Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-91: 29-Sep-06
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 91
23 - 29 September 2006
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Kandahar women's affairs head assassinated
AFGHANISTAN: 19 killed in suicide attack in Helmand
CENTRAL ASIA: Regional HIV/AIDS conference kicks off
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
NEPAL: Serious human rights abuses by rebels continue - United Nations
NEPAL: National health programmes reduce child deaths
NEPAL: Disappearances issue remains neglected - families
NEPAL: Political uncertainty hampers development work - NGOs
PAKISTAN: UNHCR to suspend Afghan repatriation by mid-October
PAKISTAN: Fifth year of Afghan repatriation marked by slowdown
PAKISTAN: Health recovery plan in quake-zone at risk this winter
PAKISTAN: Baloch tribal gathering appeals to International Court of
Justice
TURKMENISTAN: Rights groups worried for killed journalist's family
AFGHANISTAN: Kandahar women's affairs head assassinated
Safia Hama Jan, a leading women's rights advocate and outspoken critic
of the Taliban, was killed in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar
on Monday. Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire at Hana Jan, provincial
director of the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs in insurgency-hit
Kandahar province, as she was leaving for work early on Monday, Daud
Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor confirmed, adding that she
had died on the spot.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55702&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: 19 killed in suicide attack in Helmand
Some 19 people, including 13 civilians, were killed and another 20 were
wounded when a suicide bomber on Tuesday blew himself up at a security
post near a mosque in Lashkar Gah, capital of the restive southern
Helmand province, local officials and hospital sources confirmed.
"Security forces had identified this man [the bomber] and as they tried
to arrest him, he detonated himself near the police check post, killing
19 people, including a woman," Mohayedin Khan, a spokesman for the
Helmand governor, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55733&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Regional HIV/AIDS conference kicks off
Participants at an international conference on combating the spread of
HIV/AIDS in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, which opened in the Kyrgyz
capital, Bishkek, on Monday, are calling for greater regional
cooperation to tackle the disease. "No country in the world is protected
against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, therefore the fight against this dreadful
disease should be conducted on a regional level," said Erkinbek
Alymbekov, deputy speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament, where the event was
held.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55705&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
This week in Central Asia, opposition parties in Tajikistan have decided
not to take part in the presidential polls slated for 6 November in the
former Soviet republic, international media reported. Tajikistan's
largest opposition party, the Islamic Revival Party - which was
prominent among the mostly Islamic opposition forces that fought against
incumbent President Imomali Rahmonov's hard-line secular government
during the 1992-1997 civil war - refused to field a candidate stating
that its participation could be seen as a sign of tension and a possible
threat to peace in the nation, English Politics News reported on
Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55762&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
NEPAL: Serious human rights abuses by rebels continue - United Nations
Abductions, torture, brutal beatings, killings, extortions and other
serious human rights abuses by Maoist rebels have not stopped despite
their engagement in the ongoing peace process, according to a new report
by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commission for Human
Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal. OHCHR officials criticised rebel leaders of the
Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), saying that despite their
commitment to end human rights abuses, serious violations have continued
in the districts and villages.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55743&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: National health programmes reduce child deaths
It is a simple step to save a child in a country like Nepal where,
according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 65,000
children under five die every year mostly from preventable diseases such
as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections (ARI), pneumonia, measles and
undernutrition. All the children need are vaccinations, vitamins and
preventive steps to save their lives, says Nepal's Ministry of Health
(MOH), which jointly with UNICEF has been running successful health
campaigns to reduce the deaths of the Nepalese children.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55735&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Disappearances issue remains neglected - families
For the last four years, Shanta Bhandari has pleaded with the
government's security forces to reveal the whereabouts of her
21-year-old son Bipin, a student activist who disappeared following his
arrest on suspicion of supporting the Maoist rebels in 2002. But the
security authorities deny detaining him whenever Bhandari asks. "Even
the new government has failed to take action against those who illegally
detained thousands of people over the last few years," said Bhandari,
who is also member of the Society of Families of the Disappeared.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55752&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Political uncertainty hampers development work - NGOs
Since the start of the peace process in April, aid workers in Nepal have
been able to work without fear in remote areas of the country, but
uncertainty over its outcome is still hampering development projects,
they say. The Maoists - who had been waging an armed rebellion since
1996 against the Nepalese state - have observed an indefinite ceasefire
with the interim government, formed by the seven national parties, since
jointly leading a successful mass uprising against the absolute rule of
the Nepalese monarch, King Gyanendra.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55706&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: UNHCR to suspend Afghan repatriation by mid-October
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
on Friday announced the closure of this year's Afghan repatriation
assistance programme from Pakistan by 14 October, mainly due to a slow
pace of returns. The programme is in its last operational year under
existing tripartite agreement between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN
refugee agency that will expire at the end of December.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55766&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Fifth year of Afghan repatriation marked by slowdown
The last operational year of the UN assisted repatriation programme for
Afghan refugees living in Pakistan is approaching its end with a
significantly slower pace of returnees. At the end of this year's peak
season in September, only 130,000 Afghans will have returned, according
to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR). The agency expected some 400,000 Afghans would return home in
2006, as estimated at the start of the year.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55753&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Health recovery plan in quake-zone at risk this winter
A multi-million dollar health recovery plan aimed at maintaining
transitional medical services through the winter in quake-affected
northern Pakistan is now under threat due to a severe lack of funds,
officials warned on Tuesday. "Of the US $40 million needed to fund
health programmes from May 2006 to April 2007, we have so far received
only between $14 to $16 million," Dr Rayana Bouhaka, head of the
earthquake emergency health programme at the World Health Organization
(WHO), said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55726&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Baloch tribal gathering appeals to International Court of
Justice
A recent gathering of 85 tribal chiefs from Balochistan, Sindh and
Punjab for the first grand tribal jirga or council in at least 126 years
reflects growing frustration among the inhabitants of energy-rich
Balochistan in their fight for greater autonomy from the government.
Tribal chiefs from across the region and 300 leaders from other areas of
Pakistan appealed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to
investigate what they say is a violation of a 1948 treaty that promised
autonomy to Balochistan within the newly created Pakistani state.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55717&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN: Rights groups worried for killed journalist's family
Rights groups are concerned about the plight of family members of a
murdered journalist who died in custody earlier this month in
Turkmenistan. "Their lives are under threat because they are witnesses
to Ogulsapar Muradova's arrest, investigation and imprisonment. They are
under threat in the same way that [we said] Muradova was under threat,
but no one listened to us and she was murdered," Tajigul Begmedova, head
of the Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (THF), an
exiled rights group, said from the Bulgarian town on Varna, on Tuesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55725&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN
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