Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-40: 07-Oct-05
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 40
1 - 7 October 2005
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: First election results released
AFGHANISTAN: JEMB discounts incidents of election irregularities
CENTRAL ASIA: Disabled child institutionalisation continues
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KYRGYZSTAN: Interview with chair of the Coalition of NGOs for Democracy
and Civil Society
KYRGYZSTAN: Tough life in Barak enclave
NEPAL: Europeans concerned over Nepal's situation
PAKISTAN: Voluntary Afghan repatriation reaches 2.7 million
PAKISTAN: Anti-TB programme launched
PAKISTAN: Water shortage demands urgent attention
TAJIKISTAN: Domestic violence remains rife
TAJIKISTAN: Poor conditions mean TB still rife in prisons
UZBEKISTAN: Rights activists welcome EU sanctions
AGHANISTAN: First election results released
With the announcement of provisional results from two provinces in
Afghanistan, the physical process of counting ballots across the
war-ravaged country has been completed, Peter Erben, head of the Joint
Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said on Thursday in the Afghan capital
Kabul. "We are pleased to announce the provisional results from two
provinces today, Nimroz and Farah," Erben said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49401&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: JEMB discounts incidents of election irregularities
With close to 80 percent of all ballots from Afghanistan's recent
historic elections now counted, the level of reported irregularities
seen to date remained low compared with other similar post-conflict
elections, electoral chief of the Afghan-UN Joint Electoral Management
Body (JEMB) said in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Sunday. "I don't
believe that these irregularities give any reason to doubt the overall
integrity of the elections," Peter Erben, JEMB'S chief electoral
officer, maintained.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49336&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Disabled child institutionalisation continues
The placement of children with disabilities in institutions remains
problematic throughout much of Central Asia, a new report by the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has revealed. "The numbers of children
with disabilities placed in institutions are low, but there has been an
increase over the past decade," Marta Santos Pais, director of UNICEF's
Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) in Florence, said from Geneva, citing
figures from 1990 to 2002.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49375&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
Washington confirmed on Tuesday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
would travel to Central Asia between 10 and 13 October with stopovers in
Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The trips aims at
advancing bilateral and regional cooperation on security issues,
promoting freedom through democratic and market-oriented reform, and
strengthening security in the region, including cooperation on
counter-terrorism.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49413&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
KYRGYZSTAN: Interview with chair of the Coalition of NGOs for Democracy
and Civil Society
Edil Baisalov is the chair of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil
Society, a group of local NGOs in Kyrgyzstan. He spoke to IRIN in the
Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, about the importance of civil society and the
preservation of peace and stability in this former Soviet republic,
which recently saw the ousting of president Askar Akayev, who ruled for
almost 15 years following the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49355&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Tough life in Barak enclave
Less than an hour's drive northwest from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh
is the Kyrgyz village of Barak, a tiny community of some 700 residents.
What makes it unique is the fact it is located in Uzbekistan. And
although only 3 km of Uzbek territory separates the Barak enclave from
the mainland, life is not easy for Barak inhabitants.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49345&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
NEPAL: Europeans concerned over Nepal's situation
A European Union troika visiting Nepal says it is worried that the
country could be on the verge of political collapse. The three-day visit
by the high-level EU team concluded its assessment on Thursday, calling
on the government, political parties, rebels and security forces not to
lose time in effectively addressing the country's problems. "The real
fear we have in our minds is that the failure of the constitutional
forces in Nepal to work together would lead to breakdown of the
government institutions," head of the delegation Tom Phillips said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49399&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Voluntary Afghan repatriation reaches 2.7 million
The number of Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan under the
voluntary repatriation assistance programme of the office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has passed the 2.7
million mark, with over 415,000 repatriated so far in 2005, the agency
has announced. "It is very encouraging. Of all solutions for refugees,
returning to their homeland is the most desirable," Indrika Ratwatte,
UNHCR assistant country representative, said in Pakistani capital,
Islamabad, on Friday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49335&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Anti-TB programme launched
International relief and development NGO Mercy Corps, in collaboration
with Pakistan's National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTCP), has
launched an anti-tuberculosis (TB) drive in the two southern provinces
of Balochistan and Sindh. "Over 11,000 TB patients will benefit every
year directly from this project through the strengthening of existing
treatment facilities in 60 diagnostic centres of government district
hospitals in the target areas," Dr Saeedullah Khan, head of Mercy Corps'
anti-TB project, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49394&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Water shortage demands urgent attention
Despite a normal wet season over the summer months, Pakistan faces a
possible 17 percent water shortage during the upcoming cropping season
from October to March next year, the country's leading water regulatory
authority has announced. "Though the situation is far better than last
year when we faced a 50 percent water shortage with having just 5 MAF
[million-acre feet] water available for irrigation needs, these
shortages are becoming perpetual with every passing year - partly as a
result of climatic conditions, but more for our lessened storage
capacity over time," Muhammad Khalid Idrees Rana, a spokesman for the
Indus River System Authority (IRSA), said in the Pakistani capital,
Islamabad, on Friday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49410&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Domestic violence remains rife
The death of 27-year-old Sanam (not her real name) from Jabarrasul
district in the northern Tajik province of Sogd was initially presented
as a suicide by her husband's family. However, forensic experts
concluded that she was suffocated to death and then hung in the barn.
The search for the suspected murderer did not last long; it was her
husband. Sanam's two pre-school age children were left without care or
family.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49403&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Poor conditions mean TB still rife in prisons
Tuberculosis (TB) remains widespread in Tajikistan's prisons, where
crowded conditions and an acute lack of funding is making life harder
for inmates with the disease. "The situation in terms of tuberculosis in
the penitentiary institutions has been so neglected over the past few
years that the registration of TB patients started only in 2004,"
Bakhrom Abdulkhakov, deputy head of the corrections department at the
Tajik justice ministry, said in the capital Dushanbe on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49376&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Rights activists welcome EU sanctions
Rights groups have welcomed a decision by the European Union (EU) to
impose sanctions on Uzbekistan, following the country's refusal for an
international probe into the Andijan killings of May. "It's the right
thing to impose these sanctions with regard to Uzbekistan and I support
it," Surat Ikramov, head of the Independent Initiative Group of Human
Rights Activists of Uzbekistan (IIGHRAU), a local rights group, said
from the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Tuesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49359&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
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