Developers add to flood misery
In the capital, Dhaka, pumps are still clearing away the water, sending it gushing over the embankment and out of the city. But the efforts are being hampered by rogue developers.

Taxi driver: Delhi
Here, the BBC's Geeta Pandey jumps in the back of Sunita Choudhary's auto-rickshaw on the streets of the Indian capital, Delhi.

377913
The dust has settled in the southern Iranian town of Bam - seven months after the earthquake which killed at least 22,000 people and destroyed some 90% of the historic town. Now the relief effort is over and the master plan, which will map out everything from the width of Bam's roads, to the size of its houses, is being finalised.

Floods in South African townships
At least 15,000 people have been left homeless after several days of storms and heavy rains around the South African city of Cape Town.

Tide of Disease
Waterborne sickness stalks Bangladeshi slums.

Young Moroccans face choice of terror
Most people in Casablanca can point you in the direction of Sidi Moumen, after all it is the city's most notorious slum area.

Zambia's Garbage Hell
Kanyama's children have rubbish dumps for playgrounds.

Fire Sweeps Through Kenyan Slum
A huge fire has destroyed hundreds of houses in a slum area of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Huge Blaze Hits Lagos Shanty Town
A fire in a slum area of Nigeria's main commercial city Lagos has destroyed several acres of wooden shacks, leaving hundreds homeless.

Thai Blaze Leaves Many Homeless
A massive fire in a densely-populated slum district of Thailand's capital, Bangkok, has left up to 3,000 people homeless, local officials say.

Bypass threat to Nairobi's giant slum
Residents of one of Africa's most notorious slums, Kibera, on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, are debating a controversial government plan to demolish the slum to make way for a road.

Lula Sends Troops into Rio Slums
The Brazilian government has agreed to send some 4,000 troops to patrol slums in Rio de Janeiro in an attempt to curb drug-linked gang violence there

Against All Odds
It is a tale of triumph over adversity, of one determined Indian girl defying poverty, social prejudice and intense competition to make something of her life.

Fighting India's Aids apathy
India is looking at ways to contain the spread of the Aids epidemic - but many of its citizens don't want to talk about the issue.

Indian slum-dwellers given voice
Their pride is unmistakably justified - a team drawn from the ghettos is successfully running India's first news magazine about slum-dwellers.

Fire guts Manila shanty town
Officials in the Philippines capital, Manila, say a fire in a slum area has destroyed 2,500 dwellings and left 22,000 people homeless.

Property rights to help Brazil's poor
At the heart of it all is the vexed issue of property rights - the right to own land, or even the right to own a shack in the urban slums.

Banking for the Brazilian homeless
In Brazil, street dwellers have achieved a victory in the fight against social exclusion - they can now have bank accounts.

Garbage to greenery in New York
Think of a park in New York City and the chances are that what comes to mind is Central Park, the green lung in the heart of Manhattan. But planners are working on developing a rival on Staten Island, one of the city's other boroughs.

Cleaner air helps asthma patients
Health Protection Agency researchers examined the health of people living near an iron foundry in Birmingham. They found that the number of patients admitted to hospital with asthma fell by 30% after the foundry cut emissions.

Air pollution 'increases stroke risk'
Scientists at Kaoshiung Medical University, Taiwan, found higher hospital admission rates in the city when pollution was high.

Zimbabwe food shortages scare
In its latest monthly report, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS) says grain from last year's harvest is running out for most rural households, and food is selling at prices that are rising beyond the reach of most people. FEWS said that high inflation and a shortage of cash were making it difficult for people to get food in urban areas.

Slum growth 'shames the world'
The number of people living out their days in the squalor of a slum is almost one billion, the United Nations says - one-sixth of the world's population. Without radical changes, it believes, that number could double in 30 years.

Calcutta's rickshaw pullers fear future
Hand-pulled rickshaws have been a feature of Calcutta's streets for more than a century, but they could soon be a thing of the past.

Houses Everywhere, But None for the People
Various governments as well as private developers are constructing state-of-the-art housing estates across the country. The more these houses are built, the more many Nigerians are retiring under bridges for their inability to afford decent accommodation.

Thailand to airlift foreign beggars
Thailand is planning to fly home hundreds of Cambodian beggars ahead of a meeting of world leaders in Bangkok next month.

Bangkok to round up homeless
The Thai authorities have said they want to clear Bangkok's streets of thousands of homeless people ahead of a meeting of world leaders next month.

Banking for the Brazilian homeless
In Brazil, street dwellers have achieved a victory in the fight against social exclusion - they can now have bank accounts.

China brides bear brunt of violence
Hong Kong's economic ills and a recent fashion for brides from mainland China is fuelling a dramatic rise in domestic violence, say social workers.

Djibouti rounds up immigrants
A large military presence was on the streets of the capital on Tuesday morning, detaining all those without identity papers.

Ellis heading to Africa again in September on AIDS study trip
Jack Ellis is going back to Africa, this time as one of nine mayors who will represent a U.S.-led initiative to focus on the issue of HIV/AIDS in Africa. The trip is hosted by the United States Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization that represents more than 1,180 cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The conference, which helps cities promote urban policies and strengthen federal relationships, is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for this event.

(Air) power to the people
It's easy to bang one's head on the ceiling of this atypical studio _ the very first community radio station in Bangkok's famous Khlong Toey slum.

Experts: Simple Fixes Could Bring Water to Millions
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - Simple innovations such as recycling household water and fixing leaky pipes would bring safe drinking water to hundreds of millions of people lacking it today, politicians and scientists said Tuesday.

Experts: Simple Fixes Could Bring Water to Millions
Simple innovations such as recycling household water and fixing leaky pipes would bring safe drinking water to hundreds of millions of people lacking it today, politicians and scientists said Tuesday.

Water for all, or for profit?
An attempt by the Ghana government to privatise water supply has met with fierce resistance.

Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own Wall Street Pushed Debt Till the Last
The human scale of Argentina's crisis: People wait to search for food in garbage from a produce market outside Buenos Aires in May.

Cambodia's Ambitious Youth
More than half of Cambodia's current population is under 18, and the culture seems set to be transformed by the new energy and ambition of the young.

UN-Habitat Urban Project Targets 3 Lakeside Cities
WITH FACILITATION from the UN Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) three East African cities are gradually coming to grips with the damage that rapid urbanisation, unplanned development and weak economic base has been doing to Lake Victoria and its environs.

Urban Housing Challenging
Provision of adequate housing in urban areas is one of the most pressing challenges facing the country, Roads, Public Works and Housing Minister Raila Odinga has said. Raila said the housing situation in the country had deteriorated over the last two decades due to poor performance of the economy and bad planning resulting in serious housing deficit.

Food and Peace Just a Memory in Liberian City
The last time Monrovia knew war like this, back in 1996 when President Charles G. Taylor was a rebel leader making his last push for the capital, the people ate boiled grass to curb their hunger.

Pakistan's poorest find free homes come at a price / Residents feel misled by plan to raze slums
Islamabad, Pakistan -- With her brother at her side, Zaib-ul-Nissa sat and watched workmen erect the walls for the second bedroom in what -- finances permitting -- will be the first home their family has ever owned.

The Genie in an Architect's Lamp: Frank Lloyd Wright's '57 Plan for Baghdad May Be Key to Its Future
Many stories in recent weeks have told us that the United States fights an uphill battle for public support in Iraq, partly because of a persistent belief on "the Arab street" that the West is intent on erasing Islamic culture. How can the United States convince Iraqis that it's not true? Two Middle Eastern specialists at the Library of Congress say the answer lies in little-known plans by the celebrated American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for rebuilding Baghdad into a glittering capital of Islamic culture like the one that once dazzled the world.

In Moroccan Slum, Zealotry Took Root
CASABLANCA, Morocco -- By 4:30 p.m. on May 16, five hours before they were scheduled to die in synchronized bombings, the 14 men had assembled in a cinderblock shack with a corrugated tin roof held down by rocks. Most of the volunteers, between the ages of 21 and 32, already knew each other, having grown up together in the surrounding garbage-strewn slum of lean-tos linked by dirt alleyways.

Earthquake Near Algerian Capital Kills Almost 800
Rescue workers dug into mounds of rubble Thursday in hopes of finding survivors of an earthquake in the Algerian capital and nearby towns that killed almost 800 people and injured nearly 6,000.

Tanzania fears toxic water apocalypse
Tanzania's national environment agency has warned that most of the country's water supply will become dangerously toxic unless drastic anti-pollution measures are taken.

Glimmer of hope for Iraqi street kids
Iraqi street children are beginning to see some signs of help after 12 years of neglect on the streets of Baghdad.

SA blacks 'getting poorer'
Incomes in South African black households fell by 19% between 1995 and 2000, while white household incomes rose by 15%, according to the development research body id21.

Around the world many inspiring individuals are working hard to provide water and sanitation for their communities.
BBC World Service visited urban areas in Kenya, India and the USA where we met some of these project leaders and learnt about their solutions.

Water Walks
Find out about people's struggle to get sufficient water for themselves, their cattle and their crops.

Mozambique: Education Key in Fight Against Malaria

Piles of Trash Threaten to Overwhelm Lagos

Kenya: Private Investors to Supply Water in Kenya
THE DEBATE over whether the government should privatise the management of water supply in Kenya's major towns...the government said it preferred private management.

Ghana [interview]: Building from the Ground Up - With Local Earth

Nigeria: Housing Made Easy
Indigenous efforts pay off handsomely in the reduction of building costs, making access easier for first time owners.

Handwashing programmes could be intervention of choice for diarrhoeal diseases
Handwashing could prevent more than one million deaths a year from diarrhoeal diseases.

Cities to drive world economy

Boost for poor world's cities
The United Nations has been given $15m to help it tackle poverty and the spread of cities. The grant will provide geographic information systems software to urban planners, and train them in its use.

Rat disease set to increase
Disease spread by rats is likely to become an increasing problem as the developing world becomes ever more urbanised, experts have warned.

Cambodia brothels under threat
Cambodia's most notorious red light district, known as Svay Pak, has been a virtual playground for sex tourists and foreign paedophiles for over a decade.

SARS: Tales from Two Cities
The contagious disease Sars is spreading panic across many parts of Asia and the world.

Cholera outbreak feared in Iraq
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it expects a cholera epidemic in southern Iraq because of problems with poor sanitation.

Lack of Clean Water and Sanitation Robs Children of Good Health and Education

New Delhi Journal; Clean, Modern Subway, Efficiently Built. In India?

For All to Read: A Mexican Resort's Dirty Secret

Young, Hopeless and Violent in the New South Africa

In Bombay, Public Indignity Is Poverty's Partner

Taxes Are Helping Right Some of Apartheid's Old Wrongs

Taxes Are Helping Right Some of Apartheid's Old Wrongs

Half a Million Are Left Homeless In Afghan Cities as Winter Bites

Local Government Information Centre: Featured stories

South Africa: Youth IT Programme Creates Jobs
Innovative program brings jobs to youth-at-risk in South African cities.

IHT: Mobility in an Urban Age
As populations and urbanization increase, movement becomes more complex in terms of infrastructure needs, energy needs and environmental impacts.

IHT: Keeping a wary eye on the housing boom
The future of global housing markets.

allAfrica.com -- Ethiopia: "I Wanted My Son to Go to School"
For millions of children all over the world going to school, having decent meal and clean place to live in are luxury.

allAfrica.com: Population
Articles on population from across Africa - April 2003

Innovation: Key To Asia's Growth
East Asia's future as one of the world's most dynamic, resilient and interdependent economic regions could be realized, if it follows through on an institutional reform agenda and embraces technology and innovation - and with it, investments in education and knowledge. This could breathe new life into the region's development prospects and speed the transition of a number of countries into the ranks of developed nations. This is the future of innovative growth according to a new World Bank study, Innovative East Asia: The Future of Growth.

allAfrica.com -- Zimbabwe: Peri-Urban Agriculture a Success Story
In the mushrooming cities of the developing world, farming is a growing business. Figures from the United Nations Development Programme peg the number of urban farmers at about 800 million worldwide. Most of them are poor or middle class. They raise livestock and grow produce to feed their families and, where possible, to generate income.