The violence erupted this weekend after government troops killed a Kashmir rebel leader. ”Four days of clashes between anti-India protesters and government troops have overwhelmed hospitals in India’s portion of Kashmir, where doctors and other staff were exhausted from treating hundreds of patients. The violence has left at least 31 dead and more than 1,400 injured. One doctor at the region’s main government hospital said staff had performed more eye surgeries in the last three days than they had in three years. ’We’ve performed about 100 surgeries in the last three days. Most of them are going to lose eyesight in one eye. All we have been able to do is contain further damage,’ the doctor said Wednesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/29CzntT)
Foreigners Evacuating From South Sudan…The USA has also dispatched about 50 marines to protect US personnel in Juba. “Several countries are evacuating their citizens from South Sudan following days of fighting that saw hundreds of people killed. Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan, India and Uganda have already started taking their citizens out of the country. A ceasefire between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar is holding for a second day in the capital, Juba. Mr Machar and his troops have also left Juba “to avoid further confrontation”…However, Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohammed has told the BBC that Kenyan nationals would not be evacuated, as the ceasefire in South Sudan was holding. The US embassy in Juba said it was organising flights to evacuate non-essential staff and all US citizens wishing to leave.” (BBC http://bbc.in/2aaiuZv)
Let’s make a deal…Frustrated by months of failure in Syria, the Obama administration is taking what might be its final offer to Moscow: Enhanced intelligence and military cooperation against the Islamic State and other extremist groups if Syria’s Russian-backed president Bashar Assad upholds a ceasefire with U.S.-supported rebel groups and starts a political transition. (AP http://yhoo.it/29OHesm)
Quote of the Day… “There was a young fellow from Ankara/Who was a terrific wankerer/Till he sowed his wild oats/With the help of a goat/ But he didn’t even stop to thankera.” – The UK’s new foreign minister Boris Johnson’s limerick about the President of Turkey. (Spectator http://bit.ly/2aahogf)
South Sudan
A ceasefire in South Sudan’s capital appeared to hold for a second straight day after intense fighting that killed hundreds of people and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. (AFP http://bit.ly/29yMPzp)
An initial South Sudanese government death toll of 272 people, including 33 civilians, from a recent eruption of fighting in the capital Juba is likely to be much higher, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29HQFdA)
Germany says its air force is evacuating German, European and other foreign citizens from South Sudan. (AP http://yhoo.it/29EkNTz)
A media organization in South Sudan says soldiers shot and killed a radio journalist while clashes went on in the capital on Monday. (AP http://yhoo.it/29EeyyQ)
Kenya Airways will resume flying to the South Sudanese capital Juba on Thursday after a ceasefire between factions halted heavy fighting that had forced it to cancel flights on Sunday, the airline said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29EeijA)
Africa
A Burundian member of the East African Legislative Assembly was shot dead on Wednesday in what Rwanda’s foreign minister called an assassination in a country in violent political turmoil. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29CznKl)
Ugandan opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change has urged his supporters not to give up the fight for a better Uganda. (VOA http://bit.ly/29I1PPg)
UNESCO is adding Mali’s Old Towns of Djenne, famous for their adobe architecture, to its list of World Heritage in Danger sites. (AP http://yhoo.it/29Ee8se)
MENA
A major crossing point between Gaza and Israel is set to reopen for the first time in nine years, the Israeli government announced Wednesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/29EdTO3)
Iraq’s deadliest single bombing in 13 years of war has turned the Baghdad district where it took place into the centerpiece in an increasingly bitter rivalry between the country’s prime minister and its Iranian-backed Shiite militias eager to hold sway over the city’s most diverse and prosperous area. (AP http://yhoo.it/29HRPWz)
Jordan has agreed to a one-off aid delivery to more than 100,000 desperate Syrians blocked in the desert no-man’s land on its northeastern border, the United Nations said. (AFP http://yhoo.it/29yYYUQ)
Bahrain says it has arrested two men and is seeking a third over a June highway bombing that killed a woman and wounded three of her children. (AP http://yhoo.it/29OGOlK)
The United Nations and other aid agencies have enough food in eastern Aleppo to feed 145,000 people for one month, as 200,000-300,000 in the Syrian city are at risk of being besieged by Syrian government forces, the U.N. said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29Eg1VP)
A leading international rights group on Wednesday said that foreigners employed as maids in Oman can face physical and verbal abuse while working entrapped in conditions that near slavery. (AP http://yhoo.it/29CzMN3)
Asia
Indonesia plans to execute this year at least two foreign convicts, one from Nigeria and another from Zimbabwe, the attorney general said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29Ee2B9)
The alleged mastermind of the 2014 attack on a school in Pakistan in which more than 150 people died, most of them children, has been killed in an American drone strike in Afghanistan, the Pakistan military and sources in the Pakistani Taliban said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29HROC3)
Amnesty International has called on Vietnam to end what it says is torture and ill treatment against prisoners of conscience. (AP http://yhoo.it/29OGTWE)
India’s drive to ramp up coal output to meet growing energy needs has resulted in members of the Adivasi tribe being displaced from their ancestral lands and forced to wait years to be resettled, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29EgcAz)
Women in Cambodia’s garment industry – away from their homes and support networks – are inhibited from accessing healthcare, including abortion services. (Guardian http://bit.ly/29EowAq)
A slowing in China’s economy is having rippling effects on Laos, which has been described by the World Bank as having “once of the fastest growing” economies in the East Asia and Pacific region. (VOA http://bit.ly/29yYP3X)
Nepal’s former Maoist rebels joined forces with the largest opposition party on Wednesday to lodge a motion of no-confidence in the prime minister, but the impoverished Himalayan country’s increasingly isolated leader vowed to fight on. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/29JE6hb)
The Americas
Former Mexican electricity official Enrique Ochoa is set to be ratified as head of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the party said. (VOA http://bit.ly/29JEE6H)
More than 4 in 10 working Americans say their job affects their overall health, with stress being cited most often as having a negative impact. (NPR http://n.pr/29HSE1w)
…and the rest
The European Union’s executive arm on Wednesday proposed a continent-wide asylum system that aims to speed up procedures and deter immigrants from “asylum shopping,” where applicants go from one EU country to another seeking the best deal. (AP http://yhoo.it/29yN517)
Kosovo authorities have started digging in the capital, Pristina, for the graves of people missing since the 1999 war. (AP http://yhoo.it/29OsKbT)
The United States is willing to act as messenger to help both sides on ethnically divided Cyprus overcome key hurdles holding back progress in talks aimed at reunifying the island, the Cypriot government spokesman said Wednesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/29HY1hi)
The spread of the trafficking of people and forced labor in a growing number of sectors in the UK and Ireland was confirmed as the US State Department released its latest global report on Trafficking in Persons. (Guardian http://bit.ly/29El2Of)
A population slump in Hungary is presenting Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s anti-immigration government with a headache: how to plug labour supply shortages without turning to foreigners. (AFP http://yhoo.it/29yYUVd)
Opinion/Blogs
The First-Ever UN Secretary General Debate Made for Some Great TV (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/29Yqgcb)
Who are Iraq’s militias? (IRIN http://bit.ly/29HMaQ6)
Podcast – End of Aids Within Reach, but Kenneth Cole Warns of Reversal If Treatment Push Lags (UN News Service http://bit.ly/29EcM0X)
Four graphs to show how the UN spent $17 bn (IRIN http://bit.ly/29EcPtE)
Is It All Over Between Namibia and North Korea? (African Arguments http://bit.ly/29OrAx8)
Fighting Violence Against Children as a Global Problem (Inter Press Service http://bit.ly/29JEoVb)
Comfort and support: how a radio show for people with HIV made a difference (Guardian http://bit.ly/29I1ix8)
UK NGOs face a funding disaster (From Poverty to Power http://bit.ly/29I4Sad)
The African Union can and must intervene to prevent atrocities in South Sudan (African Arguments http://bit.ly/29I549z)
International Development Jargon Detector (Chris Blattman http://bit.ly/29Es3Pm)
A year on from Addis and no goals scored (Devex http://bit.ly/29EsgSq)
The academic obsession to write about #Brexit (Aidnography http://bit.ly/29CEwSR)