At least five African immigrants in Durban have already been killed in a vicious spate of violence that threatens to spread to other cities. Immigrants make up about 10% of the population of South Africa and wave of xenophobic violence in 2008 resulted in 60 deaths. “At least five people have died in a wave of violence against foreigners in Durban, South Africa, while thousands more were driven out of their homes in the coastal city. Hundreds of miles away, in the commercial hub of Johannesburg, immigrant shopkeepers fearing copycat attacks have closed their businesses. While no widespread violence has been reported in the city, threatening messages have been circulating on social media. As the Mail and Guardian reports, concerned residents have been issuing messages of their own, taking to the messaging app WhatsApp and SMS text messages to alert others to be vigilant.” (Quartz http://bit.ly/1PPsZAw)
Thousands of Burundians Are Fleeing to Rwanda…”A dispute over whether President Pierre Nkurunziza can run for a third term – he has not yet announced any such plan – has triggered the worst political crisis since the 12-year civil war in the east African nation ended in 2005. Burundian refugees started crossing the border into Rwanda in mid-March but numbers have swelled in recent days, data from Rwanda’s ministry of refugee affairs showed. At least 1 069 refugees arrived on Tuesday, taking the total to 5,954.” (News24 http://bit.ly/1ywHiom)
Is the FARC Ceasefire Over? Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has ordered the resumption of bombing raids against FARC rebels after an attack he blamed on the group killed 10 soldiers, a move that will intensify combat after efforts to ease tensions. As part of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Santos last month stopped air raids on rebel hideouts in recognition of a unilateral ceasefire declared in December by the insurgent group. The soldiers were killed in rural southwestern Cauca province in the early hours of Wednesday when the FARC launched an ambush, hurling grenades and firing on them as they sheltered in a covered sports pitch, the army said.” (Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/1DknP9c)
Study of the Day: Global recession linked to rising HIV deaths. (Journal of Global Health http://bit.ly/1OeQj71)
Africa
The Presidents of the countries hardest hit by ebola Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea met Barack Obama in the White House yesterday. (Bloomberg http://bloom.bg/1PPqLRy)
The FAO has set aside $4 million to fund projects aimed at strengthening control of diseases affecting food security in eight sub-Saharan African countries. (allAfrica http://bit.ly/1COWyYI)
The return to work continues in Liberia as the Ebola outbreak subsides, led by gains for wage workers and the rural self-employed, while the picture remains mixed in Sierra Leone. (World Bank http://bit.ly/1H8HKdC)
A suicide bomber attacked a U.N. peacekeeping base in northern Mali on Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding 16 others, the U.N. mission said. (AP
MENA
Islamic State fighters captured more territory outside the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province Wednesday. (VOA http://bit.ly/1OeRdQV)
ISIS has carried out systematic rape and other sexual violence against Yezidi women and girls in northern Iraq, according to research by Human Rights Watch. (HRW http://bit.ly/1ytQJEY)
Asia
China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in six years last quarter, raising fresh concerns over the condition of the world’s second largest economy. (WaPo http://wapo.st/1E2uQ1N)
Acid attacks in India have ravaged the lives of thousands of young women who are forced to live with physical, psychological and social scars. (IPS http://bit.ly/1yuats4)
A new anti-terrorism law in Malaysia is set to revive indefinite detention without charges or trial, which the opposition worries will be used to silence dissent. (VOA http://bit.ly/1b3uLy7)
Child labor has long been a pillar of Myanmar’s economy, but their role has come under increasing international scrutiny as the country opens up after five decades of military dictatorship. (Al Jazeera http://alj.am/1CO4sl6)
The Americas
Ten Colombian soldiers were killed and 20 injured in an attack by the rebel guerilla group FARC in the southwest province of Cauca in violation of the ceasefire. (El País http://bit.ly/1FTLbmP; Spanish)
A lawsuit filed this week alleges Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation conducted a study in Guatemala from 1945 to 1956 in which patients were deliberately infected with STDs. (CNN http://cnn.it/1F6yzeI)
Despite achieving middle-income country status in 2006, Peru’s education system is struggling to keep up. (El País http://bit.ly/1E2vpsg; Spanish)
…and the rest
President Erdogan said Turkey would disregard the EU’s vote on the 1915 mass killings of Armenians, which the pope this week described as genocide. (VOA http://bit.ly/1E2uwQA)
While some families fled eastern Ukraine because of the military conflict, many of the elderly stayed behind and now face a desperate shortage of health care – including basic drugs for pain relief and treatment of chronic illness. (NYT http://nyti.ms/1aUPNhR)
Opinion/Blogs
Survey Offers Rare Window Into Chinese Political Culture (NYT http://nyti.ms/1DhUf3V)
The challenge is the democratization of Cuba (El País http://bit.ly/1FSyo6U; Spanish)
Can extended cost-effectiveness analysis guide the scale-up of essential health services towards universal health coverage? (Lancet http://bit.ly/1EGDwcM)
The fears of Australia’s HIV crisis have faded. The laws of that time should too. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1COX1du)
What Jeff Sachs thinks you should study (Chris Blattman http://bit.ly/1EHvyQE)
Monetary policy in the future (Ben Bernanke http://brook.gs/1H8Ixvc)
Could It Have Been Otherwise? (CFR http://on.cfr.org/1JL6ubI)
Thousands Of Young Women In U.S. Forced Into Marriage (Goats and Soda http://n.pr/1FJCGs6)