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New home in Georgia is where there's a number on the door
04 Sep 2008 15:07:00 GMT
Author: Marie Cacace

Just like many other parts of the world, the school year will start soon in Tbilisi. This means that thousands of people now living in kindergartens and schools will have to move out in a few weeks. Those who cannot return home because of fear or because their houses have been destroyed don't yet know what their future will hold.

Hamlet is adamant that he won't be returning at all. "I do not think I will ever go home. Over the last few days, I have started to accept that maybe I will live here forever," he tells me as he looks at the walls of the crumbling building we are standing in. "My aunt who decided to stay in our village was buried a few days ago. I do not want any of my family to suffer the same fate. My father arrived here only yesterday. He saw his very own house burnt to the ground."

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AID WORKER DIARY: Birth, barbecued maize and the weekly shop
04 Sep 2008 10:54:00 GMT
Author: Jill Clare Mowbray

Many more donkey and carts are seen on a daily basis now, laden with maize, cabbages, bananas and ginger going to and from markets. In most of the areas, there is now a visible reduction in the severe acute malnutrition admissions. Hopefully this trend will continue if the crops are successful and prices stable enough for people to afford to buy and sell their food. And more selfishly, MSF staff are very happy that we can now have a more varied diet. BBQ maize is very good!

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A time of cholera in Southern Sudan
03 Sep 2008 13:05:00 GMT
Author: Joanne Offer

I'm standing outside a typical village church. But today its mud walls and thatched roof are offering a different kind of sanctuary - it's being used as a makeshift centre to treat suspected cholera patients from the surrounding area.

Inside, three women lie on mats on the dirt floor. They're hooked up to IV drips and seem to be making a good recovery, but I'm told that a young boy died here last night. His body went into convulsions because he didn't have enough fluids in his system. There was nothing the local nurse could do.

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AID WORKER DIARY: Fighting Ethiopia's food crisis
02 Sep 2008 09:26:00 GMT
Author: Jill Clare Mowbray

The journey from Shinshicho to Hadero takes thirty minutes along a pot-holed dirt road. It's difficult to believe that there are so many people starving in the area when you see farmers tending their crops every day. Cattle and goats are a daily scene. Everything is lush, green and quite beautiful.

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Satmaps said to show ethnic violence in South Ossetia
29 Aug 2008 14:31:00 GMT
Author: liesbeth Renders

Satellite images have long been useful to aid workers and governments in planning humanitarian assistance. But the increase in availability of high-resolution commercial imagery taken from the heavens is now helping human rights workers document abuses on the ground.

UNOSAT, a U.N. programme set up to put satellite imagery at the disposal of the relief and reconstruction community, has been using commercial satellites to hone in on the conflict between Georgia and Russia in South Ossetia. Analysis by UNOSAT experts shows patterns of destruction that may be consistent with evidence of ethnic attacks gathered by Human Rights Watch researchers working in the region.

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