Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-86: 25-Aug-06
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 86
19 - 25 August 2006
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Thousands displaced by fighting and drought in Helmand
need help - officials
AFGHANISTAN: Battle against poppy cultivation deepens
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide polio vaccination drive launched
AFGHANISTAN: USAID pledges US $105 million to road project
AFGHANISTAN: 11 villagers missing after floods hit eastern Nangarhar
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
NEPAL: Displaced families live in fear despite peace process
NEPAL: Families of the disappeared demand justice
NEPAL: Domestic workers abroad need protection - activists
PAKISTAN: Ignorance hinders battle against polio
PAKISTAN: Quake survivors with dental injuries forced to travel for
care
PAKISTAN: Dirty water takes toll on quake survivors
AFGHANISTAN: Thousands displaced by fighting and drought in Helmand need
help - officials
Local authorities on Thursday appealed for emergency relief for
thousands of families displaced by recent fighting and drought in the
southern Afghan province of Helmand. Fierce fighting over the past two
months between government forces and the ousted Taliban militia, coupled
with this year's particularly hash drought, have forced nearly 4,000
families to leave their homes and villages in Helmand, Abdul Satar
Mazhari, provincial refugee department chief in Helmand, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55260&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Battle against poppy cultivation deepens
Widespread corruption, a growing Taliban-led insurgency in the south,
and a lack of proper alternative livelihoods for farmers, are causing a
continued rise in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, officials warn.
"Undoubtedly there is an increase in poppy cultivation this year," Said
Mohammad Azam, director of public relations and communications for
Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN), told IRIN in the
capital, Kabul, adding the government had yet to complete its national
survey of poppy cultivated areas.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55259&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide polio vaccination drive launched
The Afghan government and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
launched a three-day polio vaccination campaign on Sunday to protect
millions of children under age five from the crippling virus. The
Ministry of Public Health (MoPh) said there had been 26 polio cases so
far this year, compared to nine in the whole of 2005. Nearly all of this
year's cases had been in the volatile southern provinces of Kandahar (16
cases), Helmand (six), Urozgan (two) and Zabul (one). The western Farah
Province had the only other case.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55203&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: USAID pledges US $105 million to road project
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has
pledged US $105 million to construct a 110 km road in northeastern
Badakhshan province that will serve 730,000 people. The road would link
Kishem district to Faizabad, Badakhshan's capital. Construction was
expected to start next year, USAID said.
"The rehabilitation of this road is one of the critical elements in
Afghanistan's development," Ronald Neumann, the US ambassador to
Afghanistan, said during a visit to the area on Sunday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55208&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: 11 villagers missing after floods hit eastern Nangarhar
At least 11 people are missing after their villages were struck by
floods in eastern Nangarhar province on Thursday, local officials
confirm. Following torrential rains, flash floods ravaged Kout district,
70 km southeast of Jalalabad, provincial capital of Nangarhar, Mohammad
Hashim Ghamsharek, head of Nangarhar's information and culture
department, told IRIN by phone.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55275&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
This week in Central Asia, two Uzbek asylum seekers missing in
Kyrgyzstan are reportedly being held in the eastern Uzbek city of
Andijan, according to Cholpon Jakupova, the chairwoman of the Adalet
(Justice) human rights organisation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL) reported on Saturday. Valijon Bobojonov, 40, and Saidullo
Shokirov, 38, who were taken from their homes in the southern Kyrgyz
city of Osh on 16 August, had sought refuge in Kyrgyzstan after the May
2005 unrest in Andijan where, according to observers, upwards of 1,000
protestors were killed by Uzbek security forces. The government puts the
death toll at 187.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55273&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
NEPAL: Displaced families live in fear despite peace process
Many internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nepal still feel threatened
by Maoist insurgents and have not been able to return to their homes
despite the peace process. Dor Bahadur Karki, an IDP who fled his remote
village in Sindhuli district, 200 km west of the capital, Kathmandu,
after Maoists threatened to kill him unless he paid them a large sum of
money, said the government was not doing enough. "We will have no choice
but to take up violence in the streets to make our voices heard if our
problems are not solved soon," Karki said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55216&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Families of the disappeared demand justice
An estimated 5,000 Nepalese citizens have disappeared over the last
decade of armed conflict following their arrests by the state-controlled
security forces, the Society of the Family of Disappeared Citizens by
the State, said on Thursday in the capital, Kathmandu. Families of the
disappeared arrived in the capital from various rural areas of the
mountainous nation earlier this week. They have demanded that the
whereabouts of the victims be made public and that the new interim
government pressure the army and police to reveal the status of their
loved ones, who disappeared after being arrested on charges of working
as Maoist rebels.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55264&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
NEPAL: Domestic workers abroad need protection - activists
Nepalese women working as domestic helpers in the Gulf region are
concerned that the government of Nepal is failing to protect them,
female labour rights activists said in the capital Kathmandu on
Wednesday. It is still illegal in Nepal for women to work as domestic
helpers in foreign countries - as this work is normally in the informal
sector. In 1998, the government banned women from seeking foreign
employment after worker Kani Sherpa was allegedly killed by her employer
in Saudi Arabia in the same year, according to Paurakhi, an organisation
formed by a group of returnee Nepalese migrant workers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55242&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=NEPAL
PAKISTAN: Ignorance hinders battle against polio
Two-year-old Fazalullah will be crippled for life. He is too young to
understand but members of his family, who live in Metakhel village in
Bannu District, 160 km south of Peshawar, provincial capital of
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), know the toll polio has
taken on his body. Since January five children have tested positive for
the debilitating disease in NWFP. Nationwide there have been 12 cases
this year.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55243&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Quake survivors with dental injuries forced to travel for care
At least 150 patients a day walk into the Jinnah Dental Hospital outside
Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Dr Saif Deen, the
hospital's executive director, said many had severe dental injuries
caused by the landslides that had struck during this year's monsoon
season. Fractured jaws were common, an injury the facility was not
equipped to deal with. "We [the hospital] receive severe fractures
weekly," Deen said. "This [region] is a drama zone. There are tremors,
flooding and landslides and people fall or get crushed under things.
During this [monsoon] season many accidents happen and we don't have the
space or facilities for this."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55205&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Dirty water takes toll on quake survivors
Aid agencies are launching initiatives to stem the spread of
debilitating water-borne diseases in earthquake and flood-ravaged parts
of Pakistan. Heavy monsoon rains have worsened conditions in northern
Pakistan, where 75,000 people were killed and 3.5 million left homeless
by the 8 October earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale. In the
first 10 days of August alone, more than 800 patients had been treated
for acute diarrhoea at Batagram District hospital in Pakistan's North
West Frontier Province (NWFP).
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55221&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
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