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CAPE TOWN, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) - Nestled amongst an endless horizon of shacks in the impoverished informal settlements and townships on the Cape Flats near Cape Town, South Africa, there is a life-saving 5,000 square metre patch of green.

"This garden has changed my life," said Phillipina Ndamane, 74, a member of the Fezeka Community Garden (FCG) in Gugulethu township. "We were suffering; we had no food to eat so we tried to make a garden," she told IRIN. ...

GABORONE, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) - The detection of cholera in northeastern Botswana is causing rising resentment of the Zimbabweans fleeing their homeland's collapse, and is being used by opposition parties in an election year to slam President Ian Khama's government.

In late January and early February 2009, Botswana's parastatal, the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC), found traces of vibrio cholerae bacteria in the Shashe reservoir near Tonota village, about 35km south of Francistown, ...

JOHANNESBURG, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) - South Africa is to expand social safety nets in 2009, making it one of the world's biggest spenders on social grants, but the global economic crisis has forced some hard choices that may leave many of its poor out in the cold.

For the first time in three years, South Africa will record a budget deficit - partly in order to maintain its commitment to poverty alleviation - Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said in his budget speech on 11 February. ...

BULAWAYO, 13 February 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's striking teachers have rejected an appeal by new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that they return to work, demanding negotiations on their salary scales in foreign currency as promised.

"Teachers want money in their pockets, not promises," said Sifiso Ndlovu, acting head of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association. "He [Tsvangirai] should explain how much we are going to be paid, and the mode of payment."

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HARARE, 13 February 2009 (IRIN) - The future of Zimbabwe's 48-hour-old unity government may hang in the balance after a leading member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was abducted by police outside the capital, Harare, on 13 February.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was installed as prime minister on 11 February, while President Robert Mugabe retained the executive post he has held for 29 years in a deal designed to heal the political divisions that have brought the once ...