Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-24: 17-Jun-05
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-up 24
11 - 17 June 2005
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: New law to promote international standards in prisons
AFGHANISTAN: UN milestone in militia disarmament
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: UNHCR starts processing Afghans wishing to
repatriate from Bannu
AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: Campaign brings together Afghan officials and
refugees
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
IRAN: High turnout in presidential poll
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers face coercion to return
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: UN human rights team to investigate Andijan
killings
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Pressure on Uzbek asylum seekers continues
KYRGYZSTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers face local opposition
KYRGYZSTAN: Unrest in capital ahead of presidential elections
NEPAL: Focus on malnutrition
NEPAL: Challenge to development goals
PAKISTAN: Improving earthquake and tsunami early warning
PAKISTAN: Summer temperature drop - reducing chance of flooding
PAKISTAN: Afghan refugee schools face closure
PAKISTAN: Two more refugee camps in Balochistan to close
AFGHANISTAN: New law to promote international standards in prisons
A newly-ratified law is expected to bring significant changes to
Afghanistan's crumbling prisons and ensure the basic rights of thousands
of inmates in the country's jails, law experts said in the capital,
Kabul, on Tuesday. The 54-article law has been designed to bring the
nation's prisons and detention centres up to minimum international
standards.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47662&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: UN milestone in militia disarmament
The disarmament demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former
combatants has passed a significant milestone, the UN announced on
Monday, the programme having processed a total of 60,000 former Afghan
militia force members. The DDR, which started in November 2003, has so
far cost the international community more than US $100 million and is
considered a major step towards restoring national security and creating
an enabling environment for further security sector reform.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47614&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: UNHCR starts processing Afghans wishing to
repatriate from Bannu
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has announced it would start issuing voluntary repatriation documents to
Afghans living in refugee camps in the North Waziristan agency of
Pakistan's western tribal belt, on Wednesday. Islamabad recently
announced it intended to close all the camps in that area by the end of
June. "Some 83 percent camp of residents [Afghan refugees] in North
Waziristan out of a total of over 38,000 opted to repatriate, availing
[themselves of] UNHCR assistance and got themselves registered with the
agency last week," Jack Redden, UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47649&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN
AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: Campaign brings together Afghan officials and refugees
A delegation of government officials from the western Afghan province of
Herat has recently visited the city of Mashad in eastern Iran as part of
an information campaign to raise the awareness of Afghans living in Iran
about the situation in their homeland. High ranking Afghan officials,
including the ministers of refugees and repatriation, education, labour
and social affairs and the deputy health minister, travelled to the
eastern Iranian province of Khorasan. The trip was part of a 'Come and
Talk' programme sponsored by the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Iran's Bureau of Aliens and
Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47648&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-IRAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
With less than a month before the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan,
election officials registered seven candidates this week to run for the
country's top job and replace former leader, Askar Akayev, who was
ousted in a popular uprising in March. Among the candidates approved by
the Central Election Commission (CEC), Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who became
acting president in the turmoil that followed the 24 March uprising, is
seen as a front-runner. The country's CEC disqualified several
candidates, including Urmat Baryktabasov, head of the 'Mekenim
Kyrgyzstan' movement. CEC officials said Baryktabasov was a Kazakh, and
therefore ineligible to stand.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47686&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
IRAN: High turnout in presidential poll
Iranians went to the polls on Friday to vote for a new president, with
many saying the elections are the tightest and most unpredictable in the
26-year history of the Islamic Republic. Early indications showed that
the turnout was dramatically higher than expected. There were fears of a
low turnout - unofficial opinion polls predicted a turnout of just 40
per cent, an embarrassingly low figure for a country where turnout is
regularly as high as 70 per cent. Analysts have said a low turnout would
question the legitimacy of the regime.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47709&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers face coercion to return
Reports out of southern Kyrgyzstan suggest that family members of Uzbek
asylum seekers who fled violence in their homeland one month ago may be
being used to coerce their relatives to return. "When will we see
daddy?" a young child clinging to his mother's skirt cried outside the
newly established Sasyk camp in the southern Kyrgyz province of
Jalal-abad, where Uzbek asylum seekers who fled violence across the
border in May, now live.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47642&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: UN human rights team to investigate Andijan
killings
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) is to begin its investigation into reports of human rights
violations during last month's violence in Andijan, Uzbekistan, after
which close to 500 asylum seekers fled across the border into
Kyrgyzstan. "The team will collect statements from eyewitnesses and
others who have first hand knowledge of what happened in Andijan and
surrounding areas from the 12-14 of May," Jose Luis Diaz, an OHCHR
spokesman, said, speaking from Geneva. "They want to get an overview and
determine the facts of the incident."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47661&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Pressure on Uzbek asylum seekers continues
Six buses carrying Uzbek youths claiming to be relatives of asylum
seekers from the Uzbek city of Andijan were turned away from a Kyrgyz
camp on Thursday. They were attempting to visit relatives staying at the
Sasyk camp in the southern Kyrgyz province of Jalal-abad. There are
fears the youths were trying to coerce the asylum seekers to return to
Uzbekistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47672&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Uzbek asylum seekers face local opposition
Uzbek asylum seekers in Kyrgyzstan who fled violence across the border
in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan last month are becoming the object
of abuse by local people who are making the emigrants increasingly
unwelcome. "Would good people leave their homes, children, wives,
husbands and parents? It means they have done something wrong and have
come here," said a 25-year-old local Kyrgyz man, gesticulating and
pointing accusingly at the camp of 460 Uzbeks at Sasyk Bulak in the
Suzak district of the southern Kyrgyz province of Jalal-Abad. "They
should be kicked out from here!"
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47691&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Unrest in capital ahead of presidential elections
Hundreds of protesters on Friday stormed a government building in the
Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, demanding that businessman Urmatbek
Baryktabasov be allowed to register as a candidate for next month's
presidential election. "I came from Ton district [Issykkul province,
where Baryktabasov originates] to express my discontent with the new
authorities and support our candidate", Shaktybek, one of the
protestors, said enthusiastically.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47694&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
NEPAL: Focus on malnutrition
Sita Maya Lama never realised how malnourished her five-year-old son
Arjun had become until he collapsed from severe chest and stomach pain
last week. Weighing just 9.5 kg, Arjun had become so weak that it even
shocked staff at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) in Nepal,
that has nursed back to health over 1,000 children from malnourishment
over the past six years.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47631&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Challenge to development goals
Development experts see only a glimmer of hope that Nepal will achieve
its millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015. With just ten years
remaining to achieve the goals, the Maoist rebellion and political
instability are holding back development, particularly in rural areas,
they say. "It will be a difficult task to achieve the targets set by
MDGs due to the conflict situation and also due to issues related to
governance," said Mohan Man Sainju, prominent economist and former vice
chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47673&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Improving earthquake and tsunami early warning
Pakistan's Meteorological Department (PMD) is working to establish a
better earthquake early warning system for the country in conjunction
with the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA). The new system would be
linked to the proposed regional tsunami early warning system. "This
network would help us improve seismological data recording regarding the
epicentre, magnitude, depth, intensity and location of any earthquake,"
Dr Qamar-Uz-Zaman Chaudhry, head of the national meteorological
department said on Thursday in the capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47683&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Summer temperature drop - reducing chance of flooding
After a week of scorching heat with above average temperatures across
the country, the weather will cool this week, an official at the
national meteorological office said. This means there should be a
decrease in the rate of melting snow, lessening the risk of flooding in
some areas of Pakistan. At least 10 people have died and scores have
been treated in hospital for sunstroke in the last week as an intense
heatwave gripped southern and central parts of the country with
temperatures ranging from 45 to 51 Celsius.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47624&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Afghan refugee schools face closure
The Pakistani government is planning to close at least 95 middle and
high schools meant for Afghan refugee children in the country's North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) by the end of June because of a shortage
of funds, according to officials. "About half a million dollars are
required annually to run these schools. Presently, we do not have enough
funds. So we are left with no option except closure unless any alternate
is generated," Dr Imran Zeb, director at the office of the Chief
Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CCAR), said in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad, on Monday. CCAR is the state body dealing with
Afghan refugee issues.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47615&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Two more refugee camps in Balochistan to close
Following a recent decision to close 14 Afghan refugee camps in
Pakistan's North Waziristan agency - part of the western tribal belt -
by the end of June, Islamabad, together with the office of the United
Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Friday the
closure of two more camps in the southern Balochistan province within
the next two months. "The Jungle Pir Alizai camp in Pishin district
would be closed by 31 July while the second [camp], Girdi Jungle,
located in the Dalbandin area of Chagai district would be closed by the
end of August, offering its residents a choice of repatriation or
relocation to another camp," Jack Redden, a spokesman for UNHCR in
Islamabad, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47697&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
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