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LEBANON: Elections entrench sectarian divisions, analysts say
BEIRUT Sunday, June 07, 2009 (IRIN) - Sectarianism is playing a more central role in Lebanon’s highly contested parliamentary elections on 7 June, which analysts say could see the country facing increased political instability. The vote pits the Western-backed ruling coalition, predominantly made up of Sunni, Christian and Druze parties, against the Hezbollah-led opposition, mostly composed of Shia Muslims and Christians.
LEBANON: Hassan Cherry, "There is a kind of HIV phobia in my country"
NAIROBI Tuesday, June 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Hassan Cherry, 28, an AIDS activist from Beirut, is one of only about 3,000 HIV-positive people in Lebanon. He talked to IRIN/PlusNews about the fear and ignorance that people living with HIV still face in his country.
MIDDLE EAST: Tobacco kills – get the picture?
DUBAI Sunday, May 31, 2009 (IRIN) - Tobacco Health Warnings is the theme for this year’s World No Tobacco Day on 31 May. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is urging governments to increase public awareness of the dangers of smoking by requiring that all tobacco packages include pictorial warnings to show the sickness and suffering caused by tobacco use.
MIDDLE EAST: Swine flu cases appear in Egypt, Kuwait, UAE
DUBAI Monday, May 25, 2009 (IRIN) - Confirmed cases of A(H1N1) influenza, commonly known as swine flu, have been reported in new countries in the Middle East. Hitherto only Israel had reported cases of the new influenza virus.
MIDDLE EAST: Uphill struggle boosting disaster risk reduction efforts
MANAMA Thursday, May 21, 2009 (IRIN) - The Middle East has its fair share of natural disasters, but the notion of disaster risk reduction is new, and it is often difficult to persuade governments that funding it is worthwhile, experts say.
In Brief: Boost for renewables in Middle East/North Africa
DUBAI Thursday, May 21, 2009 (IRIN) - The Italian Foreign Ministry, the World Bank and the European Commission have launched a US$5 million programme to boost renewable energy in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region.
LEBANON: Tough life for Palestinians in neglected “gatherings”
KAFR BADA Monday, May 18, 2009 (IRIN) - For the last 30 years Ali Mohammed Hindawi, aged 84, has lived alone in a rusty tin shack in south Lebanon, without water, electricity or a toilet, sleeping among chickens, flies and litter, and separated from his family by displacement and poverty.
LEBANON: Funding shortfall threatens cluster bomb demining
BEIRUT Thursday, May 14, 2009 (IRIN) - Deminers in south Lebanon clearing hundreds of thousands of unexploded Israeli-dropped cluster bomb sub-munitions will lose two thirds of their teams this year unless a drastic funding shortfall is addressed.
MIDDLE EAST: Swine flu update
DUBAI Wednesday, May 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, have been reported in Israel, which is among 21 countries to have officially reported cases. No cases have been reported elsewhere in the Middle East, though the region has been adopting preventative measures.
MIDDLE EAST: Regional efforts to prepare for swine flu
DUBAI Wednesday, April 29, 2009 (IRIN) - Middle East countries are taking precautionary measures against swine flu as the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the global influenza pandemic alert level to Phase 4 after the influenza A /H1N1 virus infection claimed more than 150 lives in Mexico and spread to several other countries.
LEBANON: Fair deal for domestic workers?
BEIRUT Thursday, April 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Eighty Ethiopian women have been in Tripoli Women’s Prison in north Lebanon for over a year, accused of not having a passport which was either taken from them when they started as domestic workers, or which they never had in the first place.
LEBANON-SYRIA: Wretched conditions for Syrian workers
BEIRUT Monday, April 13, 2009 (IRIN) - Rights and labour groups say almost all the estimated 300,000 Syrians working in Lebanon have no official status, often endure dangerous conditions, and earn about US$300 a month doing jobs shunned by most Lebanese.
    
In Brief: United States approves rapid avian flu test
DAKAR Friday, April 10, 2009 (IRIN) - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a test that can detect the deadly H5N1 virus in humans through throat or nose swabs in 40 minutes. Current laboratory analyses that detect the avian flu strain can take up to four hours for confirmation.
In Brief: GPS and malaria
DAKAR Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (IRIN) - Malaria control has long depended on incomplete infection mapping or “spatial medical intelligence”. But in recent years the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) has used GPS (Global Positioning System) to plot malaria infections based on community surveys in 84 endemic countries.
MIDDLE EAST: Water treatment kit for household grey water
ISTANBUL Monday, March 23, 2009 (IRIN) - A kit designed to treat household waste water for reuse could be one of the ways to tackle water scarcity in rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa, according to a Canadian organisation.
In Brief: Good and bad news for world’s forests
DAKAR Monday, March 16, 2009 (IRIN) - In its biennial State of the World’s Forests 2009 report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes that climate change and economic recession present both challenges and opportunities for the world’s nearly four billion hectares of forest. While a protracted economic slump may increase illegal logging in cash-strapped areas and reduce governments’ commitment to green goals, declining demand worldwide for wood products and commercial forest-cultivated food may also save some forests – in the short term.
LEBANON: Improving access to polling stations for the disabled
BEIRUT Tuesday, March 10, 2009 (IRIN) - The last time Danny Abu Haidar participated in Lebanon’s democratic process, the experience left him feeling unable to vote independently. But it was not political bribery or sectarian pressures that affected Haidar on the day of the 2007 Beirut by-election, but the simple, practical matter of physical access.
In Brief: Drugs of the future – sea sponges?
DAKAR Tuesday, March 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Zoologists from Tel Aviv University are diving deep into the sea to gather marine sponges containing chemicals that could become antibiotics. Led by Micha Ilan, the team has identified thousands of chemicals that help sedentary sponges, glued to the sea floor, fight off predators.
In Brief: How can Arab countries boost their humanitarian work?
DUBAI Monday, March 02, 2009 (IRIN) - The Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities (QACA) is to organise a conference for humanitarian organisations in Arab countries on 3-4 March in Doha.
In Brief: H5N1 conquered in lab
DAKAR Thursday, February 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research have engineered antibodies that can fight off multiple influenza strains, including the highly contagious H5N1 avian flu virus.
In Brief: Unleashing mutated mosquitoes to fight malaria
DAKAR Thursday, February 19, 2009 (IRIN) - Anopheles gambiae may meet its match in Medea.
Scientists hope a synthetic gene known as Medea can wipe out the most common mosquito species that spreads malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists are trying to pinpoint the malaria-transmitting gene in mosquitoes and engineer genetically-modified mosquitoes (GMM) that lack the deadly gene. The hope is that GMM will prevail in a survival-of-the-fittest struggle between disease-carrying mosquitoes and the genetically-modified variety.
In Brief: Financial speculators and the food crisis
DUBAI Sunday, February 08, 2009 (IRIN) - A food security expert has said that the involvement of financial markets in basic food commodities was the biggest factor in the worldwide food price hikes over the past couple of years.
LEBANON: Funding struggle slowing cluster bomb clearance in south
BEIRUT Thursday, February 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Waning international interest and funding is harming efforts to rid southern Lebanon of its hundreds of thousands of remaining cluster bomblets, posing a continuing threat to farmers and children, according to mine clearance organisations.
LEBANON: Climate change and politics threaten water wars in Bekaa
NABHA, BEKAA VALLEY Sunday, February 01, 2009 (IRIN) - In the shadow of Black Peak Mountain in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, an historic feud over irrigation is being slowly re-ignited, illustrating how increased water scarcity is triggering social conflict in Lebanon.
LEBANON-SYRIA: Political thaw puts spotlight on the missing
BEIRUT Wednesday, December 17, 2008 (IRIN) - It was the summer of 1982 when Zahira Najjar, 66, last saw her son Abdallah, then 17 years old. He is one of 643 “victims of enforced disappearance” on a list drawn up by the NGO Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) and based on family testimonies.
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