Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-23: 10-Jun-05
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-up 23
4 - 10 June 2005
CONTENTS:
Ankara, 6/10/2005 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Election preparations continue despite murder of election
worker
AFGHANISTAN: Ex-militia members come up with creative ideas after
oversees trips
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF warns of rise in diarrhoea cases as temperature
rises
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
IRAN: New tripartite agreement on repatriation of Afghans agreed in
principle
KYRGYZSTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers move to a new camp inland
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on Mesketian Turks
NEPAL: Animosity between human rights bodies causing concern
NEPAL: Maoist victims feel neglected by the government
PAKISTAN: Inflation, unemployment and poverty still major challenges
PAKISTAN: UNHCR starts registration of Afghans in North Waziristan
TURKMENISTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Cross border movement remains problematic
TURKMENISTAN: Healthcare system virtually destroyed, says UK-based
group
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on Andijan following May unrest
AFGHANISTAN: Election preparations continue despite murder of election
worker
Preparations for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Afghanistan
will continue despite the murder of an election worker in Trin Kot, the
provincial capital of the southern Uruzgan province, the country's Joint
Electoral Management Body (JEMB) announced on Monday in the capital,
Kabul. The dead person was a 19-year-old civic instructor employed by
the Afghanistan Development Association (ADA) and was the first election
worker killed in the 2005 parliamentary election process.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47484&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Ex-militia members come up with creative ideas after
oversees trips
Sitting with six fellow commanders, Mohammad Daud, a 45-year-old
ex-militiaman shared his impressions of a recent trip to Japan, as the
former combatants gathered to receive certificates of demobilisation in
the capital, Kabul. Daud was a leading commander in the southeastern
Paktia province, fighting against both the invading Soviet army and
later against the Taliban over the past two decades. He is now planning
to fight against poverty and illiteracy in his hometown of Jaji, a
border district in south of Paktia.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47532&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF warns of rise in diarrhoea cases as temperature
rises
As summer temperatures rise across Afghanistan, the country's health
officials and the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) warned of an increasing risk
of diarrhoeal disease in major cities. Diarrhoea is a leading cause of
death among children in Afghanistan, accounting for more than 50,000
deaths annually amongst those under the age of five and contributing to
one of the world's worst child mortality rates.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47553&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
Almost a month after Uzbek security forces violently suppressed public
protests in the eastern province of Andijan killing up to 1,000 unarmed
civilians, according to local rights groups, hundreds of farmers
demonstrated in the central province of Samarkand on Wednesday, angered
by the arrest of a local farmer's rights activist, AFP reported. The
farmers gathered at a collective farm in Samarkand's Ishtikhan district,
some 300 km southwest of the capital, Tashkent, Nigara Khidoyatova,
leader of the opposition Ozod Dekhon (Free Peasants) party. said. They
were demanding freedom for Norboy Kholjigitov, a local farmers' leader
arrested on Sunday on suspicion of bribe taking, she added. "We believe
Kholjigitov didn't take any bribes and this case was fabricated against
him. We still don't know where he was taken," said Khidoyatova.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47586&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
IRAN: New tripartite agreement on repatriation of Afghans agreed in
principle
A new tripartite agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and the office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been
agreed in principle. The agreement has yet to be signed by Iran, the
UNHCR's newly appointed Representative in Tehran, Sten Bronee, told IRIN
in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Thursday. UNHCR, Afghanistan and
Iran's Bureau of Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA)
negotiated changes to the agreement, which expired at the end of the
Iranian calendar year, on 21 March.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47551&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers move to a new camp inland
Hundreds of Uzbek asylum seekers who fled violence in the eastern city
of Andijan in May have been relocated farther inland within southern
Kyrgyzstan. They have no wish to return to their homeland after
government security forces reportedly killed up to 1,000 people in
Andijan. "The Uzbek asylum seekers have been moved farther into the
country, to the Shor-Bulak area in the Suzak district of the [southern]
Jalal-Abad province, some 50 km from the provincial capital," Zafar
Khakimov, head of Kyrgyzstan's migration department, told IRIN from the
provincial capital Jalal-Abad on Monday. "The new camp is up and running
and all 466 Uzbek asylum seekers are now there," Khakimov said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47491&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on Mesketian Turks
The status of thousands of Mesketian Turks living in Kyrgyzstan remains
unresolved, more than half a century after being deported to the former
Soviet republic by Stalin in the forties. "Several days ago, I was very
sick but I could not get treatment in hospital because I do not have
citizenship, I still have the red Soviet passport. I am an invalid
(disabled person). Last year I paid US $50 to lie in hospital," with
tears in her eyes, Gulchehra Hazikova, a 48-year-old Meshitin-Turk, told
IRIN in Novopavlovka village, near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47557&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
NEPAL: Animosity between human rights bodies causing concern
The decision by 25 key human rights organisations to boycott the
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has led to serious concerns in
Nepal. It comes at a time when human rights violations are increasing in
villages and a number of village-based activists and organisations are
worried that human rights work is being hampered by arguments over the
legitimacy of the new commission members. Activists based in Kathmandu
say they will not work with the NHRC unless the membership is changed.
They say some are pro-monarch and lack experience in human rights work.
Last week, the new members were selected by a committee favourable to
the king which allegedly did not comply with the Paris Principles For
National Institutions. These principles stress the pluralistic
representation of rights groups enabling the commission to work
independently and impartially.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47489&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Maoist victims feel neglected by the government
Man Bahadur Rumba shivers with fear as he talks about the death of 38
passengers who were killed on Monday when a bus was blown up as it drove
over a landmine allegedly planted by Maoist insurgents. The bus was
travelling along a dirt road in a southern semi-urban area of Chitwan
district, nearly 185 km southwest of the Nepali capital, Kathmandu. The
blast has left over 70 people severely injured in an incident considered
to be the bloodiest since the start of the violent nine year Maoist
insurgency against the state.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47510&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Inflation, unemployment and poverty still major challenges
Rising inflation rates, unemployment and poverty are the major
challenges facing Pakistan in establishing sustainable long-term growth
of the national economy, currently expanding at a record rate of over
eight percent, according to a recent government report. With a GDP
growth rate of 8.4 percent, Pakistan is outstripped only by China and
Singapore emerging as the third fastest growing economy of Asia in
2004-05, said the 'Economic Survey 2004-05' released on Saturday.
Economic experts term the achievement as a great step forward.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47503&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: UNHCR starts registration of Afghans in North Waziristan
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has launched a special drive to help repatriate Afghans living in
refugee camps in the North Waziristan agency of Pakistan's western
tribal belt on Wednesday. The Pakistani authorities announced in May,
the closure by the end of June of over a dozen refugee camps located in
the area housing about 30,000 Afghans because of security concerns.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47526&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Cross border movement remains problematic
Zainab Shokhojaeva, a resident on the Uzbek side of the border town of
Tallimarjan in the southern province of Kashkadarya, peers through the
barbed wire across her garden and into Turkmenistan. She gazes over the
meadows where her family used to graze their cattle, nostalgically
recalling the past when her family were better off. The small yard of
Zainab's house ends at the barbed-wire fence put up by the Turkmen
border guards. Beyond the wire can be seen a single soldier from the
army of Turkmenistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47488&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN-UZBEKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN: Healthcare system virtually destroyed, says UK-based group
recent report on healthcare and human rights in Turkmenistan, published
by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, highlights a
deteriorating situation in the former Soviet republic. The report urges
the international community to put pressure on Ashgabat to institute
immediate reforms. "The current situation in Turkmenistan's healthcare
system is very serious and in recent years, the healthcare system has
been systematically dismantled. Since independence, state funding for
healthcare has significantly decreased," Bernd Rechel, one of the
authors of the report, told IRIN from London on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47552&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on Andijan following May unrest
One of the central streets of the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, Navoi
Avenue, is deserted these days. One can see only a few idlers on either
side of the road. The movement of vehicles along the street is
suspended. The road from the Avenue to the city's main Babur Square is
blocked on both sides. "The roads have been blocked since the
[government] security forces violently suppressed protests in Andijan on
13 May," a 30-year-old woman crossing the street told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47531&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
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