Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-15: 15-Apr-05
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 15
9 - 15 April 2005
CONTENTS:
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Focus on the impact of the Kyrgyz revolution in
the Ferghana Valley
KYRGYZSTAN: OSCE pledges support for presidential poll
KYRGYZSTAN: Landslide close to Mailuu-Suu uranium dump
KYRGYZSTAN: Land seizures challenge interim authority
AFGHANISTAN: Warlord attacks provincial disarmament team
AFGHANISTAN: Protest against opium eradication
AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence intolerable, say battered women and
girls
AFGHANISTAN: Minister calls on donors to coordinate legal reform
NEPAL: CPJ pledges support for press freedom
NEPAL: UN human rights monitoring brings new hope
NEPAL: Focus on donor reaction to growing insecurity
PAKISTAN: At least six killed after drinking polluted water
PAKISTAN: Focus on improving basic education in Punjab
PAKISTAN: Diphtheria and measles strike capital
PAKISTAN: Northern flood and landslide victims await compensation
KAZAKHSTAN: Opposition groups attack new anti-demonstration law
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Focus on the impact of the Kyrgyz revolution in
the Ferghana Valley
Recent protests that toppled the regime of former Kyrgyz president Askar
Akayev on 24 March are echoing in neighbouring Uzbekistan, particularly
in the densely populated and volatile Ferghana Valley region, shared by
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.Mamurjan Aminov, head of the
Ferghana department of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU), a
local independent rights group, said events next door had certainly been
inspiring. "The Kyrgyz people demanded fair elections. We have to learn
a lesson from that. The people here should also fight for their future."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46631&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: OSCE pledges support for presidential poll
Europe's largest security body, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is going to support the interim Kyrgyz
authority in holding presidential elections slated for 10 July,
following the change of regime in the country. "The OSCE centre in
Bishkek will be continuing its Election Assistance Programme (EAP) aimed
at assisting the Kyrgyz authorities to hold the upcoming elections in
accordance with international standards," Lilian Darii, a political
officer with the OSCE centre in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, told IRIN on
Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46657&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Landslide close to Mailuu-Suu uranium dump
A landslide which hit the area surrounding the southern Kyrgyz town of
Mailuu-Suu on Wednesday evening is causing concern among the authorities
because of its proximity to huge radioactive dumps from Soviet-era
uranium mines. The land movement halted the flow of a key river and
water source in Mailuu-Suu and blocked the road linking the town with
the adjacent village of Sary-Bee, an official told IRIN on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46641&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Land seizures challenge interim authority
Social problems kept in check during the authoritarian era of former
president Askar Akayev are already surfacing in Kyrgyzstan, three weeks
after he was removed from office by protesters angry at election
results, grinding poverty and corruption by the ruling family. On 7
April, tension was raised when people began to seize land on the
southern outskirts of the capital Bishkek, demanding that they be
granted legal title that they say they were deprived of under the former
regime. They say they are part of a 14,000-strong movement demanding
access to lucrative real estate close to the capital.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46609&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Warlord attacks provincial disarmament team
Several police officers and militia troops were injured in a serious
armed encounter in Lashkargah, the capital of the southern Helmand
province, on Wednesday after a local a commander refused to surrender
arms under a provincial government programme disarming illegal militias
in the troubled province. According to local authorities in Helmand the
clashes happened when commander Khano, an infamous warlord in
Lashkargah, attacked troops who had been assigned to disarm the
commander's troops.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46644&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Protest against opium eradication
The poppy eradication campaign in the southern Afghan province of
Kandahar was interrupted on Wednesday by an armed encounter between
police and protesters, local authorities told IRIN. The clash came a day
after hundreds of people in the Maiwand district, 70 km southwest
Kandahar city, had showed their anger in a demonstration against a
government campaign to destroy poppy fields in the troubled province,
which is one of the leading poppy cultivating provinces in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, protesters reportedly gathered in front of the district
headquarters, throwing stones at police officers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46645&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence intolerable, say battered women and girls
The story of Zaynab, (a name adopted to conceal her identity) an
18-year-old mother of five who has taken refuge in a new women's shelter
in the capital Kabul, illustrates how routinely women continue to suffer
rights violations in conservative, patriarchal Afghanistan. She fled her
home after refusing to put up with any more beatings from her husband,
less than three weeks after giving birth to her youngest son. "My father
forcibly married me to an old man when I was 11 and my husband treated
me like a slave over the last seven years," she said, while sewing a
blanket in the shelter, located in an upmarket suburb of the capital.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46615&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Minister calls on donors to coordinate legal reform
The Afghan authorities have called for strengthening of the justice
system in Afghanistan saying that more than 50 percent of Afghans do not
have access to judicial and legal services in the post-conflict country.
Afghan Minister of Justice Ghulam Sarwar Danish, told IRIN on Sunday in
the capital Kabul that donors and international organisations had spent
millions of dollars on improving the justice sector, but that there had
been little tangible sign of improvement. "We need much more
coordination, in fact we should be given the chance to prioritise our
needs," he said, adding that many justice reform projects were selected
and implemented by international organisations.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46569&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
NEPAL: CPJ pledges support for press freedom
Nepal is experiencing one of the biggest crisis in press freedom
anywhere in the world, Ann Cooper, executive director of international
NGO the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IRIN during her
week-long fact-finding mission to the country which began on Monday. The
CPJ works to promote press freedom worldwide. "It has been very
difficult, especially for local journalists working outside the capital.
They are continually harassed by local security force officials," Cooper
told IRIN in the capital, Kathmandu. "We will continue to defend the
rights of Nepali journalists. We think it is important that press
freedom is maintained," Cooper added.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46616&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: UN human rights monitoring brings new hope
Local human rights groups in Nepal have welcomed Kathmandu's decision on
Monday to allow UN human rights monitoring in the country. The Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the
Nepali government signed an agreement on 11 April to establish a
monitoring operation in the country to assess human rights abuses at the
hands of security forces, as well as Maoist rebels. The Maoists have
been waging an armed campaign against the state since 1996. More than
11,000 Nepalis have been killed in a conflict that shows not signs of
ending.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46596&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Focus on donor reaction to growing insecurity
Some of Nepal's donors have said they are faced with having to choose
between continuing with aid to the impoverished Himalayan kingdom, or
reducing assistance in the light of growing insecurity and King
Gyanendra's decision to suspend democratic government on 1 February. The
consequences of a reduction in aid could be catastrophic for millions of
poor Nepalis now caught up in the escalating civil war. Some 11,000
people have been killed in the Maoist revolt since 1996. Insurgents
control large parts of Nepal's countryside and want to overthrow the
monarchy in order to establish a communist republic.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46570&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: At least six killed after drinking polluted water
At least six people, including two minors and one woman, have been
reported killed by gastroenteritis while more than 35 have been admitted
to hospital in the central districts of Pakistan's southern province of
Sindh, health officials told IRIN on Monday. The patients, mostly
children, fell ill after drinking contaminated water from Hamal Lake in
the central district of Shahdad Kot, some 400 km north of the provincial
capital Karachi. "About 36 people including 26 children are under
observation in hospitals. The polluted water of the lake is reported to
have caused the problem.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46598&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Focus on improving basic education in Punjab
With an extensively advertised mass literacy campaign carrying the
slogan, 'Our dream - an educated Punjab', the provincial government of
Pakistan's most populous province, has been actively trying to achieve
the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education
(UPE) by 2015 through a wide-ranging Education Sector Reform (ESR)
programme. "[The} Punjab's education reform programme that started in
2003 focuses simultaneously on improving access, equity, quality and
governance in the education system," Ahmed Javed Qazi, deputy director
of monitoring the ESR programme, told IRIN from the provincial capital,
Lahore.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46562&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Diphtheria and measles strike capital
Several cases of diphtheria and measles among children have been
reported in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and the adjacent city of
Rawalpindi over the past few weeks, raising concerns about the
effectiveness of routine child immunisation on the ground. "An emergency
operation against the two diseases was launched immediately in
particular areas of the two cities where the reports came from,
following the diagnosis of diphtheria and measles cases in the first
week of April," Dr Jalil Kamran, head of the Epidemic Investigation Cell
(EIC) at the National Institute of Health (NIH), told IRIN in Islamabad
on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46630&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Northern flood and landslide victims await compensation
Immediate intervention is required to rehabilitate infrastructure in
northern districts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a
UN official told IRIN. The call follows heavy rains and snow in January
and February of this year that killed hundreds and severely damaged
houses, roads, schools and hospitals in isolated parts of the province.
"Despite the official announcements, no steps have been taken so far to
help the affected people and compensate for damage to houses, livestock
and agriculture," Dr Quaid Saeed, co-ordinator of the UN interagency
co-ordination committee in NWFP, told IRIN from the provincial capital
Peshawar. "The people [affected] are already poor and this year's
unexpectedly intense winter has exposed them to more difficult
situations."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46572&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
KAZAKHSTAN: Opposition groups attack new anti-demonstration law
Kazakh opposition leaders lambasted a new law banning demonstrations
immediately after polling day in Kazakhstan, claiming the bill was
seriously restricting civil rights and freedoms ahead of presidential
polls set for late 2006. "This is definitely a targeted measure that the
authorities think can prevent any events similar to those that happened
in Kiev and Bishkek," Petr Svoik, a senior official with the For a Fair
Kazakhstan opposition alliance, told IRIN from the Kazakh commercial
capital Almaty, on Monday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46573&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
The political situation in Kyrgyzstan remained one of the key issues
covered by the media this week. The Kyrgyz parliament accepted the
resignation of deposed president, Askar Akayev, on Monday following
almost a week of discussion and dispute. The interim authority announced
new presidential elections for 10 July. Also on Monday, the Kyrgyz
Supreme Court acquitted Feliks Kulov, an opposition leader jailed under
Akayev, of all corruption charges that he said were politically
motivated, clearing the way for him to run for president in July.
However, Kulov, seen as one of the strongest possible candidates along
with prime minister Kurmanbek Bakiev, has not announced yet whether he
would definitely run for presidency. "I need to consult with Bakiev
before I make a decision [on that]," he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46656&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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2005
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