| MIDDLE EAST/ASIA: Crunching the swine flu numbers |
 DUBAI, 18 November 2009 (IRIN) - More people have died from H1N1 influenza in Iran than in any of the 22 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region, according to WHO’s 14 November update.
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| SYRIA: WFP pilots SMS food distribution |
 DAMASCUS, 4 November 2009 (IRIN) - A new pilot project by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria has come up with a novel way of getting food aid to Iraqi refugees. WFP claims the project is a world first.
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| SYRIA: Thousands of Iraqi refugees seek resettlement in West |
 DAMASCUS, 28 October 2009 (IRIN) - Iraqi refugee Leila Johanna Isho is determined to make this her last year in Syria. “Most of our family is scattered across Europe and I have a cousin in Canada so we don’t mind where we move, but we have to move because life is becoming too difficult here,” said Isho, sitting with her three children in their cramped single-room apartment in Masakin Berzeh, a working-class neighbourhood of Damascus.
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| Analysis: Shebaa Farms key to Levant hydro-diplomacy |
 BEIRUT, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - The politics of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a rugged sliver of mountainside wedged between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, have long overshadowed what some Lebanese environmentalists call “the real issue” of the disputed area: its water resources.
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| SYRIA: Drought driving farmers to the cities |
 DAMASCUS, 2 September 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of Syrian farming families have been forced to move to cities in search of alternative work after two years of drought and failed crops followed a number of unproductive years.
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| SYRIA: Cleansing the olive oil business |
 DAMASCUS, 27 August 2009 (IRIN) - Syria’s huge olive oil industry is leaving its mark on the environment. Waste products from olive oil processing mills which are not properly disposed of are causing soil and water pollution, and killing plant and animal life.
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| MIDDLE EAST: Swine flu keeps Muslim pilgrims at home |
 DUBAI, 26 August 2009 (IRIN) - Far fewer Muslims than normal are undertaking the lesser pilgrimage known as ‘Umrah’ because of coordinated efforts by health ministers in the Gulf and beyond to counter the spread of H1N1 2009.
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| MIDDLE EAST: Saudi Arabia has highest incidence of flu |
DUBAI , 10 August 2009 (IRIN) - Saudi Arabia has the highest number of laboratory confirmed pandemic H1N1 cases in the Eastern Mediterranean Region – 595 – with four out of the eight deaths so far, according to an 8 August World Health Organization (WHO) report.
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| MIDDLE EAST: Swine flu deaths registered |
 DUBAI, 30 July 2009 (IRIN) - Three H1N1 2009 deaths were registered in the Middle East over the past 10 days as the world awaits a vaccine, expected to be available in September, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest briefing note.
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| SYRIA: Half measures against honour killings not enough – HRW |
 DUBAI , 29 July 2009 (IRIN) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) has welcomed Syria’s move to enforce a minimum jail sentence of two years for honour killers but said it was not enough as all murders should be dealt with equally.
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