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LESOTHO: Feeling the pinch of soaring food prices
JOHANNESBURG, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Urban families in Lesotho, a small landlocked southern African country, are struggling to cope with rising food prices, according to a recent survey.
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WEST AFRICA: But is it really trafficking?
LOME, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - For years children's rights groups have been fighting child trafficking in West Africa. Now, some of those groups are questioning how children have benefited from anti-trafficking interventions as they launch a project to understand children's perilous migration throughout West Africa.
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PAKISTAN: Sex work a dangerous game
KARACHI, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - On Napier Road, the notorious red light district in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial centre and largest city, thousands of women regularly risk contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by having unprotected sex for as little as 50 Rupees (US$0.60).
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SUDAN: The land is fertile yet food is scarce
KADUGLI, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Southern Kordofan state used to produce surplus food and cash crops, but poor infrastructure, limited access to markets, conflict and landmines have left large numbers of residents without enough to eat or sell.
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SOMALIA: "Too poor to escape the fighting"
NAIROBI, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Fadumo Mohamed Hassan and her seven children are among the few families left in Yaaqshid district of north Mogadishu, after worsening conflict forced most residents to flee the capital.
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ISRAEL-OPT: Nael, “I fear nothing now”
DUBAI, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - January is one of the coldest months of the year… but in these cold conditions, we have to leave windows partially open to prevent them from shattering in the bombardments.
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SENEGAL: Paul Thiao, "Farmers have become gamblers"
THIES, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Local farmers are feeling the impact of erratic weather patterns in Senegal. IRIN spoke with Paul Thiao, farmer and regional coordinator of the Senegalese Federation of NGOs (FONGS), which represents 32 farmer associations, about the weather-related challenges rural communities face.
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PAKISTAN: Urgent need for better family planning - experts
KARACHI, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Pakistan's rapidly increasing population is placing severe strains on economic resources, development and security, say experts who are urgently calling for more effective family planning.
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IRAQ: Budget cuts threaten IDP housing projects
BAGHDAD, 6 January 2009 (IRIN) - Lack of government funds could force the Ministry of Displacement and Migration to postpone until 2010 some housing projects designed to ease internal displacement, an official told IRIN on 4 January.
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MALAWI: Kassim Kalukwete, "I do not have maize at home"
LILONGWE, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Kassim Kalukwete, a subsistence farmer in his 60s in the lakeshore district of Mangochi in southern Malawi said his family and many others in his village, Kungumbe, do not have food.
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BURUNDI: FNL Prisoner release under way
BUJUMBURA, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - The release of the first 80 prisoners detained over their affiliation with a rebel group, the Parti pour la Liberation du Peuple Hutu-Forces Nationales de Libération (Palipehutu-FNL), has begun, following a decree issued by Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza on 30 December 2008.
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UGANDA: Poor TB management in the north heightens resistance risk
GULU, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Christopher Odong coughs incessantly in his bed in the tuberculosis ward of a hospital in the northern Ugandan district of Gulu. Diagnosed with TB six months ago, Odong did not complete his initial course of treatment and has developed a resistant form of the disease.
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UGANDA: Sheikh Muhamad Kibudde, "Amongst Muslims...there is a conspiracy of silence on HIV"
NAIROBI, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Sheikh Muhamad Kibudde, 43, is the deputy imam of Masjid Takwa in Kitende on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda. Two years ago, he tested positive for HIV and a year later surprised everyone by taking to the road to speak about AIDS and his own HIV status to fellow Muslims.
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SENEGAL: Forecasting the future in an erratic climate
THIES, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - In the darkness after pre-dawn prayer a village elder would squint at the sky overhead, tilting his head back until his cap fell off, looking for a cluster of bright stars that signalled the middle of the rainy season. Now many traditional methods are becoming increasingly unreliable predictors due to climate variability, and African farmers already facing fluctuations need scientific data to help them adapt, farmers and climate experts say.
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SOMALIA: Urgent help needed for thousands displaced in Galgadud
NAIROBI, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Local authorities in the central Galgadud region have appealed for urgent help for at least 80,000 people displaced by fighting in the towns of Dusamareb and Guri-Eil.
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ISRAEL-OPT: Water, sewage system “collapsing” in Gaza, says official
GENEVA, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - The UN has warned that power networks were down in large parts of the Gaza Strip on 4 January, with hospitals relying on generators. Without power for pumps, 70 percent of Gazans are estimated to be without tap water.
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ISRAEL-OPT: Bedouins lack protection from incoming rockets
NEGEV, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Israeli cities and towns within range of Palestinian militants' rockets fired from Gaza have air raid shelters, but Bedouins in the Negev desert outside Beer Sheba, southern Israel, say they are being treated unfairly and have nowhere to hide.
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SUDAN: It takes more than a law to stop the cut
KADUGLI, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - A law passed in November 2008 prohibiting female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in the state of Southern Kordofan is unique in Sudan. But for it to translate into genuine abolition, deep-seated attitudes and misinformation will have to be overcome.
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AFGHANISTAN: Little to eat for IDPs in makeshift Kabul camp
KABUL, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Azizullah's family left their home in the Sangin District of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, because of the worsening conflict, drought and food security situation. Their new home is a one-room mud-hut in the western outskirts of Kabul where over 4,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have established a makeshift camp.
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BANGLADESH: Acid attacks continue despite new laws
DHAKA, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Acid attacks against women and girls are continuing despite legal campaigns to halt their spread. Over 2,600 cases have been reported since 1999, according to the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) of Bangladesh.
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YEMEN: Jews in north increasingly being harassed
SANAA, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Members of the small Jewish community of some 270 people in Amran Governorate, northern Yemen, say they have been receiving renewed death threats from their Muslim neighbours since the start of the Israeli offensive against Gaza on 27 December.
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NEPAL: Tackling domestic violence not for the faint-hearted
KAVRE, 5 January 2009 (IRIN) - Being a community-based mediator in domestic violence cases is not for the faint-hearted. Saru Tamang has been slapped, verbally abused and threatened by male members of her village in Kavre District when she has gone to mediate in domestic violence cases. The village has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in the country, say local rights activists.
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IRAQ: Iraqis want free food programme to continue, finds survey
BAGHDAD, 4 January 2009 (IRIN) - An Iraqi government survey conducted late 2008 has found that 95 percent of Iraqi families would prefer to keep the state's free food programme running rather than replace it with financial aid, a government spokesman said on 3 January.
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MAURITANIA: Water treks grow longer, rougher
BOURA, 2 January 2009 (IRIN) - As water captured in village wells during the 2008 rainy season runs out or dries up, residents in southern Mauritania are spending more time and travelling farther in their hunt for water. Water gatherers in Boura village, 400km southeast of the capital Nouakchott, told IRIN January means the start of longer water treks.
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PAPUA NEW GUINEA: A helping hand for people living with HIV
MOUNT HAGEN, 2 January 2009 (IRIN) - In a small commune on a patch of wasteland next to the waterworks in Mount Hagen, the capital of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) Western Highlands Province, Paul Ari provides shelter to people living with HIV and AIDS who fear rejection by their families.
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TF: Climate Change 
