A coalition of international organisations launched on Tuesday a regional project aimed at improving people's lives by providing them with potable water and sanitation facilities such as latrines, the US State Department reported on Wednesday.

Human rights groups in Niger have appealed to the government not to try the soldiers who recently went on mutiny by court martial, as demanded by the country's ruling coalition.

A state of alert imposed in Niger on Monday could threaten freedom of expression, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), which has urged President Mamadou Tandja to repeal the decree through which he instituted the measure.

The government of coup-prone Niger said its troops had foiled an attempted mutiny in Niamey early on Monday after heavy overnight gunfire in the capital of the West African country.

Burkina Faso and Niger are to conduct a joint campaign to vaccinate at least 500,000 children aged 12 months to five years, officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, told IRIN.

Abdoulaye Tiémogo, publication director of the satirical weekly "Le Canard déchaîné", was arrested on 18 June 2002 further to Prime Minister Hama Amadou's filing of a complaint for "defamation". RSF has urged the prime minister to withdraw his complaint and see to it that the journalist is released immediately.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended on Friday that Guinea- Bissau and Niger strengthen efforts to combat female genital mutilation (FGM) and all other abuses against children, UNHCHR reported.

RSF has protested the arrests of Abdoulaye Tiémogo, publication director of the private weekly "Le Canard Déchaîné", and Abarad Mouddour Zakara, publication director of the private weekly "La Roue de l'histoire". Zakara was arrested and kept in police custody on 18 May 2002, following Commerce Minister Seïni Oumarou's filing of a complaint for "defamation". Sanoussi Jackou, owner of "La Roue de l'histoire" newspaper and president of the Parti Nigérien pour l'autogestion (PNA), a small opposition party, was also arrested on 17 May in the context of the same case. Tiémogo was held for questioning on 17 May, one week after hosting a debate on the private radio station Tambara FM during which Jackou accused Prime Minister Hama Amadou of ethnic and regional discrimination in the appointment of high state officials. The three men were placed in provisional detention at Niamey's civilian prison on 21 May. They are expected to stand trial on 24 May and face a six-month to two-year prison sentence.

Reporters Sans Frontieres and the association of independent press editors in Niger, ANEPI, have called for the release from detention of three media bosses accused of defamation by government officials. Publisher Abarad Mouddour of La Roue de l'histoire, and the private weekly's owner, Sanoussi Jackou, were arrested on 18 May after being accused of defamation by Niger's minister of trade, Seini Oumarou. Sanoussi also heads an opposition party. The third detainee, Abdoulaye Tiemogo, was arrested on 17 May, one week after conducting a radio show on the private Tambara FM. His guest, Jackou, had accused Prime Minister Hama Amadou of ethnic and regional bias in the nomination of high-ranking government officials, media sources said.

In Niger, a new project encourages people to exchange weapons for solar-powered radios, trains young people to repair them and supports the country's expanding community radio network.

Once a tranquil backwater, the little village of Firgi on the dusty border between Niger and its southern neighbour Nigeria is enjoying a boom. The growth in this impoverished region of West Africa has been fueled by sex, and the drawback is a sharp rise in the number of people infected with HIV --the virus that causes AIDS.

The discovery of oil in Nigeria’s Niger Delta in 1956 triggered a chain of events that has led to the political and economic marginalisation of the inhabitants. Despite 40 years of oil production and hundreds of billions of dollars of oil revenue, the people of the Niger Delta remain in abject poverty without even the most basic amenities such as water and electricity. Rivers, farmland and fishing creeks have been subjected to devastation, due to the activities of the Western oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, whilst the people themselves have been on the receiving end of repression and brutality by successive Nigerian governments. Blood and Oil gives voice and agency to the women of the region. We hear them speak of their fears and sufferings and pains. We hear them speak of rape and defilement and death. They speak of loss of property and limbs and loved ones but are made extraordinary and heroic by their deeds and there determined refusal to be oppressed.

The rights and freedoms of the citizens and communities were significantly scorned in Niger in 2000, according to the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Niger (ANDDH). ANDDH reported that there was a "serious infringement" of the rights to life, health, education, work, physical integrity and other rights.

Abdoulaye Tiémogo, the publication director of the weekly magazine Canard Déchaîné was released from jail on Decemner 7. Tiémogo was sentenced to six months' imprisonment on 19 October for "defamation", and had been in detention for seven weeks.

The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is currently implementing an education initiative in two largely nomadic regions of Niger. The programme focuses on sustaining school enrolment in a Catholic primary school in the northern Tuareg region of Tchirozerine, as well as in public primary schools in Bermo, primarily inhabited by the Peul people, a statement from CRS said.

Signifying a further breakdown in some of West Africa's environmental ecosystems, the last giraffe population in the region has shrunk from just 100 to a much smaller and endangered number found in Niger's Koure region, 60 km east of the capital Niamey.

According to reports, on 19 October Mr Tiogo, publication director of the weekly Le Canard Liber was sentenced by a court in Niamey to six months in jail and ordered to pay fines and damages totalling 5.1 million CFA francs for "defamation". He was immediately imprisoned.

Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has protested to the authorities in Niger against the sentencing of the publishing director of 'Le Canard Enchaine' to six months imprisonment for slander.

The African Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of approximately US $21 million to finance a health care project (Health Project II) in Niger, a news release from the bank said on Thursday.

On Monday June 25 2001, the earth rights of the unsuspecting people of Ogbodo Community of Isiokpo in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State were seriously threatened following a major oil spill into the waters and lands of the community. The spill was reported to Shell and the State Government on the morning of June 26, 2001.It took the Shell Development company Limited three good days to respond to the emergency call and another five days to intervene and stop the spillage and fire outbreak.