DAKAR, 27 April 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

SIERRA LEONE: "An idle mind is a devil's workshop" LIBERIA: Help sought for nation's TB patients WESTERN SAHARA: 'Humanitarian diplomacy' means staying out of politics SAHEL: Strategic shift in battle against region's high death toll NIGERIA: Basic services a challenge to Nigeria's new leaders GUINEA: Government tasked to address impunity BURKINA FASO: Text message saves girl from forced marriage

SIERRA LEONE: "An idle mind is a devil's workshop"

With tens of thousands of youths still out of work more than five years after the end of Sierra Leone's civil war, many say that prospects for employment will be what they demand of the new leaders they are to elect in July. In the capital, Freetown, young men loiter on street corners, in bars and in front of televisions in cafes. Many of them are former fighters. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71831

LIBERIA: Help sought for nation's TB patients

The Liberian government's National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Programme says treatment for more than 4,000 tuberculosis patients is at risk because of a lack of funding. Financing under the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ended in February and is not likely to resume until December. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71825

WESTERN SAHARA: 'Humanitarian diplomacy' means staying out of politics

A 30 year-old political deadlock in Western Sahara is on the Security Council's agenda this week, but for aid workers working to help civilians caught in the middle, politics is the last thing to be discussed. "This is a 100 percent pure humanitarian mission," Alessandra Morelli of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) told IRIN from her office in Laayoune, perched on the northern edge of the Sahara desert, in an interview earlier this year.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71822

SAHEL: Strategic shift in battle against region's high death toll

Every year in the Sahel region of West Africa, hundreds of thousands of children die, and malnutrition means millions of others will live on with permanent mental disability and physical stunting.The Sahel, which stretches from the shimmering orange dunes of Mauritania in the west to the harsh, sandy deserts of Chad in the east, has for decades been assessed by aid agencies in terms of regional cereal, sorghum and millet production. That was the yardstick by which emergency relief agencies worked out what they needed to do each year. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71834

NIGERIA: Basic services a challenge to Nigeria's new leaders

Despite huge oil revenues that go to the government, basic services such as a potable water supply, primary healthcare and electricity remain out of the reach for most people except the rich in Nigeria, and few believe this record is likely to change any time soon. Poor access to these services has contributed to Nigeria being among the countries with the worst human development indicators in Africa, apart from those nations that were recently at war, according to the United Nations Development Programme. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71787

GUINEA: Government tasked to address impunity

An international human rights group has called on the government of Guinea to take concrete measures to hold security forces accountable for killings, beatings and other abuses linked to strike-related protests in January and February. In its report, "Dying for Change: Brutality and Repression by Guinean Security Forces in Response to a Nationwide Strike", New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday documented how Guinean security forces "brutally repressed" demonstrations across the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71788

BURKINA FASO: Text message saves girl from forced marriage

Kadidiatou Korsaga, director of Burkina Faso's department for girls' education promotion, despairs when asked about the recent case of a 15-year-old girl kidnapped from her school classroom and dragged off for an arranged marriage with an older man. "If this happens at Koudougou, which is an urban centre, imagine what happens in the areas where there is no administrative structure, no school, no health centre," Korsaga said from her office at the Ministry of Primary Education and Literacy in the capital, Ouagadougou. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71759

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