Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-03: 21-Jan-05
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia
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Central Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 03
15 - 21 January 2005
CONTENTS:
NEPAL: Focus on children and the insurgency
NEPAL: Withdrawal of rural development project
TAJIKISTAN: The year in review
TAJIKISTAN: Training of election workers under way
UZBEKISTAN: Review of 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on press freedom
KYRGYZSTAN: Improvements in mental health care
PAKISTAN: Gas pipeline attack a protest - activists
AFGHANISTAN: Women's radio extends coverage
AFGHANISTAN: Review of 2004
IRAN: Afghan refugees face increasing difficulties - UNHCR
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
NEPAL: Focus on children and the insurgency
About 750 km northwest of the capital Kathmandu, children in the
mountainous district of Simikot live in fear that Maoist rebels who have
been fighting the government since 1996 will march into their villages
at any time and take them away from their parents to join the
insurgency. The armed campaign, known as the People's War, is now being
waged by between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters. The rebels are active
across the whole country, with many parts completely under their
control. Their aim is to overthrow Nepal's constitutional monarchy and
establish a communist republic.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45100&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Withdrawal of rural development project
In Nepal, where a Maoist insurgency has left many rural areas out of
government control, development work in remote locations has been hit
the hardest. Due to the threat from the insurgents, Kathmandu has
already suspended most of its development projects in the poorest
districts of the country. So people living in rural areas have begun to
rely on international and local aid agencies for many of their basic
needs. As one of the poorest countries in the world, Nepal depends
almost entirely on foreign aid for rural development.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45146&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
TAJIKISTAN: The year in review
Made up of an ethnic mix of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Russians, in 2004
Tajikistan experienced a further relative improvement in its overall
humanitarian situation. International donor support remained strong -
reaffirmed at a conference in London in February - but with a noticeable
change of emphasis towards greater long-term development assistance to
the mountainous nation and less on humanitarian aid.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45144&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Training of election workers under way
Training of hundreds of polling station workers is under way in
Tajikistan, ahead of parliamentary elections in the Central Asia state
scheduled for 27 February. Mirzoali Boltuyev, head of Tajikistan's
Central Election Committee (CEC), told IRIN in the Tajik capital,
Dushanbe, that the quality of parliamentary elections depended on
preparatory work and highlighted the need to train election staff on how
to run the poll fairly and legally.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45130&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Review of 2004
A lack of democratic reforms and continued human rights abuses dominated
the year in Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous state. Observers
noted that very little progress, if any, had been made in introducing
political and economic reforms in the former Soviet republic. In April,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
significantly reduced the level of public-sector loans to the country, a
year after calling for political and economic reforms.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45145&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on press freedom
A new Uzbek media watchdog has urged international organisations
promoting journalist's rights to pay more attention to the situation in
this Central Asian republic where there is no independent press and
freedom of speech is severely curtailed. "Uzbekistan is becoming a
dangerous place for journalists who dare to challenge the government,"
Yusuf Rasulov, head of the Association for the Protection of
Journalist's Rights and Freedoms (APJRF), told IRIN in the capital,
Tashkent. Rasulov, a former Voice of America (VOA) correspondent, said
the aim of the NGO was to protect the handful of independent journalists
working in Uzbekistan who are often victims of harassment, attack and
threats from security forces.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45084&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Improvements in mental health care
Mental health patients in Kyrgyzstan are experiencing greater respect
for their human rights and better levels of care, according to UN
agencies and patient support groups. "Reforms have occurred, though not
as fast as we would like. However, there are many positive moves,"
Anatoliy Jarehin, head of a patient support organisation at the
Republican Mental Health Centre (RMHC), in the capital, Bishkek, told
IRIN. Officially, 40,000 people are registered with mental disorders in
Kyrgyzstan. Toktobek Mamytov became a patient at the RMHC 10 years ago
when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45129&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
PAKISTAN: Gas pipeline attack a protest - activists
An attack on a state-run gas plant in the southern province of
Balochistan last week was a wake-up call from a forgotten sector of
Pakistani society, observers told IRIN on Tuesday. "There is a direct
correlation between the economic and social deprivation in the province
with recent violence. It's the ultimate culmination of years of
neglect," Ghulam Mustafa Talpur, a developmental economist working at
Actionaid Pakistan, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45102&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Women's radio extends coverage
Jamila Mujahid and her team were preparing to air programmes on the
Voice of Afghan Women - a Kabul-based radio station that broadcasts to
the capital and its five surrounding provinces. The 11 female media
professionals at the station said they see their work as very important.
"Our main goal is to fight against the violence against women in this
male-dominated society, illiteracy, forced marriages and the rule of the
gun," Najiba Maram, deputy director of the station, told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45108&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Review of 2004
There was some progress in Afghanistan in 2004, the highlight being the
presidential election on 9 October but a vicious circle of extreme
poverty, warlordism, opium production and insecurity continued in most
parts of the country. The poll passed off largely peacefully and marked
an important milestone in the country's transition from decades of war
and internal conflict to a stable, democratic country where human rights
are respected. The 7 December inauguration of Hamid Karzai as
Afghanistan's first elected president was a cause for national
celebration, but serious questions remain as to whether a lasting peace
with the country's Taliban and militant conservative factions can ever
be forged.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45110&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
IRAN: Afghan refugees face increasing difficulties - UNHCR
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
reiterated its concern over the fate of hundreds of thousands of Afghan
refugees in Iran, who are finding it harder and harder to remain in the
host country, which sheltered them since 1979. "UNHCR expressed concern
to the Iranian authorities in the past few months on several occasions
that Afghans in Iran might be put under unfair pressure to return,"
Marie-Helene Verney, a spokeswoman for UNHCR in Geneva, told IRIN on
Tuesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45114&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
An Uzbek citizen has been shot dead in the latest altercation in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's tense border, media reports said on
Saturday. The two countries gave sharply differing accounts of the
incident, which occurred on Friday afternoon in the border zone between
the Uzbek capital Tashkent and the southern Kazakh town of Saryagash.
Fatal shootings are not unusual on Uzbekistan's borders, most of which
are unratified, reflecting the strained relations that have hampered
this region since its countries broke from Moscow in 1991.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45166&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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2005
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