Inside Track

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim says low commodity prices have cut into hopes of a resurgence in emerging economies [Xinhua]
Initial hopes that emerging markets could once again be lucrative to international investors appear to be fading, a new report on the global economy said on Tuesday.
The drastic drop in commodity prices, including oil prices that are 70 per cent lower now than the same period two years ago, has set back efforts by emerging markets to regain the momentum they once had just five years ago.

China, which claims about 2 million square km of the maritime territory, has always maintained that “the situation in the South China Sea is stable [Xinhua]
China’s Foreign Ministry responded sharply on Tuesday to US President Barack Obama’s remarks about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Obama had said that “bigger nations should not bully smaller ones”.

At least 200 million young girls, often below the age of five, have been subjected to female genital mutilation, the UN says [Xinhua]
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) this week issued a warning that the number of girls subjected to genital mutilation (FGM) will rise dramatically in the next 15 years unless strong measures are taken by key affected states.
There has been a decline in the prevalence of FGM in the past 30 years, the UN says, but not all affected countries have made progress.

The World Health Organization says as many as four million people may be infected by the virus in the Americas this year [Xinhua]
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US, the Zika disease is a virus spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
It was first reported in a monkey living in the Zika Forest in Uganda in 1947, and spread to humans in Africa and Asia within a few years.