DHAKA Monday, May 19, 2008 (IRIN) - Almost 3.5 million people in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, live in slums. The city is one of the fastest growing in the world with almost half a million people moving there every year, putting a huge strain on resources.

JOHANNESBURG Friday, May 16, 2008 (IRIN) - Violence against foreigners has flared up over the past week in Alexandra, a township in northern Johannesburg, South Africa, leaving two dead and more than 60 injured. Up to 1,000 people are still seeking refuge at a local police station and there are fears that xenophobic attacks will spread.

NOUAKCHOTT Tuesday, May 13, 2008 (IRIN) - The Mauritanian government says it is trying to increase prosecutions of rape cases but poorly trained judges working with murky, outdated legal texts make for slow progress.

OUAGADOUGOU Thursday, May 08, 2008 (IRIN) - With an increased number of children living in the streets of urban areas in Burkina Faso, the government and several non-governmental organisations are coming up with new approaches to address the problem.

ZIGUINCHOR Thursday, May 08, 2008 (IRIN) - Armed men claiming to represent the rebel group Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) attacked twenty villagers from Tampe 15 km east of the regional capital Ziguinchor on 7 May and hacked each of their left ears with machetes, according to the victims and the Senegalese army.

SANAA Tuesday, May 06, 2008 (IRIN) - Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East. Thousands of people flock to Sanaa, the capital, every year in search of work. But with few opportunities at hand many struggle to survive and are forced to live in cramped and dirty conditions.

KIREKA Thursday, May 01, 2008 (IRIN) - Melia Alanyo, 46, left northern Uganda for the capital city, Kampala, in the late 1980s when the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) started abducting, attacking and killing people in her village.

SANAA Thursday, May 01, 2008 (IRIN) - Scores of families have been displaced after a recent fire destroyed their makeshift homes in a slum area in southeastern Sanaa, Yemen's capital. Slum leader Salem al-Badwi said about 25 families (175 people) were living with host families as their small hut-like houses had been burnt to ashes.

KIREKA Thursday, May 01, 2008 (IRIN) - Carmela Acen fled her home in northern Uganda when the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began its insurgency campaign in 1986. She told IRIN/PlusNews about her life in Kireka, a high-density township in the capital, Kampala.

MALAKAL Wednesday, April 30, 2008 (IRIN) - Malakal, on the banks of the world’s longest river in Sudan’s Upper Nile State, should have enough water to quench thirst and clean itself; instead the town was grappling with serious challenges as it marked the international week of sanitation in March.

HANOI Tuesday, April 29, 2008 (IRIN) - In the face of yet another outbreak of cholera, Vietnam's capital city is closing down dog meat restaurants and unhygienic street food stalls, but not enough is being done to address Hanoi's decrepit sanitation system, a major source of the illness, according to health officials.

DOUALA Tuesday, April 29, 2008 (IRIN) - Almost two months after the government lifted import taxes on rice, flour and fish in response to riots caused in part by high food prices, consumers are still paying the same, and in some cases more.

DAKAR Monday, April 28, 2008 (IRIN) - Discontent in Senegal’s capital Dakar, where millions depend on imported rice and foodstuffs, has increased in lockstep with rising global food and utility prices. The government has touted a “self-sufficiency” rice growing campaign as its answer to people’s problems, but experts say the scheme is flawed.

MONROVIA Friday, April 25, 2008 (IRIN) - A surge in rice prices in 1979 contributed to Liberia's descent into chaos, sparking riots and a political crisis that led to the coup that brought Samuel Doe to power. Now the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has identified Liberia as one of 37 countries facing a hunger crisis as a result of food price hikes.

YAOUNDE Friday, April 25, 2008 (IRIN) - Local production of basic foods in Cameroon will double in the next two years if an emergency programme announced by the government on 24 April achieves its goals.

NOUAKCHOTT Wednesday, April 23, 2008 (IRIN) - President Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Cheikh took office as Mauritania’s first democratically elected civilian president in 47 years one year ago on 19 April 2007. He marked the completion of his first year in office facing down terrorist threats and a shaky economic outlook. Abdullahi is nonetheless expected to continue on the path of reform, analysts told IRIN.

JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (IRIN) - The authorities have yet to isolate the source of cholera that killed two residents of Soweto, South Africa's largest township, on the southwestern fringe of Johannesburg, but the community is blaming local government's failure to provide basic services like clean water and proper sanitation.

MONROVIA Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (IRIN) - The 15,000 strong United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in Liberia since 2003 has started pulling out but the UN will remain until all security challenges in the country are resolved, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in the Liberian capital.

KARACHI Sunday, April 20, 2008 (IRIN) - Pakistan is one of the most rapidly urbanising countries in South Asia. Approximately 35 percent of its urban population lives in slum areas with poor access to basic services. In Pakistan's commercial capital, Karachi, an estimated 50 percent of its 12 million residents live in slum areas.

MONROVIA Thursday, April 17, 2008 (IRIN) - Moderate hunger has been endemic in the Liberian capital for years, but as the effects of soaring global food and fuel prices have doubled rice prices, the aid agency Action Against Hunger (ACF) says thousands of city children are increasingly at risk of acute malnutrition.