Goal 1: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger - Newsfeed

BANJUL Friday, April 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Government officials say this year’s groundnut harvest will prove the once-devastated industry is about to bounce back, but farmers say many obstacles remain.

OUAGADOUGOU Friday, April 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Families in Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso, have begun receiving US$3 vouchers that can be cashed in for maize, cooking oil, salt, sugar and soap. The distribution is the second half of a World Food Programme (WFP) urban hunger-alleviation experiment launched on 13 February in the capital, Ouagadougou, to help people cope with high food prices.

TOG-WAJALE Friday, April 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Dozens of families were displaced and thousands of livestock killed in three days after torrential rain induced flash floods in the west of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, officials said.

ACCRA Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - As G20 leaders meet in London to discuss how to revive and reform the global economy, Ghanaians have a message for the G20: They are already feeling the effects of the crisis and need solutions now.

NAIROBI Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Somalia has revoked fishing licences for foreign vessels and is planning a new law to regulate fishing in its waters, a minister told IRIN on 2 April.

GAZA CITY Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Gaza’s battered agricultural sector has the capacity to recover but only if there is access to the buffer zone, and only if Gaza’s commercial crossings are fully opened, according to a recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report on Gaza.

JOHANNESBURG Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Food experts called attention to agriculture as a driver of climate change as the first round of talks on a global agreement to cut dangerous greenhouse gas emissions got underway in Germany this week, but development agency Oxfam cautioned that the focus should be on getting a better deal on adaptation for farmers.

GAZA CITY Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (IRIN) - An estimated 1,346 children were left without one or more of their parents as a result of the recent 23-day Israeli assault on Gaza, according to Islamic Relief in Gaza.

SEYOUN Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (IRIN) - Delays in distributing food aid are generating anger and despair among people in the southern Yemeni governorate of Hadhramaut affected by the October 2008 floods, flood-displaced people and community leaders say.

LAY YWAR Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (IRIN) - Food insecurity is nothing new for many Rohingya in northern Rakhine State, most of whom live in abject poverty, but this year is particularly bad. Of the state's almost one million inhabitants, about 85 percent are Rohingya, an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority that are de jure stateless in line with the country's laws.

JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (IRIN) - With more rain predicted for much of Southern Africa the United Nations has released urgent emergency funding to accelerate assistance to thousands affected by the worst floods in over 40 years in Angola and Namibia.

SAMFYA Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - As food prices soar and stocks continue to fall, Zambians are finding it increasingly difficult to depend on maize and are being urged to look at a cheaper, drought- and pest-resistant alternative that is already keeping food on the table in the North.

MAIMANA Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - Despite a July 2008 joint emergency appeal for US$404 million to help the most vulnerable 550,000 pregnant and lactating women and under-five children in Afghanistan, nutritious food aid - specially fortified food -is yet to reach those in need.

HARARE Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - A Zimbabwean government minister has admitted to the dire conditions being experienced by the country's 14,000 prisoners.

JUGEDI Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - Pushkar Timilsina, a farmer in Jugedi village, southern Nepal, has decided to replace his traditional crops with something different and unusual - bananas. “The weather is becoming very unpredictable. We have to start preparing for the worst,” he told IRIN.

BANGKOK Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - Improvements have been significant in controlling the avian flu virus, but governments need to urgently tackle the factors allowing animal diseases to travel across borders to stop new contagions, according to top officials.

NAIROBI/HARGEISA Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - A severe drought that has gripped most of Somalia is worsening, with the affected populations needing urgent help after losing their livelihoods, Mahamud Abdi Ibrahim, the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN on 31 March.

DAKAR Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - FEWS NET, the USA-funded food security monitoring organisation, has reported that coastal harvests have brought cereal prices in West Africa down from an abnormal spike in January. But prices – expected to remain stable through April – are still higher than the five-year average.

SANAA Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - Members of the tiny Jewish community in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, say they have not received their monthly food rations or any government financial assistance for the past three months.

NOUAKCHOTT Tuesday, March 31, 2009 (IRIN) - The government in Mauritania has announced plans to resettle 9,000 slum-dwelling families from the outskirts of the capital, Nouakchott, to neighbourhoods in the city by the end of the year in an effort to wipe out slums. But residents and leaders of the receiving community, known as “Kosovo” for its war-like resource scarcity and extreme poverty, told IRIN the community’s already-strained services can ill-afford the expected influx.