The number of suspected cases of Ebola has risen to 18 from nine in less than a week in an isolated part of Democratic Republic of Congo, where three have died from the disease since April 22, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. The risk from the outbreak is “high at the national level,” the WHO said, because the disease was so severe and was spreading in a remote area in northeastern Congo with “suboptimal surveillance” and limited access to health care. “Risk at the regional level is moderate due to the proximity of international borders and the recent influx of refugees from Central African Republic,” the organization said, but it nonetheless described the global risk as low because the area is so remote.” (NY Times http://nyti.ms/2qvKgsU)
Brazil headed for more turmoil? A food company executive secretly recorded President Michel Temer of Brazil endorsing the executive’s payment of hush money to a once-powerful politician jailed for corruption, a Brazilian newspaper reported. The newspaper, O Globo, said that Mr. Temer also directed the executive to pay a lawmaker to help resolve a problem at a company plant, and that the police later filmed the lawmaker receiving about $143,000. The allegations could not immediately be confirmed independently, and Mr. Temer issued a statement late Wednesday night denying them. But even after years of sensational accusations and arrests in Brazil’s corruption scandals, the report sent shockwaves through the country’s establishment. (NY Times http://nyti.ms/2q0lT36)
Climate change warning of the day: Small but inevitable rises in sea level will double the frequency of severe coastal flooding in most of the world with dire consequences for major cities that sit on coastlines, according to scientists. (Guardian http://bit.ly/2q0ymUH)
Top Stories
European Union lawmakers are demanding that the bloc’s nations respect pledges to share tens of thousands of refugees in overwhelmed Greece and Italy. (AP http://apne.ws/2q0H0SZ)
Yemen’s cholera epidemic is taking hold at a speed that is deeply worrisome – Shinjiro Murata, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières, which alone has treated 1,670 patients, said he is “very concerned that the disease will continue to spread and become out of control.” (IRIN http://bit.ly/2qxr3b0)
More than 80 girls went on a hunger strike in northern India to protest the harassment they faced on the way to school, drawing attention to the dangerous commutes that are a key barrier to girls’ education in the country. (VOA http://bit.ly/2qvwqXQ)
The Group of 77 has reiterated the urgent need for strengthening South-South cooperation for the successful implementation of one of the UN’s key objectives targeted over the next 13 years: the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. (IPS http://bit.ly/2qvUIkv)
More than 100 lone children cross into Uganda each day as they flee conflict in South Sudan, walking for days on end with no food or family to sustain them, an aid agency said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2qw0LW7)
Civil society groups in India are working together on a new campaign to end child sexual abuse by 2021 by raising awareness and action to the widespread problem. (VOA http://bit.ly/2q0CwvT)
The World Bank gave Botswana a $145.5 million loan to build water projects after it suffered a severe El Nino-induced drought in the past two years, Finance Minister Kenneth Matambo said on Thursday. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2qvx7Ag)
The United States on approved $526 million aid to Tanzania over the coming year to expand the roll out of life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs to people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. (Reuters http://bit.ly/2qvOqBl)
Opinion/Blogs
Trump’s First Foreign Trip Will Take Him to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe. Here’s What You Need to Know (Global Dispatches Podcast http://bit.ly/2qxrwdl)
Should America Keep Giving Billions Of Dollars To Countries In Need? (NPR Goats and Soda http://n.pr/2rvtB6D)
They smashed my face and demolished my home – all for the Rio Olympics (Guardian http://bit.ly/2pXoQCy)
Colombia’s Tenuous Peace Needs U.S. Support (Foreign Policy http://atfp.co/2riYsa7)
Mourning a journalist in Mexico who said ‘no to silence’ (PRI http://bit.ly/2pXFMsE)
How to stop the global inequality machine (Guardian http://bit.ly/2riV0MN)
The real crisis in North Korea is not the one you’ve been hearing about (IRIN http://bit.ly/2pXJoKZ)
4 ways shipping can help meet the SDGs (Devex http://bit.ly/2rviw5p)
Revolution and Authoritarianism in North Africa (book review) (Aidnography http://bit.ly/2qxqcXM)
Why Faith-Based Organizations are particularly well suited to ‘Doing Development Differently’ (From Poverty to Power http://bit.ly/2qxkJjK)
