NIAMEY, 1 Dec 2005 (IRIN) - Talks this week among Niger and aid organisations on the response to the countrys food crisis are taking place amid demands by the government that the humanitarian community respect its sovereignty.Full report

NIAMEY, 30 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - The Niger government has launched a campaign of free treatment for the bilharzia parasite, which infects one quarter of the countrys 12 million people. Full report

NIAMEY, 24 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - Close to two million people in arid Niger could go hungry in 2006 despite a bumper cereal harvest this year, warned the government who blamed the problem on perennial food insecurity.Full report

DAKAR, 23 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - The child-victims of this years food crisis in arid Niger will continue to go hungry in 2006, unless donors stump up the cash for emergency operations, said the World Food Programme on Wednesday.Full report

DAKAR, 14 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - Good harvests in Niger are fuelling hopes the country will avoid the disastrous food shortages of the past year, but the UN says about 13 percent of rural households still have dangerously low foodstocks and little to no means to fall back on.Full report

NIAMEY, 14 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Ten years after the Niger government and insurgents signed an accord to end a Tuareg rebellion, authorities have launched an economic assistance programme for more than 3,000 ex-combatants in the north the final phase as laid out in the peace pact.Full report

NIAMEY, 28 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Nigers government is setting up a food security reserve of 100,000 tonnes and seeking a switch to modern methods of farming to avoid a repeat of the food crisis that ravaged the country this year.Full report

NIAMEY, 20 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - United Nations agencies will not cut off food aid to those most at risk from Nigers food crisis, but will next month begin tapering off widespread handouts to protect the livelihoods of the families the UN aims to help, UN officials said on Monday. Full report

DAKAR, 14 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - The television cameras all but gone, aid agencies in Niger continue to tackle life-and-death needs and seek lasting solutions to a food crisis that aid workers say was already well in swing when the world rushed in to help. Full report

NIAMEY, 12 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Ide can have sex with Mariam, a novice on the Niamey night scene, several times for only two or three dollars. The most important thing for her is having something to put in the cooking pot the next day, he says.Full report

NIGER: Slavery - an unbroken chain

NIGER: Food crisis drives young women to sell their bodies

NIGER: Women bear the brunt of hardships and food shortages

NIGER: No famine - but hungry for help

NIGER: Nomadic herders watch helplessly as animals die taking income with them