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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 17
23 - 29 APril 2005


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on preparations for parliamentary elections
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Efforts to assist Afghan repatriation continue
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Ethnic bias hinders decision to return
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on major players ahead of presidential polls
KYRGYZSTAN: Activists welcome anti-corruption probe
NEPAL: Focus on challenges of rural education
NEPAL: UN official calls for greater assistance for IDPs
NEPAL: Humanitarian re-orientation needed, says UN official
PAKISTAN: Country moves toward polio-free status before year's end
TAJIKISTAN: Demining delayed due to lack of money
UZBEKISTAN: Natural disaster risk high in south
UZBEKISTAN: UN-supported gender correction centre brings hope


AFGHANISTAN: Focus on preparations for parliamentary elections

Six months after a successful presidential poll, Afghanistan's fledgling
political system is starting to prepare for a much more ambitious
undertaking: parliamentary elections slated for 18 September. Already,
colourful posters conveying party messages can be seen in public places
in the capital Kabul, and in some provincial towns.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46786&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Efforts to assist Afghan repatriation continue

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has stepped up its efforts to assist voluntary returns under its
'Facilitated Group Returns' (FGR) programme to Afghanistan, aimed at
removing some of the basic hurdles preventing repatriation. UNHCR
started the FGR programme in 2003 in support of the voluntary return of
Afghans. Under the programme, refugee groups that come from one
particular place inside Afghanistan are identified from among the
refugee community in Pakistan and the refugee agency helps remove their
concerns.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46826&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN


AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Ethnic bias hinders decision to return

Haji Juma Khan, a refugee of over 20 years in Pakistan, has yet to
decide whether to return to his homeland in northern Afghanistan or not,
worried that his Pashtoon ethnicity might prove a barrier for him and
his family's future. "For us having Pashtoon origin, even though we
speak Dari, it's pretty difficult to survive in a non-Pashtoon area,"
the community elder told IRIN in the Zia Colony community of some 150
Pashtoon families in the southern port city of Karachi.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46866&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia started with a warning from Tajikistan about
conditions in and around Lake Sarez in the east of the mountainous
country. The Tajik emergency minister Mirzo Ziyo, expressed concern on
Saturday over heavy precipitation in the area following an already heavy
snowfall this year. "I do not wish to make a fuss about this issue.
However, the level of water at Sarez is rising by 20 cm annually," the
minister said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46873&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on major players ahead of presidential polls

The current political agenda in Kyrgyzstan, where opposition-led
protesters overthrew the regime of former president Askar Akayev in
March, is dominated by upcoming presidential elections in early July.
Several political leaders have announced that they will run for the
presidency, but most observers believe that the contest will be between
two leaders; prime minister, acting president and leader of the National
Movement of Kyrgyzstan (NMK), Kurmanbek Bakiev, who was among those who
led the protests that toppled Akayev's regime on 24 March and the head
of the Ar-Namys political party, Felix Kulov, who was jailed under
Akayev for more than four years.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46841&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


KYRGYZSTAN: Activists welcome anti-corruption probe

Anti-corruption activists have applauded a move by Kyrgyzstan's interim
government to investigate the business interests of former president
Askar Akayev and his family, calling upon the Kyrgyz authorities for
systematic and comprehensive reforms to tackle corruption in the former
Soviet republic.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46802&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


NEPAL: Focus on challenges of rural education

Life is hard for eight-year-old Kasilal. From his village of Daraphai in
the poor, mountain district of Humla, over 750 km northwest of the
Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, he has to walk over three hours to reach
Simikot district where he collects rice for his family, airdropped by
the government to help those in remote, food-deficit areas. He spends
the rest of his day fetching wood - the one source of fuel in the
district, reachable only by plane given a lack of navigable roads.
Kasilal has been unable to attend school for over six months. Hundreds
of children like him are deprived of education due to their hardship and
impoverished state.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46855&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: UN official calls for greater assistance for IDPs

A top UN official has called for greater assistance for thousands of
internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nepal whose suffering remains
largely overshadowed by the nine-year-old Maoist insurgency. Walter
K=E4lin, representative of the UN Secretary-General on Human Rights, said
on Friday that many of the displaced people needed protection and
assistance, describing the caseload as "overlooked and neglected".

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46783&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Humanitarian re-orientation needed, says UN official

A top UN official has called for a refocusing of UN agency efforts to
avoid a further deterioration in the condition of civilians in
conflict-ridden Nepal. Speaking to reporters on Friday in New York,
Dennis McNamara, the UN's Special Adviser on Internal Displacement, said
that the human rights situation was "extremely serious" and a
"reorientation from development to humanitarian programmes" was a
priority. "That's what we're urging our UN agency friends to do; to
re-orientate," he said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46789&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


PAKISTAN: Country moves toward polio-free status before year's end

Following more than a decade of aggressive campaigning and
house-to-house immunisation rounds, health experts in Pakistan remain
confident that the South Asian nation will be polio-free before the end
of 2005. "In 2003, we had around 103 reported cases of polio, which
dropped by almost 50 percent in 2004 with a total of 53 cases
registered. Now, so far in 2005, a total of only five polio cases have
been reported," Jeffery Bates, polio communications officer at the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN on Thursday, the
concluding day of the national polio immunisation campaign.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46851&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


TAJIKISTAN: Demining delayed due to lack of money

Tajikistan's demining programme for 2005 has been delayed due to lack of
money. "We need around US $3 million for our activities this year, at
the moment we have just half of that amount pledged [promised], so we
cannot start urgent demining programmes," Jonmahamad Rajabov, head of
the Tajik Mine Action Cell (TMAC), told IRIN on Tuesday in the capital
Dushanbe.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46803&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN


UZBEKISTAN: Natural disaster risk high in south

Many villages in mountainous areas of southern Uzbekistan face an
increasing risk of natural disasters following a particularly harsh
winter. Thousands of residents in several districts of the southern
Uzbek province of Kashkadarya remain vulnerable to landslides and
mudflows. "Landslides and mudflows are a permanent problem here,"
Burkhan Turdyev, head of the provincial emergency department, told IRIN
in the southern city of Karshi, capital of Kashkadarya province.
"Usually this season begins in March and continues up to July. But this
year the first landslide occurred on 17 February in Kamashin district,
which we did not expect."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46810&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN


UZBEKISTAN: UN-supported gender correction centre brings hope

In a whitewashed Soviet-style operating room in the central Uzbek city
of Samarkand, doctors operate on a patient while nurses help them in
their scrupulous work. Gulya (not her real name), a 33-year-old patient,
is among hundreds of people who annually come to this unique centre to
get help for problems they cannot speak about openly. Gulya was born
with male pseudohermaphroditism and had testicular feminisation
syndrome. In other words she had an intersex state. Intersex states
occur when there is ambiguity or uncertainty about physical sexual
status. Such a status arises when there is a problem in early embryonic
sexual development.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46860&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN


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2005


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