The scale of people displaced from Mosul since the start of military operations to retake the city from Islamic State terrorists has stretched relief efforts to their “operational limits,” a senior U.N. official said. “Our worst case scenario when the fighting started was that up to one million civilians may flee Mosul. Already, more than 493,000 people have left, leaving almost everything behind,” Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said. “The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is staggering…we are doing everything we can but this has been a long battle and the assault on the old city hasn’t started.” (UN News Center http://bit.ly/2prjMJK)
Top Stories
Rescuers dug through heaps of mud and trash that collapsed onto a clutch of homes near a Sri Lankan garbage dump, killing at least 29 people and possibly burying dozens more. (AP http://apne.ws/2paxjpe)
Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike, in what their leader behind bars called a new step in the Palestinians’ “long walk to freedom.” (AP https://yhoo.it/2paghY4)
Thousands of unemployed Zimbabweans have turned to illegal gold panning in a bid to survive the country’s deteriorating economy, leaving a trail of destruction that has alarmed farmers, timber plantation owners and the country’s environmental authorities. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2paoCLI)
Two years of war may deprive a generation of Yemeni children of an education, the U.N. warned this month, putting them at greater risk of being married off or recruited as child soldiers for a conflict which has killed at least 10,000 people. (VOA http://bit.ly/2oPBFBh)
Talks between the United States and Afghanistan wrapped up on Sunday, as the Trump administration reviews its options in the 15-year American presence in Afghanistan in the face of a resurgent Taliban. (NYT http://nyti.ms/2oEuutl)
Messages of racial and ethnic discrimination continue to loom large over the bitterly contested race for governor in Jakarta — and larger still across Indonesia, where a pluralistic tradition and nascent democracy are facing a stern test from hard-line Islamic sentiment. (NYT http://nyti.ms/2oEwzp0)
One year after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck coastal Ecuador, the Ecuadorian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have supported thousands of families to recover and rebuild their lives. (Red Cross http://bit.ly/2paeN0a)
Opinion/Blogs
The United States is Bailing on the Green Climate Fund. Here’s why that’s a bad idea (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/2oPuEQz)
Who Runs the World? Mid-Level Bureaucrats. (Foreign Policy http://atfp.co/2par8Bg)
ETFs Show Limits in World of Emerging-Market Bonds (WSJ http://on.wsj.com/2oECVoE)
Instead of a wall, an open door: Why Ethiopia welcomes an enemy’s refugees (CSM http://bit.ly/2oE9D9u)
Brazil’s Scandal Cloud Just Got a Bigger Silver Lining (Bloomberg View https://bloom.bg/2pa8Mk2)
Which dimensions of household food expenditure are associated with child growth? New paper. (Development Horizons http://bit.ly/2oPC8TU)
How east Africa’s first state pension is changing lives – in pictures (Guardian http://bit.ly/2oEugm2)
When Disorder Has a Value: Denunciation and Liberty in Armed Conservation in the Central African Republic (Reinventing Peace http://bit.ly/2oEAJNX)
RIP Turkey, 1921 – 2017 (Foreign Policy http://atfp.co/2pav2Ku)
