Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-49: 09-Dec-05
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 49
3 - 9 December 2005
CONTENTS:
PAKISTAN: Thousands still without basic shelter two months after quake
PAKISTAN: Dire need for clean water in many quake villages
PAKISTAN: Poor health conditions at emergency quake camps
PAKISTAN: Radio to raise health awareness among quake survivors
PAKISTAN: Mountain experts deliver food to remote communiti
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
CENTRAL ASIA: UN calls for special envoy to the region
KYRGYZSTAN: Media liberalisation slow, say journalists
AFGHANISTAN: New parliament to meet
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF expresses concern about child labour
AFGHANISTAN: Displaced and former refugees face miserable winter
KAZAKHSTAN: Presidential election fell short of international standards
- OSCE
UZBEKISTAN: Forced labour continues in cotton industry
TAJIKISTAN: Gender NGOs receive support from UN
PAKISTAN: Thousands still without basic shelter two months after quake
Thousands of earthquake survivors are still without shelter more than
two months on. The earthquake, which killed over 80,000 people, left an
estimated 3.5 million survivors homeless. The exact figure of homeless
survivors is not known, said Darren Boisvert, media and public
information officer for the International Organization for Migration
(IOM).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50594&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Dire need for clean water in many quake villages
Hundreds of villages in northern Pakistan are without water after the
October 8 earthquake that killed over 80,000 people and left 3.5 million
without shelter, triggered landslides and split mountains, leaving
natural springs dry and breaking water pipes. While aid efforts have
concentrated on providing shelter and food, the need for water - given
the propensity of mountain rivers and streams in the quake zone - has
not been such a high priority and assessments of affected villages have
only just begun.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50572&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Poor health conditions at emergency quake camps
Health experts have expressed grave concern over unsanitary conditions
at over 1,000 spontaneous camps housing earthquake survivors in parts of
northern Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. "Spontaneous camps
are a potential [health] risk. The unsanitary conditions in these camps
continue to give cause for concern," Dr Khalif Bile, country head of the
World Health Organization (WHO), said in the Pakistani capital,
Islamabad, on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50582&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Radio to raise health awareness among quake survivors
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has teamed up with
Pakistan's Ministry of Environment to launch a series of radio
programmes to promote health and hygiene awareness among quake
survivors, officials said on Wednesday. "People in an emergency
situation need to know how to protect their health and prevent outbreaks
of life-threatening diseases," Mohammad El-Fatih, head of UNICEF's water
and sanitation programme, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50544&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Mountain experts deliver food to remote communities
Amid the steep, snow-clad slopes, small teams of mountain experts
equipped with backpacks, anoraks and trekking gear, make their way along
the footpaths towards isolated communities of earthquake survivors that
desperately await them. The teams, each comprising 15 members, are part
of a World Food Programme (WFP) effort to ensure aid and food supplies
continue to reach people still in high, inaccessible mountain areas and
likely to remain there through the coming winter months.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50545&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
This week in Central Asia, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on
Thursday it had approved a US $4.8 billion package to cancel the debts
of 20 of the world's poorest countries early next year, under a plan
launched in June by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations.
Tajikistan is amongst the 20, mostly African, heavily-indebted poor
countries to benefit from the move.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50596&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: UN calls for special envoy to the region
In a new report published this week, the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) has called for the creation of the post of
Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Central Asia in an effort to boost
regional cooperation and reduce poverty in the region. "The report has
thoroughly highlighted all the major problems in the region, many of
which appeared as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse, when all
[regional] countries started pursuing their own paths of national
identity," Jerzy Skuratowicz, UN Resident Coordinator in Kyrgyzstan,
said in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday at the launch of the
report.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50585&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
KYRGYZSTAN: Media liberalisation slow, say journalists
Eight months after public protests swept away Kyrgyz president Askar
Akayev, press freedom remains a key issue in the former Soviet republic,
despite expectations that the new authorities would promote media
liberalisation, journalists say. A recent month-long dispute between the
staff and shareholders of KOORT - the first national independent
television channel in Kyrgyzstan - ended with the dismissal of the
channel's director and some of its journalists. A KOORT current affairs
programme that had been critical of the new authorities was also taken
off the air.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50543&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
AFGHANISTAN: New parliament to meet
Following the appointment of 34 presidential appointees to the 102-seat
Meshrano Jirga (the upper house of parliament), Afghanistan's new
national assembly is scheduled to convene on 19 December for the first
time in more than three decades, an official said on Wednesday. "The new
parliament building is prepared for the opening," said Tahira Shirzoai,
public information officer for the national assembly, adding the
recently refurbished building that would be home to both upper and lower
houses, had been officially handed over to Azizullah Ludin, head of
parliament's secretariat, on Tuesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50546&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF expresses concern about child labour
An estimated 1 million child labourers under 14 are deprived of
education, health care and other necessary facilities for human
development across Afghanistan, the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) said on Monday. "[Some] 25 percent of all children aged between
seven and 14 years are involved in various forms of work across the
country," Edward Carwardine, an information officer for UNICEF, said in
the Afghan capital Kabul, adding the majority of child labourers were
involved in domestic work.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50528&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Displaced and former refugees face miserable winter
As the Afghan winter approaches rapidly, conditions for some 2,300
internally displaced persons (IDPs) and former refugees in the Afghan
capital, Kabul, remain miserable. "My children are shivering of cold all
night. I don't have warm clothes to protect them," Qudsia, a 35-year-old
widow sitting in the shell of Kabul's technical college, in the west of
the capital, told IRIN. "I am worried, snow would kill my children," the
mother of seven said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50503&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
KAZAKHSTAN: Presidential election fell short of international standards
- OSCE
Despite improvements in the election process prior to Sunday's
presidential polls in Kazakhstan, the elections failed to meet
international standards for democratic elections, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observation mission said on
Monday. "Regrettably, despite some efforts which were undertaken to
improve the process, the authorities did not exhibit sufficient
political will to hold a genuinely good election that is in line with
international standards," Bruce George, head of the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly and coordinator for the short-term election observers, said in
a statement.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50502&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Forced labour continues in cotton industry
As this year's cotton-picking season wraps up in Uzbekistan, the
authorities in the Ferghana Valley region have come under criticism for
continuing the practice of using government employees and child labour
to harvest the country's main cash crop. "Currently, the entire
population, from junior school students to professors are cotton
pickers," a secondary school teacher in the eastern city of Andijan,
capital of the province with the same name, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50586&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Gender NGOs receive support from UN
Gender groups in Tajikistan will receive US $100,000 in assistance in
2006 from the United Nations to improve implementation of legislation
aimed at curbing violence against women, the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM) mission in the country said on Friday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50623&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
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