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GUINEA: Drug trade Â'potentially more dangerous than Guinea-BissauÂ'
UN | Irin Africa | News 11 10 2008 CONAKRY, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Guinea has become a major drug-trafficking hub and the trade there is now potentially more dangerous than in Guinea-Bissau, according to Antonio Mazzitelli, regional representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
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Millions more Ethiopians going hungry as aid effort stalls
Oxfam International | Press Releases 10 10 2008 The number of Ethiopians needing emergency assistance has leapt by 40 percent from 4.6 million to 6.4 million people since June, according to latest official figures from the United read more
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MALI: When the worldÂ’s deserts flood
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 DAKAR, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - In August floods loosened the dry caked Sahelian earth in Gao, northern Mali, affecting more than 1,000 people, many of whom temporarily took refuge in area schools. While displaced families have since vacated schools in time for the beginning of the school year on 6 October, many families remain homeless, according to the Mali Red Cross.
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SIERRA LEONE: Government tightens control of NGOs
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 DAKAR, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Officials in Sierra Leone are drafting a new law that will tighten controls on non-profit organisations working in the country, joining other governments demanding more accountability from their donors.
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UGANDA: New centre to boost paediatric HIV care
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 KAMPALA, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Children living with HIV in Uganda have been given greater access to treatment with a new paediatric HIV care centre opened at the main referral hospital in the capital, Kampala.
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ZIMBABWE: How do you rein in 231 million percent inflation?
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 JOHANNESBURG , 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's official annual inflation rate reached 231 million percent in early October, from the July estimate of 11.2 million percent, and the deadlock in talks between the ruling ZANU-PF and opposition parties is likely to push hyperinflation higher.
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DRC-RWANDA: Fighting flares as civilians run in eastern Congo
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 BUNIA/KIGALI, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Serious fighting has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province and in the neighbouring district of Ituri, with thousands of civilians displaced, and others cut off, amid claims that foreign troops had deployed in parts of the east.
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Plans for new antimalarials from the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV)
DFID | Research for Development | News 10 10 2008 Plans to create a new set of antimalarial drugs are described in the 5-year plan of the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), launched on 25 September in conjunction with the Global Malaria Action Plan
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AFRICA: ‘Sexually-transmitted grades’ kills quality education
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 DAKAR, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Sexual exploitation in African schools has become so widespread that children have come up with their own terms to refer to sexual relations with their teachers. From ‘Sexually Transmitted Grades' to ‘BF', or bordel fatigue, which refers to exhaustion from multiple sexual activities with teachers, this slang hints at the prevalence of exploitation in Africa's learning environments.
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UGANDA: Children eke out a living on the streets
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 GULU, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - John Kibwola, 14, braves the scorching afternoon sun as he sells his collection of plastic bottles along Acholi Street in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu.
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KENYA: Government launches anti-malaria campaign
UN | Irin Africa | News 10 10 2008 NAIROBI, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - Kenya's Ministry of Health has launched a four-day nationwide campaign to retreat at least 1.8 million bed nets with long-lasting insecticide to control the spread of malaria as the rainy season sets in, a senior health official said.
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SAHEL: Voices from clandestinity
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 AGADEZ, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 35,000 sub-Saharan clandestine migrants leave for North Africa and Europe every year. But researchers concede the near impossibility to track what is carried out in secrecy, facilitated by family connections and favours, bribes and beatings. Despite increased security crackdowns and forced mass expulsions by North African security forces, thousands of West African migrants still attempt the desert crossing from northern Niger through the gateway town of Agadez. The following migrants IRIN met asked to remain anonymous.
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EU member states should follow the Parliament’s lead and reduce role for biofuels
Oxfam International | Press Releases 09 10 2008 EU member states must follow the Parliament’s lead and oppose the European Commission’s proposal to boost the use of biofuels in transport fuels to 10% by 2020, as part o read more
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SWAZILAND: Go west young man or woman
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 MBABANE, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - King Mswati has directed Swaziland's college graduates to leave the country to find employment, admitting that a lack of jobs at home gives them no alternative.
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KENYA: Rising demand for male circumcision
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 KISUMU, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Health facilities in Nyanza Province in western Kenya are struggling to meet the demand for medical male circumcisions since politicians threw their weight behind efforts to promote the procedure as a way of reducing HIV infections.
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ZIMBABWE: WFP makes emergency US$140 million appeal
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 JOHANNESBURG, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Emergency food assistance for nearly half of Zimbabwe's 12 million population could run out at the peak of the crisis if donors fail to provide US$140 million, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement on 9 October.
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NIGER: Freddy Kasseri, Â'Migrants are dying out hereÂ'
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 AGADEZ, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - AGADEZ, Freddy Kasseri, 23, travelled from Ghana to Niger intending to cross the desert into Libya. He did not make it. Libyan security forces return migrants via land to a military post in northern Niger, where the migrants are turned over to Nigerien soldiers. Kasseri was transferred 650km to Agadez, where he is working to save money for a second attempt.
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WEST AFRICA: Migrants risk all to cross desert
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 AGADEZ, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Sub-Saharan migrants continue attempting dangerous and illegal crossings into Libya and Algeria. They pick their way through Niger's Air mountains, circumventing a mountain rebellion, increased mountain banditry, and North African border crackdowns, according to migrants and smugglers in Niger's mountain gateway town of Agadez.
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SOMALIA: Floods add to IDP misery in Lower Shabelle
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 NAIROBI, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Thousands of internally displaced persons living in camps in and around Somalia's southern port town of Marka have been left without shelter after heavy rains pounded the area, officials said.
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ETHIOPIA: Can't eat, won't learn
UN | Irin Africa | News 09 10 2008 HWASSA, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Ethiopia's schools have opened for the new academic year, but severe food insecurity in some regions has kept thousands of children out of class.
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Financial crisis threatens efforts towards global anti-poverty targets, says Migiro
eGov Monitor | International Development 09 10 2008 Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has warned countries that the current financial crisis, which is impacting all economies and exacerbating the suffering of millions, is also threatening the efforts to slash poverty, hunger, disease and other socio-economic ills by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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Science and technology aid 450 million small farmers under the plan
eGov Monitor | International Development 09 10 2008 The world’s 450 million small farmers, responsible for the livelihoods of over 2 billion rural poor people, will gain greater access to scientific and technological advances and agricultural research under a United Nations-backed agreement signed today.
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GUINEA-BISSAU: Government workers strike for back pay
UN | Irin Africa | News 08 10 2008 BISSAU, 8 October 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of public sector workers across Guinea-Bissau, including nurses, doctors and civil servants, are striking over salary arrears, leaving basic services running at minimum capacity.
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BENIN: Blood shortage proves deadly
UN | Irin Africa | News 08 10 2008 COTONOU, 8 October 2008 (IRIN) - Fear, a lack of blood donation supplies and ill-trained health staff have led to a dangerous blood shortage in Benin, said the head of the country's blood donor association.
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ZIMBABWE: You have to plant before you can harvest
UN | Irin Africa | News 08 10 2008 BULAWAYO, 8 October 2008 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe faces yet another disastrous agricultural year: with hardly a month to go before the planting season starts, many farmers have not received the fertiliser and seeds they need.
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