At the time of preparing this article the latest Gaza ceasefire enters its second day. There is tentative relief to millions on both sides and Palestinian and Israeli teams prepare for tough talks in Cairo. Riyad al-Maliki, Palestinian foreign minister, said he expected the ceasefire to expand beyond 72 hours. The small teams of delegates bring conflicting demands. Palestinians want open border crossings. (Not only Israel has closed borders. The Egyptian regime is hostile to Hamas and suspicious of political Islam. Only 140 injured Gazans have gone to Egyptian hospitals since 8 July. See:  Meanwhile Israel wants Gaza fully demilitarised. The US is also due to participate in the Cairo talks. ‘We are determining at what level and in what capacity and when,’ said the US State Department spokesperson in Washington. Riyad al-Maliki complained to The Hague of war crimes committed by Israel. Israel said it did its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, accusing Hamas of putting people in harm's way by launching rockets from densely populated districts.

Lagos has eight suspected cases of Ebola with one case confirmed, all came into contact with Nigeria's first victim who died. On Tuesday the World Bank pledged $200 million towards containing the virus. A doctor in Lagos is the second case in the sprawling city. The doctor attended to a man working for Liberia's finance ministry who contracted the virus from his sister before travelling to Lagos for a meeting of West African officials. Seventy people who came into contact with the deceased are being monitored. Three show signs of the disease. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, himself an expert on infectious diseases, was deeply saddened at the breakdown of already weak health systems in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The funding will provide medical supplies, pay healthcare staff and manage priorities to try to contain the epidemic and prevent future outbreaks. Reports from Liberia say corpses are being dumped or abandoned and bodies of victims rot in the streets or in their homes. See also 

A member of the new Libyan parliament, Mustafa Abushagor, due to take office in August, was kidnapped on Tuesday by unknown assailants. Libya has failed to control ex-rebel militias who refuse to disband and who are threatening the unity of the country. Recent hostilities increase worries that Libya could become a failed state and return to war. Recently two brigades of former rebels have pounded each other's positions with Grad rockets, artillery fire and cannons. On Tuesday they agreed to a brief cease-fire to allow emergency services to fight millions of litres of blazing fuel in storage tanks. The US, Britain, Turkey and the Philippines have pulled out diplomatic staff, while France and Spain have evacuated more nationals and some diplomats. Canada is temporarily pulling out diplomats. ‘Libya's political leadership haven’t resolved differences that were there at the end of the revolution. See: 

US officials say Russia tested a new ground-launched cruise missile, breaking the 1987 intermediate range nuclear forces treaty. A Washington official said the United States is prepared to engage in ‘senior-level bilateral dialogue immediately’ with Russia to ensure Moscow's return to compliancy. The accusation comes as tensions between Russia and the West continue to grow over the crisis in Ukraine and the EU and USA announce new sanctions against Russia that aim to strangle Russia's oil industry and government-owned banks. It is now clear that the west has fundamentally changed its strategy in dealing with Russia. See also 

India has an estimated 13,300,000 enslaved individuals. A government hotline called ‘Child Line’, operates in a number of different languages. It is also used to report tip offs of human trafficking. There are also radio programmes focusing on raising awareness about human trafficking, and what aspects of the law can be used by people in the community against it. There are a few other radio channels raising awareness about human trafficking to ensure people understand what human trafficking is, and take notice of indicators that might suggest there is a case of trafficking occurring in their community. Over recent years the government has implemented various action plans to halt the growth of modern slavery, but India still remains 4th in global index rating of modern slavery. See also  for the laws policies and programmes to effectively and successfully address attitudes and social systems in India that create vulnerability and enable slavery.

Bolivia has become the first country to legalise child labour, reducing the minimum age of employment from 14 years to 10. The new law contravenes the International Labour Organisation's minimum working age protocol and is an abandonment of a child's right to a childhood. There are some protections included in the law: children between 10 and 12 must be supervised by a parent while they work, under-12s are not permitted to undertake third-party employment and children must still attend school. But with 850,000 child labourers in Bolivia and only 78 inspectors it will be difficult to uphold these protections. How will children, exhausted after a day's work, be able to engage in learning? Missing education erodes their chances for better paid employment in the future. Rather than breaking the cycle of poverty and illiteracy the new law appears to entrench it. Since 2005 the number of child slaves remains at around 5.5 million.

Liberia has closed most of her land borders after Ebola spread to Sierra Leone's capital Freetown and Lagos in Nigeria. This marks an alarming new front in the fight against a disease which up to now was confined to remote villages and rural outposts where 129 people have died. It spreads via bodily fluids and 56% of those affected die. The first confirmed case of Ebola in Freetown died Saturday after her parents forcibly took her from hospital. The World Health Organisation urges people showing signs of Ebola to go immediately to health centres. WHO said,‘We must stop the message that there is no treatment. The faster patients seek treatment in secure health centres the more likely they are to recover and avoid contaminating family members.’ Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse is leading an awareness campaign to encourage people to seek treatment. More than 430,000 people have been reached by their effort. See also: 

BBC analysts believe Hamas’s isolation after losing the support of former allies Syria and Iran and the Egyptian authorities crack down on smuggling tunnels has brought about attacking Israel as a way to obtain concessions in any eventual ceasefire. Meanwhile Qatar and Turkey, both supporters of Hamas, are participating in ceasefire negotiations. Israel does not trust them. Israel says even if it adopts a ceasefire it will continue searching out and destroying recent tunnels Hamas has built to bypass Israel's border defences (Security wall and Iron Dome) which up to now have mostly succeeded in preventing attacks within Israel proper. The current modern tunnel system is the first time that Israeli forces have faced a weapon against which they have no previous experience. Hamas has learned from Hezbollah how to improve its use of tunnels. Tunnels are now sophisticated, with water, sewage, and lighting allowing for month-long stays. See 

The UN accused Israel of attacking a UN-run school housing refugees in Gaza despite warnings that civilians were there. The Israeli military said in a statement that its ‘initial inquiry suggests that militants fired mortars earlier that morning from the vicinity of UNRWA school in Jebalia’ and soldiers responded by firing towards the origin of fire’. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using schools and civilian areas as bases to launch attacks. Last week, another UN-run school was hit. But the Israeli military denied any killings, saying a single ‘errant’ shell had landed in an empty courtyard. The UN on Tuesday revealed that a cache of rockets had been found at one of its schools in Gaza - the third case of its kind and the UN condemned it as a ‘yet another flagrant violation of the neutrality of our premises.’ Israel stepped up the intensity of its strikes saying it had hit a number of tunnelsl. See also 

Marzia grew up under the Taliban and was not allowed to go to school. She was a carpet weaver. Her husband, also an illiterate weaver, joined the army but was killed in 2010. They had two children. ‘For the 40-day mourning period I stayed with my in-laws then I moved to my parents' house. I can’t live on my own, I don't have a job. People think when a woman becomes a widow she becomes loose and immoral. They think we are like a pot with no lid, uncovered and ready to do anything. I can’t remarry because my in-laws might take my children away. My son is six. I've admitted him to school. I want him to fulfil his father's dreams. Whenever he went on duty he said, ‘If anything happens to me, don't let my son be illiterate. I want him to become an engineer or a doctor.’