06/20/2013 03:41 GMT

by Serge Daniel

BAMAKO, June 20, 2013 (AFP) - The clock is ticking for Mali as it scrambles to organise key elections in less than 40 days following a ceasefire deal between the government and separatist Tuareg rebels.

The agreement, reached on Tuesday after 10 days of tense negotiations, will enable Malian troops to enter the Tuareg-held city of Kidal in the northeast to secure polls scheduled to take place on July 28.

Syamsul Huda M.Suhari, The Jakarta Post, Gorontalo | Archipelago | Tue, June 18 2013, 7:32 PM

Whirlwinds ripped through parts of Gorontalo city on Tuesday, damaging dozens of homes and a fish market.

Fishing villages in Pohe subdistrict, Hulonthalangi district, Gorontalo, suffered the most damage. According to locals, at least 75 houses had been damaged.

“The whirlwind, which came from the sea, approached land when heavy rains occurred at 12:30 p.m. local time,” said Irma, a local resident. No one was hurt in the disaster.

TNN | Jun 20, 2013, 06.10 AM IST

NEW DELHI: As part of one of the largest rescue and relief operation launched by the armed forces, the IAF on Wednesday deployed a C-130J 'Special Hercules' aircraft configured for "covert special operations" to undertake reconnaissance over the worst flood-affected areas in Uttarakhand.

Ambika Pandit, TNN | Jun 20, 2013, 06.09 AM IST

NEW DELHI: On Monday, residents of Old Usmanpur—a cluster of 500 river bed dwellings along the Yamuna Pushta—had watched the river rise and hoped that the flood would spare their homes. The settlement is no longer visible.

By SAW YAN NAING / THE IRRAWADDY

Observers including an official from the US Embassy and members of Parliament were present on Wednesday at union-level peace talks between the government and Karenni rebels, where the two sides discussed military affairs.

The talks took place in Loikaw, the capital of Karenni State, and were attended by senior government officials including Minister Aung Min of the President’s Office, Energy Minister Than Htay and Karenni State’s Chief Minister Khin Maung Oo, as well as members of the government-affiliated Myanmar Peace Center (MPC).

"Forgotten crisis" in Rakhine/Myanmar: More funds needed to aid displaced population

To mark World Refugee Day on 20 June, Malteser International is calling attention to a forgotten crisis of tragic proportions: the plight of the population displaced by ethnic violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, on the border with Bangladesh. The crisis there started exactly one year ago, forcing thousands of people to flee.

By Abdihakin Abdulahi, GBV Senior Community Mobilizer, Dollo Ado

June 14, 2013 – Fartun is a 23-year-old Somali refugee residing in Melkadida camp in the Dollo Ado refugee complex in Ethiopia. As a child, Fartun lost her father and lived with her single mother and two brothers in Somalia. After her father's death, she stopped going to school because she had to help her mother make traditional baskets and clothes in order to survive.

On a recent visit to a camp near Atmeh, just inside Syria near the Turkish border, some 21,000 people were sheltering amid hellish conditions.

Heavy rain leaked into the tents and had turned the clay soil into thick slippery mud, raw sewage flowed between the tents. The food being distributed was insufficient and of very poor quality and large numbers of people complained of medical conditions for which they were receiving no treatment.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:00 AM
Author: Anastasia Moloney

EL PLACER, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Under the gaze of a sniper, an elite soldier, with his finger on the trigger of an assault rifle, peers into a car at a sand-barricade checkpoint leading into Colombia's southwestern Cauca province.

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