U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network

Tel: +92-51-2211451 Ext 484
Fax: +92-51-2211 450
e-mail: irin@irin.org.pk


Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 59
11 - 17 February 2006


CONTENTS:


PAKISTAN: Roots of the Balochistan conflict run deep
PAKISTAN: Boosting non-traditional employment in rural areas
PAKISTAN: IOM promoting income generation for quake reconstruction
PAKISTAN: New arrangements for Afghan refugees under discussion
AFGHANISTAN: TB major health problem in the south - WHO
AFGHANISTAN: Rights body condemns violence against journalists
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Karzai in Pakistan to urge crackdown on cross
   border attacks
IRAN: Deadly avian flu strain detected in wild birds
NEPAL: UN human rights report paints bleak picture
NEPAL: The growing threat of HIV/AIDS
NEPAL: Escaping rural violence and hardship - the reality of
   displacement
TAJIKISTAN: UN appeal for 2006 launched
TAJIKISTAN: UN micro-credit project helps women in rural areas
KYRGYZSTAN: More than 60 trafficked women detained
KYRGYZSTAN: Economic disparities driving inter-ethnic conflict
KYRGYZSTAN: Farming organic cotton gains popularity in the south
TURKMENISTAN: Interview with United Nations Resident Representative
CENTRAL ASIA: Ferghana environment meeting wraps up
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap



PAKISTAN: Roots of the Balochistan conflict run deep

For two years, Faqir Hussain, 26, has been searching for a job. He goes
about the task methodically from his tiny flat in the southern Pakistani
city of Quetta, cutting out notices that appear each week in the Sunday
newspapers and maintaining a meticulous list of the organisations he has
already written to.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51743&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: Boosting non-traditional employment in rural areas

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to help Pakistan create non-farming
jobs in rural areas through a technical assistance loan of US $5 million
over the next three years. "There is a pressing need to create an
enabling environment to stimulate enhanced employment opportunities in
rural areas beyond traditional farming. This project aims to diversify
job and income-earning opportunities, particularly for the landless,
wage earners, and women in rural and peri-urban areas,' Ahsan Tayyab, a
project economist, said on Thursday from Manila, where the ADB is
headquartered.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51762&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: IOM promoting income generation for quake reconstruction

Under a blue sky in the grounds of the Ajaz Gillani Relief Tent Village,
in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, a group of
women wearing heavy-duty workmen's gloves are grappling with thick coils
of metal wire. The women, survivors of the October earthquake that
killed over 80,000 people, are learning to make gabions - steel mesh
structures used to strengthen buildings and bridges when filled with
rocks or concrete. In front of them, a squatting man demonstrates how it
is done, deftly weaving the metal strands together at a thunderous pace.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51716&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


PAKISTAN: New arrangements for Afghan refugees under discussion

Speakers at a conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday
called for realistic policies to regulate Afghan population movements in
Pakistan, citing migration as not only a reaction to war and insecurity
but also a key livelihood strategy. The day-long meeting was arranged by
an independent Kabul-based think-tank, the Afghanistan Research and
Evaluation Unit (AREU), to explore and discuss the potential responses
to Afghan migrants in Iran and Pakistan.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51741&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: TB major health problem in the south - WHO

Zakera, a 40-year-old widow and mother of three, sits in a long queue of
mostly female patients awaiting medicine at a tuberculosis (TB) control
centre located in the Shar-e-Now district of the southern Afghan city of
Kandahar. "I have been suffering from a cough and pain for seven months,
the same disease I had 10 years ago," the emaciated Zakera spluttered.
"The deadly disease killed my first husband and then I was married to
his brother who also died of TB 10 years ago," Zakera noted.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51717&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN: Rights body condemns violence against journalists

A local Afghan rights body supporting free media in Afghanistan on
Monday condemned the beating of two journalists by officials in the
western province of Herat and called on the government to investigate
the incident. "A freelance journalist from Herat, Reza Shair Mohammadi,
was beaten up by police in the Shar-e-Naw district of Herat, on Friday,
10 February, during the second day of confrontation between Shia and
Sunni [groups]," Nai - a group funded by the European Union (EU) and the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - said in a
statement.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51692&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN


AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Karzai in Pakistan to urge crackdown on cross
border attacks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun a two-day visit to Pakistan
where he will discuss the recent upsurge in violence in southern and
eastern Afghanistan blamed on Taliban militants, which Kabul believes is
being organised from across the border in Pakistan, officials said on
Wednesday. Karzai is scheduled to meet President Pervez Musharraf and
other senior Pakistani officials.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51734&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN


IRAN: Deadly avian flu strain detected in wild birds

The killer strain of avian influenza known as bird flu has been detected
in dead wild birds in northwestern Iran, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO). "It is the H5N1 strain, but there have been no human
cases, it has only been found in dead wild swans. The dead swans which
were found during surveillance tested positive yesterday. There are no
positive cases among domestic poultry or industrial [commercial]
poultry," Tarin Esanullah from the WHO said from the capital, Tehran, on
Wednesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51725&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN


NEPAL: UN human rights report paints bleak picture

Nepal's violent armed conflict between Maoist rebels and the government
has been placing the civilian population in grave danger, said a report
released on Thursday by the United Nations Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHCR) in Nepal. "It is a tragedy for the
people of Nepal that full-scale conflict has now resumed," said
OCHCR-Nepal representative Ian Martin, referring to the escalation in
violence following the end of the rebels' unilateral ceasefire in
January 2006.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51759&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: The growing threat of HIV/AIDS

Four years ago, Nareshlal Shrestha took the bold step of publicly
declaring that he was HIV-positive in a society that still condemns and
ostracises people living with the virus. He was one of the first people
in Nepal to do so. Since then, others have followed his example,
believing that the only way to fight HIV/AIDS in Nepal is to take
matters into their own hands.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50591&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


NEPAL: Escaping rural violence and hardship - the reality of
displacement

Since the start of the Maoist insurgency in February 1996, an estimated
100,000 to 200,000 people are thought to have been internally displaced
in Nepal. Largely from rural communities, the displaced have fled
violence and economic hardship. The majority live with relatives in
temporary accommodation or on abandoned plots in towns, or in the
capital Kathmandu. Up to 2 million more may have become migrant
labourers working in India or elsewhere.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50554&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL


TAJIKISTAN: UN appeal for 2006 launched

The United Nations launched its appeal for Tajikistan for 2006 in the
capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday, requesting more than US $51 million from
international donors. "This document represents a common strategy of UN
agencies aimed at further support of Tajikistan's sustainable
development," UN Resident Coordinator William Paton said at the launch
of the appeal. According to Paton, 15 UN agencies are operating in the
former Soviet republic and plan to use the requested funds for the
implementation of 56 projects, of which 33 are new and 14 are mutual
projects.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51761&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN


TAJIKISTAN: UN micro-credit project helps women in rural areas

Proudly showing off her cow and calf in the village of Sarbdor, around
80 km west of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, Mavliuda Madrahimova says
that her livestock, an important source of diary products for her
family, has been purchased thanks to a micro-crediting project currently
under way in the Central Asian state. She decided to buy the cow as, in
recent years, her family has had fodder available after they harvested
crops from their land plot. The scheme has changed the family's life,
Mavliuda said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51691&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN


KYRGYZSTAN: More than 60 trafficked women detained

Kyrgyz security forces on Tuesday removed dozens of young women from a
plane in the southern city of Osh set to transport them to the United
Arab Emirates (UAE), allegedly for sexual exploitation. "We have
evidence that all the girls were being trafficked, with trafficking
gangs supposed to meet them in the Emirates," Bakyt Bekibaev, head of
the regional office of the Kyrgyz National Security Service (NSS), said
in Osh.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51715&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


KYRGYZSTAN: Economic disparities driving inter-ethnic conflict

More than a week after clashes attributed to ethnic divisions that left
six people injured in the Kyrgyz village of Iskra, around 70 km east of
the capital, Bishkek, local people were still clearing up broken glass
and pondering what was behind the violence.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51731&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


KYRGYZSTAN: Farming organic cotton gains popularity in the south

Many cotton growers in southern Kyrgyzstan are joining an organic
farming drive in the area, with numbers up almost six times since the
initiative kicked off in 2003. Suerkul Orunbaev from the Shaidan village
of the southern Kyrgyz province of Jalal-Abad, one of the main cotton
producing areas in the country, remembers his initial doubts about
organic agriculture three years ago.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51701&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN


TURKMENISTAN: Interview with United Nations Resident Representative

Richard Young is the United Nations' new Resident Representative in
Turkmenistan. In an interview with IRIN in the capital, Ashgabat he
spoke about the need to formulate an emergency preparedness plan for the
earthquake-prone republic and about new programmes to promote human
rights in the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51732&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN


CENTRAL ASIA: Ferghana environment meeting wraps up

A meeting of environmental experts has wrapped up in the Kyrgyz capital,
Bishkek, as part of a regional project on environmental safety and
emergency preparedness in Ferghana Valley. "This project will help us
reduce the risk of natural disasters and contribute to poverty reduction
as well," Sheishenaly Usupbaev, a participant and head of the Kyrgyz
emergency ministry's department on monitoring and forecast, said in
Bishkek.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51765&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

An opposition leader was shot dead in Kazakhstan, together with his
driver and bodyguard, international news agencies reported on Monday.
The body of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, a leader of the opposition Nagyz Ak
Zhol party, was found with two others in a car by the side of a road in
the southeastern part of the country's commercial capital, Almaty, a
spokesman for the provincial interior bureau reportedly said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51775&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA



IRIN-Asia
Tel: +90 312 454 1177
Fax: +90 312 495 4166
Email: IrinAsia@IRINnews.org


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Asia                               www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/casia