HARARE, 02 August 2007 (IRIN) - The lifestyle normally associated with an urban society is fast disappearing from Zimbabwe's once bustling capital, Harare.

BOUAKE, 02 August 2007 (IRIN) - Harassment, extortion and physical assault are rampant at Côte d’Ivoire’s ubiquitous roadblocks and unless stopped the scourge will make true peace and stability impossible, Ivorians say.

BUKAVU, 01 August 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of internally displaced persons in eastern Congo, who spend nights in areas they consider safer, such as settlements close to UN peacekeepers, but return to their home farms during the day, have become known as 'pendulum' displaced. As a consequence of their constant movement, however, humanitarian workers struggle to determine the exact number of IDPs and how to effectively deliver aid to them.

MBABANE, 01 August 2007 (IRIN) - Pamela moves lethargically down the queue of trucks waiting for customs clearance at the Lavumisa border post between southern Swaziland and South Africa; an unlikely place for a 13-year-old but, hungry and hopeless, she says selling herself for food to truckers is her only alternative.

NAIROBI, 31 July 2007 (IRIN) - Malaria is the most common disease in Africa’s largest slum, Kibera, in Nairobi, say health workers, but at a cool altitude of about 1,700m, the capital city has long been considered a non-malarial zone.

DAKAR, 27 July 2007 (IRIN) - Food imports are keeping Sierra Leone from realising agricultural self-sufficiency and meeting the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating hunger by 2015, experts say. In a country where 80 percent of food is imported, mostly from the USA and Europe, the local agricultural industry is feeble and local farmers struggle to compete.

DAKAR, 26 July 2007 (IRIN) - Despite the serious threat posed by landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) in Guinea Bissau, in recent months international eyes have focused increasingly and almost exclusively on drug trafficking through this tiny West African nation.

PORT HARCOURT, 24 July 2007 (IRIN) - Youths armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs barricaded all approaches to Victoria Street in Port Harcourt, the main city in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, when a funeral took place there recently. With bandanas tied across their foreheads they searched people for weapons before letting them through. The funeral passed off without incident.