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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 63
11 - 17 March 2006


CONTENTS:

PAKISTAN: Focus on "vani" - the practice of giving away young women to
   settle feuds
PAKISTAN: WHO establishing temporary health units
PAKISTAN: Majority of city's water contaminated - report
PAKISTAN: IOM starts debris removal in quake area
PAKISTAN: Bad weather disrupts relief and returns
PAKISTAN: Measure to improve juvenile prisons
PAKISTAN: Revitalising quake schools in Pakistani-administered Kashmir
PAKISTAN: Displaced from Allai return from quake camps
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
CENTRAL ASIA: US human rights report needs to inform policy - HRW
CENTRAL ASIA: New reports stress need for regional water cooperation
AFGHANISTAN: UN assistance mission to continue for a further year
AFGHANISTAN: Tests confirm deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu
AFGHANISTAN: Avian influenza detected
NEPAL: Civilians living in terror - HRW
NEPAL: Rebel blockade affects civilians
NEPAL: Sexual minorities face police brutality
NEPAL: Bombs causing hundreds of child casualties
NEPAL: Rebel blockade to go ahead
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on land seizures


PAKISTAN: Focus on "vani" - the practice of giving away young women to
settle feuds

Each day, Fareedullah Khan, nearly 70, reads items from the newspaper to
his wife, Sakina Bibi, 60. The items he picks out from the columns of
dense, Urdu-language print concern the custom of 'vani', or the giving
away of girls in forced marriage to the male relatives of murder
victims.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52267&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: WHO establishing temporary health units

In an attempt to meet the short-term health needs of local communities,
the World Health Organization (WHO) has established 20 prefabricated
basic health units (BHU) in Pakistan's earthquake-affected areas, while
another 15 are to be completed before the end of March."These
prefabricated BHUs are only meant to function temporarily until the
reconstruction of permanent health facilities is completed, because many
of the operational field hospitals [in the earthquake zone] will close
by the end of March," Sacha Bootsma, a WHO spokeswoman, said in the
Pakistani capital, Islamabad on Thursday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52268&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Majority of city's water contaminated - report

A new report, based on a sample survey conducted during the summer of
2005 by the federal Ministry of Science and Technology, has found 75
percent of water extracted in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore was
contaminated. Samples collected from schools in 18 locations in the city
were declared unfit for human consumption. The biggest cause of
pollution was the seepage of sewage from decaying waste pipes into the
water supply system.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52217&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: IOM starts debris removal in quake area

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is to start clearing
earthquake debris from parts of Muzaffarabad, capital of
Pakistani-administered Kashmir, a region devastated by the 8 October
disaster that killed at least 80,000 people. "We are starting the
removal of rubble in Muzaffarabad on Friday. We've been assigned sector
eight, which has a lot of government buildings in it and our first phase
is to take that sector on," Hugh Smith, head of IOM's office in
Muzaffarabad, said on Wednesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52223&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Bad weather disrupts relief and returns

Heavy rain and landslides are disrupting return and relief operations in
earthquake-affected areas of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials
said on Tuesday. "The bad weather like this - if it rains for two days -
means that road slides and landslides will occur. So everybody at this
moment is waiting," Morgan Moris, head of the office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Muzaffarabad, said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52199&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Measure to improve juvenile prisons

Children's rights activists have hailed the installation of security
cameras at a detention facility for juveniles in Pakistan's North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), calling it a step forward in conditions for
young people in detention facilities. "These surveillance cameras are
the first ever installed in any juvenile jail in the country, which, we
think, would greatly improve the number of abuse complaints,"
Jawad-ullah, regional coordinator of the country's leading child rights'
organisation, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child
(SPARC), said from the provincial capital, Peshawar, on Tuesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52216&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Revitalising quake schools in Pakistani-administered Kashmir

As part of a cash-for-work programme, the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) has been assisting local communities
in two earthquake-effected districts of Pakistani-administered Kashmir
in building and equipping quake-resistant classrooms. "The aim is to
restore safe classroom space destroyed by the 8 October earthquake and
enable students to return to normal routines while schools prepare for
reconstruction [with permanent structures]," a press statement issued on
Sunday from USAID, said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52180&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Displaced from Allai return from quake camps

With winter almost over and temperatures rising, the return process from
the largest camp in northern Pakistan - home to tens of thousands of
people displaced by October's earthquake - is gaining pace. "It is
getting very hot here and we are not used to such weather," Abdul Lajan,
40, from the mountain village of Ghudlai in the Allai area of Pakistan's
North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said on Saturday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52182&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Continuing persecution of Protestants in Uzbekistan was reported on
Tuesday by Forum 18 News Service, an agency monitoring religious freedom
in former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. Confiscation and
destruction of religious literature and routine harassment of
Pentecostalists by the Uzbek government are other concerns. Two missing
local journalists working for RFE/RL from Turkmenistan, whose
whereabouts were unknown, have been in detention for eight days,
according to the international broadcaster.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52306&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


CENTRAL ASIA: US human rights report needs to inform policy - HRW

The US State Department's annual report on human rights needs to inform
Washington's policies in Central Asia, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on
Monday. "The report is strong, and it is generally strong every year.
What concern me are the next steps; how does the US use the report when
formulating policy towards Central Asia? With growing repression and no
independent investigation of the Andijan massacre [where up to 1,000
civilians were killed by Uzbek security forces in May 2005], I believe
the EU [European Union] has taken significant action, but the US is in a
worrying holding pattern with Uzbekistan", Rachel Denber, Deputy
Director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch
(HRW), told IRIN from New York.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52187&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


CENTRAL ASIA: New reports stress need for regional water cooperation

The United Nations World Water Development's second annual report,
'Water, a shared responsibility', released on 9 March, raises concerns
over water resources in Central Asia and the dying Aral Sea, once one of
the world's largest inland bodies of water.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52185&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


AFGHANISTAN: UN assistance mission to continue for a further year

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended a one-year extension of
the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) - set to
expire on 24 March - given the enormous challenges that remain in
rebuilding the country. "In accordance with the Afghanistan Compact,
UNAMA looks forward to assisting the Afghan authorities in four main
areas in the coming year: socio-economic development; governance; rule
of law; and counter-narcotics activities," Aleem Siddique, a
spokesperson for UNAMA said in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52219&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: Tests confirm deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been confirmed in
Afghanistan in six samples of birds, a UN-government joint statement
said on Thursday. The samples were taken from birds found in the
Dasht-e-Barchi district of the capital, Kabul, and from the eastern
Nangarhar province. A further six samples from Kandahar province in the
south and Kondoz province in the north tested negative. All samples were
tested at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) laboratories
in the Italian city of Padua, the statement said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52266&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: Avian influenza detected

The H5 strain of bird flu has been found at two sites in Afghanistan and
there's fear that tests could prove it to be the deadly H5N1 virus, a UN
agency warned on Monday. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
said five swab samples from backyard poultry farms in the capital Kabul
and the eastern city of Jalalabad tested positive on Monday for H5, and
that tests were under way to discern the virus subtype.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52191&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


NEPAL: Civilians living in terror - HRW

The international watchdog group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed
serious concerns on Friday about the impact on civilians of the violent
conflict between the state and Maoist rebels that has claimed over
13,000 lives since 1996. "The space for civilians has reduced
dramatically. The civil war has engulfed every area of the country,"
said Saman Zia-Zarifi, Deputy Director of HRW's Asia division, who is in
the country with his team on a three-week mission.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52315&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Rebel blockade affects civilians

Millions of Nepalis have been affected by a 20-day nationwide blockade
of towns and cities organised by Maoist rebels who have been waging an
armed rebellion against the state for more than a decade. In the capital
Kathmandu, from where nearly 600-700 buses and taxis leave every day to
reach other towns and cities throughout the Himalayan kingdom, tens of
thousands of Nepalese were left stranded, many unsure if and when they
would be able to travel outside the capital.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52237&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Sexual minorities face police brutality

For Kala Rai, the freedom she so desperately craved as a 'meti', or
transgender person living in Kathmandu, has never come easy. Arriving in
the Nepali capital three years earlier from the small town of Dharan in
Sunsari district, 600 km from the city, her plight is indicative of many
in this particularly marginalised community.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52240&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Bombs causing hundreds of child casualties

Nepal is ranked among the top 10 countries in the world affected by
victim-activated bomb explosions, a new report by the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) has revealed. "Casualties among children in
Nepal are much worse than those in severely conflict-ridden countries
like Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and Burundi," Hugues Laurenge, a mine
and bomb risk expert working with the UN children's agency, said on
Tuesday in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52201&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Rebel blockade to go ahead

Maoist rebels are launching a 20-day blockade of Nepal's major urban
centres from Tuesday. The rebels, who have been waging an armed
rebellion since 1996 in the Himalayan kingdom, said in a press statement
that the blockade was part of a new, more intensive struggle to
overthrow the royal government. The insurgents have also called an
indefinite nationwide strike from 6 April.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52167&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on land seizures

The period of political instability in Kyrgyzstan that immediately
followed the revolution of March 2005 saw a wave of land seizures in the
capital, Bishkek. Now political leaders and activists fear the situation
may well repeat itself in coming weeks as the weather improves. "We
should expect massive land seizures in the spring. We have information
which confirms that claim," Tursunbek Akun, Chairman of the Presidential
Commission on Human Rights, said recently at a press conference in the
capital.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52171&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


IRIN-Asia
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