TEL AVIV 21 May 2012 (IRIN) - The arrest and imprisonment earlier this month of the head of Israel's biggest trafficking ring of young women will deter some of those involved in sex slavery, but former victims and activists say much more needs to be done to stop the practice.>

TEL AVIV 17 May 2012 (IRIN) - Blessing Akachukneu was already looking for a new place to live when her south Tel Aviv apartment, which doubles as a day-care centre, was firebombed in April. Her Israeli neighbours, she explained, had complained to the landlord about the noise from the day-care centre and she had been asked to leave. Otherwise, she had not had any problems in Shapira neighbourhood. >

SEBHA 14 May 2012 (IRIN) - A tenuous peace has taken hold in Libya’s southwestern city of Sebha more than a month after tribal clashes killed at least 70 people, with tensions still high between communities living here, many of whom have their own armed militias, according to local residents.>

RAMALLAH/TEL AVIV 14 May 2012 (IRIN) - Israeli settlers east of the separation barrier in the central West Bank occupy the land most critical for any future final status agreement under a two-state solution. But instead of limiting settlement expansion, critics say the Israeli authorities are setting a dangerous precedent by legalizing new outposts and undermining the law.>

RAMALLAH/TEL AVIV 14 May 2012 (IRIN) - Israeli settlers east of the separation barrier in the central West Bank occupy the land most critical for any future final status agreement under a two-state solution. But instead of limiting settlement expansion, critics say the Israeli authorities are setting a dangerous precedent by legalizing new outposts and undermining the law.>

RAMALLAH/TEL AVIV 14 May 2012 (IRIN) - Israeli settlers east of the separation barrier in the central West Bank occupy the land most critical for any future final status agreement under a two-state solution. But instead of limiting settlement expansion, critics say the Israeli authorities are setting a dangerous precedent by legalizing new outposts and undermining the law.>

RAMALLAH/TEL AVIV 14 May 2012 (IRIN) - Israeli settlers east of the separation barrier in the central West Bank occupy the land most critical for any future final status agreement under a two-state solution. But instead of limiting settlement expansion, critics say the Israeli authorities are setting a dangerous precedent by legalizing new outposts and undermining the law.>

JOHANNESBURG 10 May 2012 (IRIN) - The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced that it will have US$1.6 billion more to invest in life-saving programmes between 2012 and 2014.>

During the last decades, North African decision makers have endeavoured to improve social and economic conditions of their populations. Globally, health, ...

CAIRO 08 May 2012 (IRIN) - Yemen is heading for a major humanitarian crisis unless relief organizations quickly boost their response capacity, and donors, including wealthy neighbours, provide much-needed funding to contain rising malnutrition, disease and poverty.>

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has made impressive strides in reducing gender gaps in human development. The ratio of girls to boys in ...

The effect of agricultural trade liberalisation on poverty varies widely across countries, in part because the effect of liberalisation on agricultural ...

BENGHAZI 03 May 2012 (IRIN) - In one of the many rooms where detainees are held at Ganfouda detention centre in Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, Suleiman Mansour*, a young Somali from Mogadishu, spends his days locked up along with 15 other migrants. They lie on mattresses propped against the walls, which are scribbled with names and slogans: one says “I love Somalia”.>

GAZA CITY 02 May 2012 (IRIN) - From factories to the fishing industry, the Gaza Strip economy is being affected by more than two months of fuel shortages and power outages, taking a toll on the livelihoods of its 1.6 million inhabitants.>

TRIPOLI 01 May 2012 (IRIN) - Six months after an uprising brought down Muammar Gaddafi's government, thousands of displaced Libyans are still living in abandoned construction sites, empty student dormitories or with host families, too afraid to return to their homes.>

This brief provides an analysis on how the global crises has contributed to exacerbating an already deteriorated context in the Arab region which is marked ...

SANA'A 26 April 2012 (IRIN) - Two months after Yemen’s new government was sworn in, violence in the south appears to be increasing with attacks and kidnappings blamed on militants, while more than 10 million people are food insecure and almost half a million internally displaced. The UN says at least 800,000 children are acutely malnourished.>