IRIN - Integrated Regional Information Networks

KABUL Monday, December 29, 2008 (IRIN) - Iran is to suspend large-scale deportations of illegal Afghan migrants until March 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) has said.

FRANCISTOWN Wednesday, December 24, 2008 (IRIN) - The streets of Botswana's Francistown, about 110km from Zimbabwe's western border, are teeming with Zimbabwean shoppers ahead of Christmas.

KARACHI Thursday, December 18, 2008 (IRIN) - Like thousands of Pakistanis, Fida moved to Saudi Arabia in search of a better life 10 years ago. He found work as a labourer in the coastal city of Jeddah, but because he was supporting his family back home, could not yet think of marrying.

KABUL Thursday, December 18, 2008 (IRIN) - Afghan government officials and aid agencies are calling on the Iranian authorities to halt the deportation of Afghans from Iran during the winter for humanitarian reasons.

JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, December 17, 2008 (IRIN) - The future of Zimbabwe hangs on the thread of a power-sharing deal that the opposition parties claim waters down their recent electoral successes and the government interprets as an agreement that allows the opposition - seen as fifth columnists for renewed colonisation - to have a major stake in government and reverse the gains of its revolution.

MUSINA Tuesday, December 16, 2008 (IRIN) - After just a few hours on a drip, Merycinah Chauke said she could see an improvement in her three-year-old son, under treatment for cholera in a makeshift emergency centre at Madimbo Clinic, in South Africa's northern Limpopo Province.

BANJUL Thursday, December 11, 2008 (IRIN) - The Gambian government loses up to half of its trainee health workers every year to the private sector or to jobs abroad, causing dangerous shortfalls in patient care in some government hospitals, health workers say.

JAKARTA Wednesday, December 10, 2008 (IRIN) - In 2004, Rima, a domestic helper in Hong Kong, was repeatedly beaten and raped by her employer until she met a fellow Indonesian who took her to the police.

NAIROBI Monday, December 08, 2008 (IRIN) - As the Poznan Climate Change conference enters its final days, IRIN, with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is pleased to announce the launch of eight short videos exploring the human cost of climate change in Africa

MANILA Friday, December 05, 2008 (IRIN) - Maureen Tating has just celebrated her seventh birthday thousands of miles away from her parents, who have been employed in low-skilled jobs in the US for the past four years.

EREBTI Friday, December 05, 2008 (IRIN) - Afar region in north-eastern Ethiopia has had little rainfall for the past six to 10 years, resulting in a prolonged drought that has seen a drastic reduction in livestock, which are treasured by the mainly pastoralist communities. Zahara Abdu, 29, mother of six, a resident of Haitan village in Erebti zone, has left her home to seek refuge in the nearby urban area of Erebti:

MAE SOT Wednesday, December 03, 2008 (IRIN) - When Lynn Mon and his family arrived in the Thai border town of Mae Sot in June, they were penniless. Cyclone Nargis had devastated their village in the Ayeyarwady Delta, destroying their home, farmland and livelihood, as well as killing 30 members of their family.

NOUAKCHOTT Tuesday, December 02, 2008 (IRIN) - Environmental degradation, responsible for the dangerous displacement of sand dunes in Mauritania, has wiped out homes, livestock and livelihoods throughout the desert country. An October UN study estimated that land degradation costs nearly US$200 million annually in potential revenue losses and health care expenses.

PRAIA Monday, December 01, 2008 (IRIN) - In Cape Verde violent crimes were five times higher in 2007 than over the past 10 years combined, according to the country’s investigative police. Residents, police and the government are grappling with the increase, pointing to drug trafficking, criminal deportees, unemployment and even television as potential causes.

PRAIA Wednesday, November 26, 2008 (IRIN) - About 900 Cape Verdeans have been deported back to the islands since 1992. Rejected by their host country after they committed crimes, the group of mostly young male deportees said they have returned home only to find plentiful drugs, unemployment and discrimination.

CAPE TOWN Friday, November 21, 2008 (IRIN) - Aunesi Saidi Omari lives in the Philippi township of Cape Town, South Africa. A refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, she was a victim of the xenophobic violence that hit South Africa in May 2008. Afraid of going back to the local community, she is now unsure of her future.

CAPE TOWN Friday, November 21, 2008 (IRIN) - As Aunesi Omari and her children cowered in her room in Philippi, a low-income section of the South African city of Cape Town, in Western Cape Province, she heard the armed men outside shout: "We're going to kill you because you don't want to listen."

DAKAR Tuesday, November 11, 2008 (IRIN) - For the first time in over a decade remittances to sub-Saharan Africa are set to fall in 2009, increasing people’s vulnerability to poverty, officials at the World Bank say. Remittance income in developing countries is expected to decline by about 1 percent from 2008 to 2009.

PRAIA Thursday, November 06, 2008 (IRIN) - Illegal housing precariously built on the volcanic archipelago of Cape Verde threatens to increase erosion, land disputes, disease, flooding, and crime, according to the government and its NGO partners who are trying to contain the damage of clandestine urban sprawl.

DAKAR Tuesday, November 04, 2008 (IRIN) - Health providers – frequently the first professional a trafficking victim consults for help – are often thrust into the fight against organised crime without adequate preparation, according to the International Organization of Migration (IOM). The agency said there is an urgent need to ensure care for victims of trafficking and hopes to fill the gap with its soon-to-be released guidelines for health workers.