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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 29
16 - 22 July 2005


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: New report documents worst atrocities in three decades
AFGHANISTAN: Violence against women needs to be addressed - UN rapporteur
AFGHANISTAN: Women election educators at work in the provinces
IRAN: Exploring alternatives to youth custody
KYRGYZSTAN: Atlantis project tackles addiction in prisons
KYRGYZSTAN: Environmental awareness bearing fruit
NEPAL: Norway cuts bilateral aid
PAKISTAN: Floods cause extensive damage in southern Punjab
PAKISTAN: Flooding kills 30, affects over 460,000
PAKISTAN: Afghans asked to leave tribal North Waziristan
PAKISTAN: Agencies bring flood relief
PAKISTAN: Cataracts remain primary cause of preventable blindness
PAKISTAN: Afghans want Balochistan refugee camp to remain open
TAJIKISTAN: Southerners prepare for further flooding
TAJIKISTAN: Interview with Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan
TAJIKISTAN: Protecting and assisting street children
UZBEKISTAN: Trial of US-based media NGO begins
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap


AFGHANISTAN: New report documents worst atrocities in three decades

A new report by the Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP) attempts to
document the worst atrocities, human rights abuses and war crimes
committed during three decades of conflict. The 160-page document,
entitled 'Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
1978-2001' was released on Sunday in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The
crimes documented include large-scale massacres, disappearances and the
summary execution of tens of thousands of Afghans. It also details
indiscriminate bombing and rocketing that killed hundreds of thousands
of civilians, torture, mass rape and other atrocities.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48186&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: Violence against women needs to be addressed - UN
rapporteur

Violence against women remains a huge problem in Afghanistan, a visiting
United Nations official said in the capital Kabul, on Monday. Yakin
Erturk, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences, had spent
ten days visiting Afghan cities. She said child marriages, many of them
forced, continued to be a source of violence against women and girls.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48209&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: Women election educators at work in the provinces

Female civic educators have been dispatched to provincial areas of
Afghanistan to promote awareness of the forthcoming parliamentary
elections among women, officials at the Ministry of Women's Affairs
(MoWA) announced on Thursday in the capital, Kabul. According to MoWA,
the 10-day programme, which began last week, involves 63 women meeting
village leaders and approaching the local media, mosques, NGOs and
schools to help with the information campaign.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48233&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Authorities in Tajikistan were still cleaning up this week after two
months of heavy rains and high temperatures resulted in heavy flooding
in the country. Hundreds of homes were destroyed, 8,000 people evacuated
and thousands of hectares of agricultural lands submerged by floods, AFP
reported on Monday. Officials in the former Soviet republic have called
for urgent international assistance to help residents cope with the
floods that had devastated Khamadoni, a mainly agricultural region some
230 km southeast of the capital, Dushanbe, the report added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48248&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


IRAN: Exploring alternatives to youth custody

Iran and Britain shared ideas on youth sentencing at a United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) workshop in Tehran this month. Representatives
from Iran's judiciary, police, social workers and academics met David
Padley, a British police inspector and policy advisor to the Youth
Justice Board of England and Wales, to discuss ways in which Iran might
reduce its youth custody rates. "One of the general objectives of the
workshop has been to discuss how to effectively deal with young people
in a community-based setting rather than imprisoning them," said David
Padley. "There's been a sharing of areas of common interest. We've been
looking at alternatives to prison custody, prevention of and
multi-disciplinary responses to youth crime," he said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48185&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN


KYRGYZSTAN: Atlantis project tackles addiction in prisons

A new Kyrgyz programme aimed at tackling addiction in custody is helping
inmates to say no to drugs and alcohol. The Atlantis programme is
currently working with thousands of people in prison in the former
Soviet republic helping them to overcome psychological addictions to
drugs and alcohol. Rafik Asanov, 33, is serving a 12 year sentence for
manslaughter in one of Bishkek's prisons. He said before joining the
programme his life was focused on various drugs and drink, including
ecstasy.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48176&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


KYRGYZSTAN: Environmental awareness bearing fruit

The Global Environment Fund (GEF) and the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) are supporting an initiative to help revive apple, pear
and walnut orchards, as well as vineyards near Tashtak village, in
Kyrgyzstan's southern Jalal-Abad province. "In the past, there was so
much fruit available in this region but then it started to disappear
when people chopped the trees down," Burulsun Samatova, the leader of a
project supported by the programme, said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48244&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


NEPAL: Norway cuts bilateral aid

Norway has decided to reduce its bilateral assistance to Nepal following
Kathmandu's failure to adhere to democratic principles and human rights
after King Gyanendra's seized absolute power of the Himalayan kingdom
earlier this year. "Formally we are the first country to take this
measure," Norwegian Ambassador to Nepal, Tore Toreng, told IRIN from the
capital Kathmandu on Thursday. He noted, however, that most bilateral
donors had already taken preliminary steps to do the same, pending
developments in the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48228&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


PAKISTAN: Floods cause extensive damage in southern Punjab

A second massive surge of water into the River Indus over recent days
has caused extensive damage to houses and fields while passing through
the southern belt of Pakistan's Punjab province. At least 29 people have
died, while over 452,000 were reported affected in more than 1,050
villages and small settlements across 14 flood-hit districts of Punjab
since rivers started swelling in early July, according to a statement by
the central Emergency Relief Cell (ERC) in the capital, Islamabad.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48250&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Flooding kills 30, affects over 460,000

More than 30 people have been killed, while over 460,000 people in
low-lying areas of Pakistan have been affected by three weeks of
flooding, according to the central Flood Relief Cell (FRC) in the
capital, Islamabad. "Public health is a major concern at the moment.
Flood-hit villages are a storehouse for stagnant water, which will not
recede soon, since heavy monsoon rains are forecast towards the end of
July," Farhana Faruqi Stocker, country representative of the UK-based
international charity Oxfam, said in Islamabad on Monday. "The still
water is an immediate breeding ground for malaria and water-borne
diseases," she added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48184&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Afghans asked to leave tribal North Waziristan

Afghan refugees living in Pakistan's North Waziristan agency's western
tribal belt bordering Afghanistan have been asked to leave the area in
six weeks, an official from the Afghan refugee directorate told IRIN
from the agency's capital, Miranshah, on Tuesday. For last two years,
Pakistani security forces have been busy in a full-scale offensive
against militants in the western belt of the Federally Administered
Tribal Area (FATA).

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48200&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Agencies bring flood relief

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is preparing to distribute some 7,850
food packs amongst flood affected people in northern parts of the
country, where heavy flooding over the past four weeks has displaced
some 10,000 persons while an estimated 45,000 have been left in
immediate need of food support. "We are coordinating with Islamic Relief
(IR) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to distribute food
supplies amongst Pakistani as well Afghan refugee families in three
badly flood hit districts of Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda in NWFP
[North West Frontier Province] and also in northern areas," Sahib-e-Haq
working with the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), said in Islamabad on
Wednesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48220&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Cataracts remain primary cause of preventable blindness

Nabi Bux is typical of most of those suffering from cataracts in
Pakistan today. He has suffered from cataracts in both eyes for over
four years and the father of four children with eight grandchildren may
never see them again unless he takes action immediately. "I live in a
rural area and have no money. That's why I haven't done anything about
it," the 75-year-old former farmer from Dadu, a city in Pakistan's
northern Sindh province, explained.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48207&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Afghans want Balochistan refugee camp to remain open

Afghans living in a refugee camp scheduled for closure by August, have
asked Pakistani authorities to extend the life of the facility for at
least one year, to give residents a chance to make proper arrangements
to leave. Pakistani authorities in the capital, Islamabad, announced in
June the intention to close two refugee camps in the Pishin and Chaghai
districts of the southern province of Balochistan by the end of August
because of security concerns.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48236&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


TAJIKISTAN: Southerners prepare for further flooding

Residents in southern Tajikistan are still reeling after heavy flooding
over the past two months continued on Monday. "Water levels are not
expected to decrease at least until Wednesday and it's more than likely
that further flooding will occur," Ole Ramsing, project manager for the
United Nations Disaster Risk Management Project (UNDRMP) warned from the
Tajik, capital, Dushanbe. UNDRMP supports information collection and
dissemination in affected areas. Already some 12,000 people had been
affected by the flooding, with more than 10,000 evacuated, primarily in
the southern Tajik districts of Penjikent and Hamadoni, explained
Ramsing.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48174&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN


TAJIKISTAN: Interview with Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan

Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan visited Tajikistan late last month in
order to focus government and donor support on achieving the UN's
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Queen has also assumed an
advocacy role in the international fight to ban anti-personnel mines. In
an exclusive interview with IRIN, she said the Central Asian nation had
been blighted by poverty and labour migration and needed continued
international donor support.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48190&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN


TAJIKISTAN: Protecting and assisting street children

Ten-year-old Parvina can neither read nor write, because she has never
attended school. She lives in the southern Tajik city of Kurgan-Tyube,
capital of Khatlon province, 100 km south of the national capital,
Dushanbe. Sometimes other children play with her showing her how to
write her name in the sand. But Parvina can count. "I can count up to
500," she said proudly, adding that she learnt to do so when she started
working, selling plastic bags in the city's main market. She was making
around US $ 1 a day and helping her family to survive. Now she has
switched to selling flat Central Asian bread and along with her younger
brother Akram earns about $ 3 a day. Parvina gives most of the money to
her mother but is allowed to keep some which she spends on clothes and
food she likes.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48208&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN


UZBEKISTAN: Trial of US-based media NGO begins

Two local staff from the US-based media NGO, Internews, went on trial on
Monday in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent following a year-long campaign to
halt the work of Western-funded pro-democracy organisations in the
country. As the trial opened in Yakkasaroy district court, the judge
ordered representatives of foreign organisations and journalists, who
wanted to monitor the trial, to leave the courtroom. "This is a
violation of judicial procedures," Fyodor Kravchenko, a lawyer with
Internews, said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48177&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Authorities in Tajikistan were still cleaning up this week after two
months of heavy rains and high temperatures resulted in heavy flooding
in the country. Hundreds of homes were destroyed, 8,000 people evacuated
and thousands of hectares of agricultural lands submerged by floods, AFP
reported on Monday. Officials in the former Soviet republic have called
for urgent international assistance to help residents cope with the
floods that had devastated Khamadoni, a mainly agricultural region some
230 km southeast of the capital, Dushanbe, the report added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48248&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


IRIN-Asia
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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