IRIN News (Urban)
KENYA: Video game fights for behaviour change
NAIROBI Thursday, July 30, 2009 (IRIN) - At the community centre in Mukuru, a slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, teenagers spend hours engrossed in a video game, but they are not battling other-worldly forces with super-human weapons; instead, they are finding their way through a familiar-looking city, trying to negotiate real-life situations and learn how to avoid HIV infection.
IRAQ: Welcome move to upgrade Baghdad slums
BAGHDAD Thursday, July 30, 2009 (IRIN) - Slum dwellers and local NGOs have welcomed the partnership between the government and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) to improve service delivery, reduce poverty and create employment in slums.
Categories: Breaking News
NIGERIA: Thousands flee violence in northeast
MAIDUGURI Wednesday, July 29, 2009 (IRIN) - Government emergency management teams in Nigeria are distributing blankets and water to thousands of people displaced from the northeastern city of Maiduguri following clashes between an armed group calling for strict Islamic rule and Nigerian security forces.
Categories: Action Center Development
CAMEROON: Bringing street children back home
YAOUNDE Wednesday, July 29, 2009 (IRIN) - Ousmanou, 13, has lived in the streets of Cameroon’s political capital Yaoundé for four months. He and his brother used to live with their grandmother in the northern city of Maroua but she could not afford to feed them properly.
SOUTH AFRICA: Violent protests "worrying but not surprising"
JOHANNESBURG Thursday, July 23, 2009 (IRIN) - Protesters have again brought violence to township streets throughout South Africa over state failure to deliver on longstanding promises of housing and social services for all, but the discontent and frustration run much deeper.
NIGERIA: Security forces must investigate killings says rights group
DAKAR Wednesday, July 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Nigerian police and military forces killed 130 civilians, mostly young Muslim men, and must urgently investigate the matter, Human Rights Watch (HRW) told a judicial commission of inquiry into the violence in Plateau State in November 2008.
GAMBIA: Timeline of crackdown on journalists
DAKAR Monday, July 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Below is a timeline outlining the arrests and detention of prominent journalists in Gambia over recent years, as reported by Reporters without Borders and Amnesty International.
GLOBAL: PlusNews Survey
JOHANNESBURG Thursday, July 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Dear subscriber, PlusNews, the HIV/AIDS news service produced by the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), would like to invite you to participate in a short survey to evaluate and improve the service.
AFGHANISTAN: Unsafe housing puts Kabul residents at risk
KABUL Wednesday, July 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Most people in the Afghan capital Kabul live in illegal, unplanned and sub-standard houses that are prone to natural disasters and lack water and sanitation facilities, according to government officials.
AFRICA: Military munitions storage increasingly unstable
JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, July 14, 2009 (IRIN) - The growing number of accidental explosions in military arms and ammunition storage facilities across Africa has highlighted the need for minimum standards in stockpile management in the continent, says a South Africa-based think-tank.
GLOBAL: Urban poor and hungry burgeoning unnoticed
JOHANNESBURG Monday, July 13, 2009 (IRIN) - The number of poor and food-insecure people in developing countries is increasing more quickly in urban areas than in rural areas, and could be dropping off the policy radar, says new research by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Categories: Action Center Development, Breaking News
ZIMBABWE: OVC may be at greater risk of sexual abuse
JOHANNESBURG Friday, July 10, 2009 (IRIN) - Girls who have been orphaned may be twice as likely to experience sexual abuse, according to research from child-friendly clinics in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.
LIBERIA: TRC furore overshadows peace building proposals
MONROVIA Thursday, July 09, 2009 (IRIN) - As an angry debate rages over the 200-plus people recommended for prosecution by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), an independent body set up as part of the 2003 peace agreement, civil society groups warn its many other recommendations risk being overlooked.
GLOBAL: UK donor policy stokes concern of overpromising
DAKAR Wednesday, July 08, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid analysts applaud the “courage” of the UK government’s just-released development policy paper (link), which detailed plans to allocate at least half of all new bilateral funding to fragile states, but question how the government can do the job well without shrinking other aid commitments.
ZIMBABWE: Another round of cholera expected
HARARE Wednesday, July 08, 2009 (IRIN) - Despite a steady drop in newly registered cases and cholera-related deaths in Zimbabwe, the onset of the summer rainy season in September has aid agencies worried that the disease could spike again, and relief from Africa's worst cholera outbreak in 15 years may be short-lived.
MADAGASCAR: A shell-shocked youth
JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, June 24, 2009 (IRIN) - The future of reconciliation in Madagascar may hinge on its youth, but their involvement in months of political violence and continued exposure to turmoil has left them embittered and particularly vulnerable, says a new report.
UGANDA: Campaigns tackle "the complexity of sexuality
KAMPALA Monday, June 22, 2009 (IRIN) - New HIV prevention campaigns in Uganda are beginning to reflect the complexity of sexual relations, but experts warn they constitute only a small first step.
VIETNAM: Where the schools have no loos
HANOI Wednesday, June 17, 2009 (IRIN) - For Nguyen Cong Tuan, 10, a primary school student in Hanoi, using the toilets at school was a frightening experience.
GHANA: Road crash casualties hit maternal health efforts
ACCRA Friday, June 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Doctors in Ghana have had to halt special prenatal home visits – part of an initiative to beat high maternal mortality – because road crash casualties are taking up so much of their time and scarce resources, medical workers say.
SIERRA LEONE: Drug fight advances but risks remain
FREETOWN Friday, June 12, 2009 (IRIN) - While the government and international agencies are making what the UN calls “considerable” progress on reducing drug trafficking in Sierra Leone, the trafficking – coupled with youth employment and corruption – remains one of the most destabilizing forces in the country, observers say.
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