching 1 million on Sunday, with waters in the low-lying southwestern delta inundating homes and forcing villagers into temporary shelters, the government said. The death toll was on the verge of topping 100. (AP http://yhoo.it/1J4Olcr)
Shinzo Abe’s constitutional reforms have drawn a wave of protesters on to the streets of Tokyo, a rare occurrence in Japan that could take the shine off what should have been the prime minister’s crowning achievement: a package of national security bills to expand the role of its military. (SMH http://bit.ly/1MWtI30)
The Americas
At least five people were killed and more than a thousand forced to flee their homes as powerful rain storms lashed central and northern Chile, authorities said Sunday. (AFP http://bit.ly/1KXLYG1 )
With tense bilateral ties recently renewed after five decades, and top US diplomat John Kerry due in Havana in days, Cuba arrested some 90 activists on Sunday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1J4OIE6)
Ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli was ahead in Argentina’s presidential primary on Sunday, according to TV exit polls that showed voters tending toward the Buenos Aires governor’s policy of gradual change after eight years of leftist government. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1J4OkFC)
…and the rest
Pope Francis called for a global ban on nuclear weapons on Sunday as he commemorated the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1J4Oo8i)
Opinion/Blogs
The problem with the not-so-radical solutions to global inequalities (Humanosphere http://bit.ly/1Nf55vv)
East Asians Attitudes Toward LGBT Rights are Rapidly Shifting. But Probably Not Fast Enough (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1gVvNPQ)
Why The Zambian Hip-Hopper ‘B Flow’ Changed His Tune (Goats and Soda http://n.pr/1ICDdOq)
A novel method of tracking nutrition-sensitive spending (Devex http://bit.ly/1gVwatC)
On Facebook’s Internet.org false promises of a “poor man’s internet” (Aidnography http://bit.ly/1ICDf98)
Followup on social enterprises: roles in a market/ecosystem (Praxis http://bit.ly/1gVvtAt)
AIIB: much ado about very little (DevPolicy http://bit.ly/1ICD7q6)
The political economy of mass atrocities (Rachel Strohm http://bit.ly/1UxFZfE)
How to market health — and make markets healthier (Devex http://bit.ly/1DFZMoA)
Indigenous women are raising their voices and can no longer be ignored (Guardian http://bit.ly/1DFZOgh)