Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-102: 15-Dec-06
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 102
9 - 15 December 2006
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN-INDIA: Afghan Sikh refugees want a slice of globalising
India
AFGHANISTAN: Action plan for justice launched
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
NEPAL: Peace agreement leads to improved school security
PAKISTAN: Race is on for quake zone winter migration
PAKISTAN: Monitoring of school feeding programme begins
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration gathers momentum
PAKISTAN: The long wait at a quake camp
PAKISTAN: Over 2 million children immunized in special cross-border
campaign
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration quickens ahead of deadline
PAKISTAN: Focus on forgotten quake victims of Kala Dhaka
AFGHANISTAN-INDIA: Afghan Sikh refugees want a slice of globalising
India
Manmeet Kaur was four years old when her family fled Afghanistan. Today,
this 18-year-old Afghan Sikh refugee calls Delhi her home, avidly
watches 'L'il Champs' - a hugely popular show on one of India's myriad
satellite television channels for young, aspiring singers - and dreams
of carving out a niche for herself. "Here, you have freedom! I would
like to establish my own identity, achieve something in life and be
self-reliant," she said. Manmeet is one among the 9,000-odd Afghan
refugees in India, 90 percent of whom belong to Hindu or Sikh faiths -
religious minorities in Afghanistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56732&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-INDIA
AFGHANISTAN: Action plan for justice launched
In an effort to bring justice to tens of thousands of victims of decades
of civil war and internal strife in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Afghan
President Hamid Karzai launched a three-year action plan on Sunday. The
project, known as the "Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice
in Afghanistan" contains five key elements: acknowledgment of the
suffering of the Afghan people; strengthening state institutions;
finding out the truth about the country's bloody past; promoting
reconciliation; and establishing a proper accountability mechanism.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56702&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
Central Asia's two most populous and largest countries - Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan - head the global list for prevalence of multi-drug-resistant
tuberculosis (MDR TB), AFP reported on Friday, citing a study to be
published shortly in The Lancet, the UK-based medical journal. After a
survey of 76 countries, researchers led by the World Health Organization
found that Kazakhstan had the highest prevalence, with 14.2 percent of
TB cases having MDR strains, followed by Uzbekistan (13.8 percent).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56753&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
NEPAL: Peace agreement leads to improved school security
Smiling behind her desk, school teacher Sabita Adhikari is thrilled to
see all 40 of her fourth grade students in class. "Nobody is absent
anymore. It's because children feel safe to travel from their villages
to attend class," said Adhikari who teaches at Sri Bal Mandir Secondary
School in Nilkanta village in Dhading district, nearly 100 km south of
the capital. Until November's peace agreement, which brought a
decade-long conflict to an end, many rural children were afraid to come
to school for fear of being abducted by Maoist rebels for
'indoctrination' training, or being forced to shoulder a rifle in the
People's Liberation Army (PLA).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56712&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Race is on for quake zone winter migration
As the snow falls in the mountains of quake-stricken northern Pakistan,
the race is now on to provide support in the valleys below for thousands
of families driven from their homes by severe weather. Up to 60,000
people could swell the existing population in tented camps across the
quake zone in the weeks ahead to almost 100,000, who will see out the
winter under canvas or corrugated iron sheets in the valleys.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56752&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Monitoring of school feeding programme begins
A unique satellite-based monitoring system has been installed in 15
Pakistani educational institutions in order to improve information
gathering in a school feeding project. "The system permits authorised
and trained schoolteachers to directly input monthly data pertinent to
their school, which will then be transmitted via the ARGOS global
satellite system to WFP [World Food Programme] and other authorised
officials for analysis," WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal said in Jauharabad in
Punjab province, 170 km southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56714&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration gathers momentum
As the Afghan refugee registration campaign nears its end on 31
December, participation is gathering momentum particularly in Pakistan's
North West Frontier Province (NWFP), UN officials said on Wednesday.
"The pace [of Afghan registration] has increased exponentially,
especially in NWFP where more than 20,000 people are getting registered
daily through 19 static registration centres and mobile vans in the
province," said Indrika Ratwatte, Assistant Representative at the office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56731&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: The long wait at a quake camp
Abdul Koayyum's life was shattered by falling debris the day of the
earthquake. His home collapsed, killing his wife. His leg was smashed.
More than a year later Abdul's leg is still healing, pinned along its
length after a series of operations. But life goes on for the
38-year-old carpenter and his four children, waiting for the second
winter under the canvas of a tented village at Jaba, near Balakot, in
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56713&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Over 2 million children immunised in special cross-border
campaign
Tens of thousands of under-five children have been immunised against
polio along both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan common border in a
special three-day polio vaccination campaign which concluded on
Thursday. "Large scale population movements and security issues stand
in the way of reaching every child in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border
areas with polio vaccine.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56749&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration quickens ahead of deadline
As the campaign to register those Afghans seeking temporary legal status
in Pakistan draws to a close on 31 December, participation is gaining
momentum particularly in the country's North West Frontier Province
(NWFP), to secure official identification cards validating their stay in
exile. To date, more than 836,000 Afghan refugees have registered with
Pakistani authorities, including over half a million living in NWFP,
according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56743&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Focus on forgotten quake victims of Kala Dhaka
More than a year after a powerful earthquake devastated northern
Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir there are still communities
that had been left out in the quake zone. The isolated tribal area of
Kala Dhaka in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) was
badly affected by the last year's disaster but such is the remoteness of
this 'forbidden' corner of North West Frontier Province that no
coordinated international aid effort ever came there.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56733&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
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