The Global Fund had an important role to play here. “The World Health Organization on Monday certified Sri Lanka as a malaria-free nation, in what it called a ‘truly remarkable’ achievement. WHO regional director Poonam Khetrapal Singh said in a statement that Sri Lanka was among the most malaria-affected countries in the mid-20th century. WHO said Sri Lanka began an anti-malaria campaign that successfully targeted the mosquito-borne parasite that causes the disease, not just mosquitoes. Health education and effective surveillance also helped the campaign”Sri Lanka’s achievement is truly remarkable,” the WHO statement said. “The change in strategy was unorthodox, but highly effective. Mobile malaria clinics in high transmission areas meant that prompt and effective treatment could reduce the parasite reservoir and the possibility of further transmission.” It said no locally transmitted cases of malaria have been recorded in the country for 3½ years.” (AP http://yhoo.it/2cinyNb)
Meanwhile, Alarming News on Polio…”The World Health Organization has confirmed a third case of polio in an area of Nigeria newly liberated from Boko Haram Islamic extremists, the Rotary Club said Monday, amid fears the disease could resurge in neighboring countries. The West African nation that once was the global epicenter of the wild polio virus had been declared polio-free last year, along with the African continent. But two cases were discovered last month among refugees from areas recently won back by Nigeria’s military from Boko Haram. More cases are expected to be discovered in these areas. “ (AP http://yhoo.it/2c0GSfS)
Quote of the Day…”“Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum. We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me.” — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, referring to President Obama. (Guarduan http://bit.ly/2cfdh63 )
Humanity Affirming Stat of the Day: Programs supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have saved 20 million lives. (Global Fund http://bit.ly/2cip2qV)
Africa
Gabon’s justice minister resigned Monday over the government’s refusal to recount controversial ballots that saw violent protests and allegations of fraud after the president was re-elected by a slim margin. (NYT http://nyti.ms/2cffj5X)
Zambia’s constitutional court on Monday threw out an attempt by the defeated presidential candidate to annul August’s election results, clearing the way for President Edgar Lungu’s inauguration next week. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2bP0OX9)
Twenty-three people have died in a prison fire in Ethiopia over the weekend, a state-affiliated broadcaster reported Monday. (AP http://yhoo.it/2cuc9Mf)
Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General, spoke over the phone on Sunday with Gabon President re-elected Ali Bongo and Jean Ping, presidential candidate of the Démocratie Nouvelle party, urging an end to violence in the west African country. (VOA http://bit.ly/2cudqTE)
Nigeria’s secret service said it had arrested a man allegedly behind the abduction of seven contractors in the restive oil-rich south following a spate of hostage-for-ransom crimes. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2c2ToM9)
South Sudan still needs to agree the number and nationality of United Nations peacekeepers for a protection force, a government minister said on Tuesday, a day after President Salva Kiir approved the deployment in a bid to avoid a U.N. arms embargo. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bP1cF2)
The number of Africans at risk of malaria who live near dams will nearly double to 25 million by 2080 as areas where the disease is not currently present will become transmission zones due to climate change, researchers said on Monday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2cudDGi)
Members of South Africa’s ANC chanted slogans outside its headquarters on Monday demanding President Jacob Zuma step down in a rare public show of anger in the ruling party after its worst election performance since the end of apartheid in 1994. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2c2TgvZ)
MENA
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he proposed, to the US and Russia, the setting up of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, after Ankara-backed fighters pushed the Islamic State group from the border area. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2c0E9Tz)
A group of former Israeli politicians, security officials, artists and social activists on Monday urged the government to hold a national referendum on the future of the Palestinian territories. (AP http://yhoo.it/2ciorp8)
The Italian navy rescued nearly 500 boat migrants off the coast of Libya on Monday and recovered the bodies of six people who fell out of a leaking rubber vessel. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2bSKTpq)
Asia
A new generation of young Hong Kong politicians advocating a break from Beijing became lawmakers for the first time Monday in a result likely to rattle China. (Yahoo http://yhoo.it/2cC1gcF)
A pair of coordinated Taliban bombings targeted the Afghan Defense Ministry in a crowded neighborhood of Kabul on Monday, officials said, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens, among them senior security officials. (NYT http://nyti.ms/2cffmPy)
Indonesian police said on Monday they had broken up an online male prostitution ring and identified nearly 150 young men and boys, at least one as young as 13, offering sexual services. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bSJXkN)
Dozens of Indonesian men, suspected of being hired by an oil palm plantation company, threatened to kill environmental investigators checking on fires on Sumatra island, the environment ministry said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2c2TraR)
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed confidence Monday that former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a commission he is leading to resolve religious conflict in western Rakhine state will help heal the “wounds of our people,” even as the state’s most powerful political party refused to meet with the panel. (AP http://yhoo.it/2c2T8gb)
China, Taiwan, Japan and the Koreas will experience more violent typhoons under climate change, said researchers Monday, presenting evidence for a recent rise in storm intensity caused by ocean warming. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2bOBtrv)
The Americas
Hundreds of protesters have occupied a government office in Brazil’s capital demanding farmland for 120,000 landless families and other reforms, one of the country’s biggest land rights movements said on Monday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2cucgrd)
One of Puerto Rico’s largest universities is receiving $4 million from the National Science Foundation to help boost the U.S. territory’s agriculture sector. (AP http://yhoo.it/2bOCEr1)
A prominent journalist and lawyer on the Venezuelan island of Margarita was charged Monday with money laundering and will remain behind bars, according to family and a rights group, following his detention after publicizing a protest against President Nicolas Maduro. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bP1dsA)
Brazil’s Forjas Taurus SA, the largest weapons manufacturer in Latin America, sold guns to a known Yemeni arms trafficker who funneled them into his nation’s civil war in violation of international sanctions, according to charges in court documents. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bSJ9fO)
…and the rest
Truckers, farmers, dockers and merchants angry at the disruption caused by thousands of migrants in their midst in the northern French city of Calais blocked the main access route to Britain on Friday to press authorities to set the date to raze an overcrowded makeshift camp. (AP http://yhoo.it/2c2OyOP)
Greek authorities say seven people have been injured in a brawl at a camp for refugees and other migrants on the island of Lesbos, where overcrowding and a slow asylum process has fueled tension. (AP http://yhoo.it/2cC5tgB)
Hungary’s prime minister vowed Monday to protect his country’s borders against a possible surge in migrant arrivals this fall and offered to help neighboring Serbia to do the same. (AP http://yhoo.it/2bSK5Rd)
Global warming is disrupting ocean life from plankton to whales and the heat may linger in the depths for centuries even if man-made greenhouse gas emissions are halted, an international study said on Monday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2bOBZWq)
The G20 group agreed at their summit in China that refugees are a global issue and the burden must be shared, the leaders declared in a joint communique Monday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/2c2Tfbo)
Britain will pursue an immigration system that enables the government to decide who enters the country and not a points-based system that gives an automatic right to those who meet certain criteria, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/2c2U3xc)
A French prosecutor has requested that former President Nicolas Sarkozy —now vigorously campaigning for a second term— be sent to trial over suspected illegal overspending on his failed 2012 re-election campaign. (AP http://yhoo.it/2cC64ib)
Opinion/Blogs
Report: Women in Africa face profound gender inequalities and those inequalities do great economic harm to individuals and nations (UN Disptch http://buff.ly/2bP1hc9)
India’s silk road offers path to prosperity but not equality for female weavers (Guardian http://bit.ly/2c7q5uD)
Why Did the EAC Secretariat Shut the Peace and Security Department? (New Times http://bit.ly/2cufUyl)
Female Political Leaders like Hillary Clinton Still Extremely Rare (Inter Press Service http://bit.ly/2bSED0T)
Universal Health Coverage Requires ‘Action and Govt Funding’ (New Times http://bit.ly/2bSFD57)
How to Fund Africa’s Higher Education? (SciDevNet http://bit.ly/2cuhyjG)
Africa Needs to Move Faster to Deliver Life-Saving Soil Science Solutions (The Conversation http://bit.ly/2bOAHLc)
UN’s “hollow” Ring for SDGs Worldwide (Sunday Times http://bit.ly/2cuaS87)
Five things to take away from the G20 summit (AFP http://yhoo.it/2bOBAUb)
“The International Community” (An Africanist Perspective http://bit.ly/2bOEh8h)
The theatre of development (Devpolicy http://buff.ly/2bSMV97)
Why Is Calcutta Now Kolkata? What Other Names In India Are Changing? (Goats and Soda http://buff.ly/2c0J2Mk)