DUBAI, 26 November 2007 (IRIN) - Contents:

GLOBAL: UN emergency fund CERF and NGOs - "Progress made, progress to make" GLOBAL: IRIN presents Tomorrow's Crises Today: the humanitarian impact of urbanisation - the book IRAQ: Diyala desperately needs doctors IRAQ: Two die of cholera in Baghdad orphanage IRAQ: Extremists fuel anti-women violence in Basra IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned IRAQ-SYRIA: Lack of money, visa problems prompting Iraqi refugees to return home ISRAEL-OPT: Inside the maze: movement restrictions in the West Bank

ISRAEL: MPs, activists battle to raise minimum marriage age to 18 JORDAN: Water contamination incidents highlight water shortage problem OPT: Proposed humanitarian terminals in West Bank could triple aid costs - UNRWA SYRIA: Aid agencies begin food deliveries to over 50,000 Iraqi refugees SYRIA: Demand for health care soars as spending shrinks YEMEN: Efforts to reduce rising number of female qat chewers

GLOBAL: UN emergency fund CERF and NGOs - "Progress made, progress to make"

In a January report, Save the Children UK - one of the more vocal non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on humanitarian financing reforms - criticised the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for being "clumsy and inefficient" in its distribution of funds to NGOs.

However, by September this year their view had shifted. "I'm fairly optimistic that things are moving in the right direction," said Amelia Bookstein, head of humanitarian policy at Save the Children UK (Save UK). The NGO had criticised the CERF for the "slow, bureaucratic, and wasteful" way money is distributed to NGOs, the major implementing partners of UN humanitarian programmes in the field.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75404

GLOBAL: IRIN presents Tomorrow's Crises Today: the humanitarian impact of urbanisation - the book

Tomorrow's Crises Today explores the effect living in today's cities has on the millions of people who already live in metropolises, and those who are being drawn into them from the countryside every day - by the millions. Using 10 cities from around the world (and over 70 photographs) as illustrations of different crises that face today's urban poor, this new publication by OCHA/IRIN, in collaboration with UN-HABITAT, seeks to emphasise the urgent needs of many urban dwellers.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75390

IRAQ: Diyala desperately needs doctors

A shortage of doctors in Diyala, a volatile province in eastern-central Iraq, has led to nurses having to take on many tasks and procedures for which they are not qualified, according to Diyala's health department.

"Patients are relying on nurses because there aren't enough doctors to meet the demand. We know this is not right but what can we do when desperate people search for help or advice and there isn't a doctor available," said Adiba Nasuh, a nurse working at Baqubah General Hospital in the provincial capital.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75367

IRAQ: Two die of cholera in Baghdad orphanage

Two Iraqi orphans died of cholera last week in Baghdad, bringing the deaths from this disease nationwide to 23 since it first appeared in August, the Health Ministry said on 18 November.

"The two boys - one died on 15 November and the other died a day earlier - were under 15 and were in the same orphanage where malnourished children were found last summer tied to their beds," said Adil Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector-general.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75373

IRAQ: Extremists fuel anti-women violence in Basra

Anti-women violence in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, about 600 km south of the capital, Baghdad, has increased markedly in recent months and has forced women to stay indoors, police and local NGOs have said.

"Basra is facing a new type of terror which leaves at least 10 women killed monthly, some of them are later found in garbage dumps with bullet holes while others are found decapitated or mutilated," the city's police chief Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf told IRIN in a telephone interview.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75396

IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned

Nine-year-old Faleh Muhammad was abandoned by his family in April 2006. He was left to fend for himself in the streets of Baghdad, and later he was diagnosed with leukaemia.

"I miss my mother… in the last days before they left me, she was very sad. One day I woke up in the morning to find my father and mother had disappeared," Faleh said.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75441

IRAQ-SYRIA: Lack of money, visa problems prompting Iraqi refugees to return home

Lack of funds and the Syrian government's refusal to renew their visas, more than the perception of improved security in Iraq, are prompting some Iraqi refugees in Syria to return to Iraq, according to personal refugee accounts and figures from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The Iraqi government recently announced that 46,000 refugees returned to Iraq in October, mostly from Syria, while a Syrian immigration source said that between 1 October and 19 November 60,000 people had returned to Iraq.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75454

ISRAEL-OPT: Inside the maze: movement restrictions in the West Bank

Traffic news on the radio in the West Bank is more likely to be about checkpoints and barriers than jams and accidents, as a complex system of controls and permits can make a short journey for work, family or medical reasons into a time-consuming marathon, according to a new UN report.

A joint Special Focus by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, released in November, said that only about 18 percent of the people who worked the land are now able to obtain Israeli-issued permits, required to access the zone between the Barrier and the Green Line, Israel's pre-1967 border.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75426

ISRAEL: MPs, activists battle to raise minimum marriage age to 18

A coalition of members of parliament and women's rights activists have joined hands in an attempt to raise Israel's minimum age for marriage to 18, saying that young wedlock harms the girls' health and violates their right to education.

The practice of young weddings is mostly prevalent amongst Arab Muslims and to a lesser extent Orthodox Jews, according to the Working Group for Equality in Personal Status Issues and experts who complain that because these two groups are marginalised in society the problem is ignored.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75456

JORDAN: Water contamination incidents highlight water shortage problem

Thousands of Jordanians have been rushed to hospitals over the past few months suffering from illnesses related to water contamination in villages and towns across the kingdom. Experts fear the worst is yet to come unless a lasting solution is found to the kingdom's water shortages.

The latest incident involved a refugee camp near Irbid, 120km north of Amman. People there told IRIN the water in their taps had turned yellow and feared their health was at risk.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75374

OPT: Proposed humanitarian terminals in West Bank could triple aid costs - UNRWA

New Israeli travel restrictions on aid workers in the West Bank could have a profound impact on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees' (UNRWA) humanitarian work and endanger the lives of many Palestinians, said Commissioner-General of UNRWA Karen Koning AbuZayd, urging donor countries to provide badly needed funds for the aid agency.

The fighting in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, the destruction of the camp as well as the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the West Bank have eaten into UNRWA's budget, AbuZayd said at a press conference on 19 November ahead of an international conference of donors and refugee host countries to be held in Amman.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75409

SYRIA: Aid agencies begin food deliveries to over 50,000 Iraqi refugees

Aid agencies in Syria have joined forces to provide free food to over 50,000 Iraqi refugees throughout Syria. On 18 November, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) began distributing food to 51,600 vulnerable Iraqis in Damascus and eight governorates in Syria, which is hosting an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, many of whom are in dire financial straights.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75378

SYRIA: Demand for health care soars as spending shrinks

Syria's public health system is under severe strain. Although the quality of its health care remains regionally strong, growing budget deficits, ballooning demographics and the influx of an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis, all of whom qualify for free healthcare, means the need for state hospitals and clinics is soaring, even as the money to pay for them grows less each year.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75423

YEMEN: Efforts to reduce rising number of female qat chewers

A month-long campaign to reduce the number of women who chew qat, a popular mild narcotic, got underway in Yemen on 15 November. Funded by Qatar Charity, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Doha, Qatar, and run by SOUL, a Yemeni NGO, the campaign seeks to educate women about the health risks - malnutrition and underweight births in particular - of chewing qat and of smoking.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75366

YEMEN: Top official issues bird flu warning

The General Department for Animal Resources (GDAR) at Yemen's Ministry of Agriculture says it is worried about the potential for an outbreak of bird flu, but has at the same time warned that its resources and capacity are limited.

As a first precautionary measure against bird flu, Yemen has banned imports of poultry products from Saudi Arabia, which recently culled 90,000 birds after the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected in a poultry farm. Yemen imports about 60 percent of its poultry products from Saudi Arabia, according to Ghaleb al-Eryani, director-general of the GDAR.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the H5N1 strain first emerged in Asia in 2003, and has so far caused some 205 deaths in humans.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75397

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