Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-10: 11-Mar-05
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 10
5 - 11 March 2005
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Child kidnapping alarming in the south - rights activist
AFGHANISTAN: Floods expected following harsh winter
AFGHANISTAN: Too many weapons in private hands - UN
AFGHANISTAN: Marking International Women's Day
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: UNHCR Voluntary repatriation programme resumes
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KAZAKHSTAN: Afghan refugees seek third-country resettlement
KYRGYZSTAN: Poll ushers in new era of ethnic minority representation
KYRGYZSTAN: Election protests continue
NEPAL: Impact of conflict on food security
NEPAL: Vaccination and other health drives to continue
PAKISTAN: Protests against gang rape acquitals
PAKISTAN: Afghan census concludes
PAKISTAN: Emergency relief still needed in Balochistan and northern areas
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on southern labour migration
AFGHANISTAN: Child kidnapping alarming in the south - rights activist
Government officials and human rights activists have been alarmed at the
increasing number of child kidnappings in the southern Kandahar province
after several kidnapped children were allegedly killed when their
parents failed to meet ransom demands. Thousands of people rallied in
Kandahar on Sunday calling for action to arrest and prosecute the
kidnappers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46031&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Floods expected following harsh winter
Following the harshest winter Afghanistan has seen in a decade, the risk
of flooding remains high in some parts of the country as temperatures
improve and snows begin to melt in mountainous areas, according to aid
organisations in the Afghan capital Kabul. In western Badghis province,
reports indicated that early flooding in the Jauwand, Gardes and Murghab
districts had forced some families to leave their houses in Panjab,
Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for United Nations Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Thursday in Kabul.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46042&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Too many weapons in private hands - UN
In an episode that suggests Afghanistan is slowly becoming safer, Shir
Alam a 50-year-old local commander, surrendered several hundred mt of
arms to a United Nations ammunitions stockpile and collection group on
Thursday outside the capital, Kabul. Alam had amassed the arms over
three decades of conflict, first fighting Soviet forces during 1980s and
later against rival militia groups during the 1990s civil war in the
capital. He also fought the hardline Taliban regime as part of the
Northern Alliance.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45961&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Marking International Women's Day
Thousands of Afghan women marked International Women's Day in the
capital Kabul and some provinces on Tuesday 8 March. In Kabul, women
pointed to the appointment on 4 March of the first female provincial
governor and the appointment of three women cabinet ministers and
several deputy ministers as positive evidence that women were making
progress in male-dominated conservative Afghan society. Speakers at the
main rally in the capital pointed to the fact that of more than 8
million Afghans who voted in the presidential poll of October 2004, more
than 40 percent were female. Also for the first time in the country's
history, there was a woman among 16 presidential candidates in last
October's elections.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46004&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: UNHCR Voluntary repatriation programme resumes
The return home of 122 Afghan refugees on Monday from Pakistan's North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) marked the resumption of the Afghan
voluntary repatriation programme of the office of the United Nations
High Commissioner or Refugees (UNHCR) for 2005. "The voluntary
repatriation of Afghans has been resumed after a temporary suspension in
the programme from December last year due to falling numbers of refugees
seeking assistance to repatriate and also because of the harsh winter
weather," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN on Tuesday in the
Pakistani capital Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46006&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
Protests continued in southern Kyrgystan this week against what
demonstrators said was a flawed parliamentary poll on 27 February.
Thousands of opposition supporters demanded President Askar Akayev
resign as they protested over alleged election violations, local media
reported. The protests began a week ago after opposition candidates
alleged widespread fraud in the polls. The vote was criticised by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as falling
short of democratic standards.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46058&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
KAZAKHSTAN: Afghan refugees seek third-country resettlement
Life has been hard on Saliha Azizullah. Arriving in Kazakhstan nine
months earlier from her native Afghanistan, she had hoped for a better
life in Central Asia's largest nation - only to have that dream turn
into a nightmare. "All I wanted was a better future for my children,"
the 35-year-old told IRIN in her simple two-room, Soviet style flat, in
the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46032&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Poll ushers in new era of ethnic minority representation
One positive outcome of the Kyrgyz parliamentary election held on 27
February, is that many representatives of ethnic minority groups have
won seats based on preliminary results, a development welcomed by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) High
Commissioner on National Minorities, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus. "This
represents a step forward in comparison with the last elections. In
other words, this reflects much better the real ratio of the number of
representatives of ethnic minorities living in Kyrgyzstan," Ekeus told
IRIN on Thursday in the capital Bishkek.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45963&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Election protests continue
Angry protests continued in the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad on
Monday, as thousands of people - supporters of opposition candidates who
ran for parliament from the area - called for the resignation of Kyrgyz
President Askar Akaev and a re-run to last week's parliamentary
elections. Daily life has been at a standstill in the provincial capital
for four days after protesters wearing rose coloured bows and scarves
occupied three storeys of the region's main administration building.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45962&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
NEPAL: Impact of conflict on food security
Fears are growing that food insecurity is set to worsen in Karnali,
which lies 400 km northwest of the capital Kathmandu and is Nepal's
least developed zone. The isolated area has seen food deficits since the
1970s, but the situation has been made worse by the Maoist conflict -
the civil war against the state that has claimed the lives of more than
10,000 Nepalis over the last nine years.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46005&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Vaccination and other health drives to continue
Health workers in seven remote northwestern mountain districts of Nepal
are gearing up for the final Nepal government and UNICEF have less than
a month left to launch the final phase of an ambitious national measles
vaccination campaign. Five of the districts form the western half of the
Himalayan border with China where the major peaks are over 6,000 m.
There are no roads in these areas, so the vaccines have to be flown in
to the district headquarters. From there they are carried on mules and
by porters to each village.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46041&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Protests against gang rape acquital
Women in Pakistan took to the streets this week in a series of rallies
across the country to protest against a court's acquittal of five men
convicted of a gang rape in a remote southern part of Punjab province.
The accused were released last week due to insufficient evidence.
Mukhtaran Mai, 23, was allegedly raped in February 2002 on the orders of
a council of village elders as retribution for an offence blamed on her
12-year old brother. In August the same year, the four alleged attackers
and two village elders who ordered the rape, were sentenced to death in
a judgement by a special court. However, five of the six convictions
were overturned on Thursday 3 March by a provincial court. While the
death sentence of the sixth man, one of the village elders was commuted
to life imprisonment.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46063&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Afghan census concludes
Officials conducting a census of Afghans living in Pakistan have failed
to count hundreds of people living in parts of the Pakistani capital
Islamabad, local Afghan residents told IRIN. The survey, which concluded
on Sunday in most of the country, was run by the Pakistani government
with financial and technical support from the office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). All Afghans residing in
Pakistan since 1979 were obliged to take part.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45969&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Emergency relief still needed in Balochistan and northern
areas
About 100,000 people are still stranded with limited food supplies in
the remote northern valleys of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province
(NWFP) following weeks of widespread torrential rains, snowfall,
landslides, avalanches and flooding. "Relief supplies of food and
medicine from various national and international agencies have started
reaching some of the snowbound areas. However, generally there is a
severe shortage of edible items as the small roads have been closed in
many districts for over a month now and local authorities lack
bulldozers to clear the roads," World Health Organization (WHO)
emergency medical officer Dr Quaid Saeed told IRIN from the town of
Swat, some 250 km north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46045&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on southern labour migration
Rasul Mirzaev, a former teacher in southern Uzbekistan, has fond
memories of Soviet times. The retired professor recalls nostalgically
the days when most people had a secure job, good working conditions and
stable salaries. But his longing for the past also has a very personal
aspect. His eldest son, Odyl, 42, went to Russia in search of work in
the early 1990s where he reportedly died under mysterious circumstances
in the central Russian province of Perm in May 2003.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46009&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
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