Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-127: 10-Jun-07
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 127
4 - 10 June 2007
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Pressure mounts for aerial poppy-spraying
AFGHANISTAN: War, poverty and ignorance fuel sexual abuse of children
AFGHANISTAN: ICRC asked to run hospital for war victims
AFGHANISTAN: Over 300,000 immunised against tetanus, measles in Kabul
NEPAL: Journalists go in fear of armed political groups
NEPAL: Heat wave in south prompts health concerns
NEPAL: Frustration over government inability to stem "atrocities"
PAKISTAN: Talibanisation threatens girls' schooling in west
PAKISTAN: Kamran Khan, "I still cry sometimes"
SRI LANKA: Supreme Court stops eviction of Tamils from capital
SRI LANKA: Red Cross hands over bodies of two murdered aid workers
SRI LANKA: Conflict IDPs hampering tsunami reconstruction effort
SRI LANKA: Red Cross condemns killing of two aid workers
TAJIKISTAN: Climate change threatens livelihoods of mountain villagers
AFGHANISTAN: Pressure mounts for aerial poppy-spraying
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is under pressure from the USA to
implement a controversial counter narcotics plan that should eradicate
Afghanistan's poppy fields by spraying chemicals, officials confirmed on
Thursday.
"We are under pressure to use chemicals for the eradication of poppy
fields," Habibullah Qadiri, Afghanistan's minister of counter narcotics,
told IRIN in the capital, Kabul.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72613
AFGHANISTAN: War, poverty and ignorance fuel sexual abuse of children
Abdul Kabir, not his real name, left his home in Afghanistan's southern
Urozgan province to work for a relative and attend school in
neighbouring Kandahar province. Six months later, the 12-year-old found
himself in a juvenile prison after being sexually abused.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72578
AFGHANISTAN: ICRC asked to run hospital for war victims
The government of Afghanistan has called on the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) to manage a medical facility for conflict
victims in Helmand Province, officials have confirmed. The request comes
more than a month after the 150-bed Emergency hospital was closed down
in the southern insurgency-hit province.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72552
AFGHANISTAN: Over 300,000 immunised against tetanus, measles in Kabul
Over 300,000 mothers, 15-50 years old, and a similar number of children
between nine months and five years of age, have been successfully
vaccinated against tetanus and measles in Kabul, the country's Ministry
of Public Health has announced.
Part of larger efforts launched on 20 May in 12 provinces, the six-day
campaign was later extended until 2 June in Kabul in a further effort to
reach a targeted number of women and children.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72527
NEPAL: Journalists go in fear of armed political groups
For Dipendra Chauhan, working as a journalist in the country's most
violent area, Nepal's southeastern Terai region, has become a dangerous
job. He constantly receives death threats from armed political groups
for not reporting in favour of their political views.
"There is mental torture every day for journalists in this region when
we fail to report favourably on their political activities," journalist
Chauhan told IRIN in the capital, Kathmandu.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72617
NEPAL: Heat wave in south prompts health concerns
Ram Lakhan has been lying in bed for more than six days after extreme
heat in Nepalganj, 600 km west of the capital, caused him to have a
stroke.
"I can't work like this. The heat will kill me," said Lakhan, adding
that he was worried he may not have enough strength to go back to his
job as a labourer at a local construction site.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72580
NEPAL: Frustration over government inability to stem "atrocities"
Sharmila Chettri and her family have tried desperately to get back
farmland recently seized by Maoist workers in Chitwan District, nearly
300km west of Kathmandu, but in vain.
"We went to our village more than 15 times to ask the Maoist cadres to
return our land but they only threatened to assault us," Chettri told
IRIN. She said the former rebels still walked around in the villages
openly displaying their pistols in clear breach of a peace treaty the
rebels signed with the Nepalese government in November 2006.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72540
PAKISTAN: Talibanisation threatens girls' schooling in west
Ghazala Shaheen, 12, and her father have visited five schools in
Peshawar today, and in the hot, mildly humid weather of Peshawar, the
capital of Pakistan's rugged North West Frontier Province (NWFP), they
are now both thirsty and hungry.
"We live in the Swat Valley, in Malakand Agency, but now that there are
so many threats to teachers and girl pupils there, we are planning to
move to Peshawar," explains Ghazala's father, Jan Muhammad Khan, as he
sits at the home of a relative gulping down his glass of water.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72602
PAKISTAN: Kamran Khan, "I still cry sometimes"
Kamran Khan, 14, lives with polio in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Infected when he was just a year old - when there was little awareness
of polio and current door-to-door vaccination efforts were not in place
- he tells IRIN what it is like to live with this debilitating disease
that continues to affect children in his country, and he hopes all
parents everywhere have their children vaccinated.
Pakistan - alongside India, Afghanistan and Nigeria - remains one of
four countries in the world today where the polio virus remains endemic.
http://www.irinnews.org/HOVReport.aspx?ReportId=72547
SRI LANKA: Supreme Court stops eviction of Tamils from capital
Sri Lanka's Supreme Court today ruled that the eviction of Tamils from
the capital Colombo by the police should be stopped immediately. There
have been international and local protests against the move. Almost 400
men, women and children from the minority Tamil community were expelled
from the capital Colombo by armed police and security forces and left
stranded in the northern town of Vavuniya on 7 June.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72629
SRI LANKA: Red Cross hands over bodies of two murdered aid workers
The bodies of two Red Cross workers who were abducted and murdered by
unidentified gunmen have been handed over to their families by the
agency's officials in the eastern town of Batticaloa. Mourners thronged
the office of the Sri Lanka Red Cross in Batticaloa District to pay
their respects to the two workers who were allegedly taken in "for
questioning" by armed men in the capital Colombo and then shot dead.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72594
SRI LANKA: Conflict IDPs hampering tsunami reconstruction effort
Mohamed Azar remembers the exact date trouble started - August 4, 2006,
the day thousands of scared civilians fleeing fighting in Muttur
Division came streaming into the eastern town of Kantale in Trincomalee
District.
"They just kept coming. It was like a flood. They were camping all over
the place, by the side of roads, in schools, even in an unused cinema,"
Azar, who works with the aid group Muslim Aid, told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72542
SRI LANKA: Red Cross condemns killing of two aid workers
The Sri Lanka Red Cross today strongly condemned the murder of two of
its volunteer aid workers by unidentified gunmen and called on the
government to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation.
"The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society vehemently condemns the brutal killing
of two volunteers by an unknown party after they were abducted on 1 June
2007," SLRC Chairman Jagath Abeysinghe said in a statement.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72525
TAJIKISTAN: Climate change threatens livelihoods of mountain villagers
Global climate change is threatening mountain communities in Tajikistan.
Local residents living over 2,000 metres above sea level say their crops
are failing, soil degradation is on the rise and landslides threaten
their lives.
In the Panjkhok village of Varzob District, 75km north of the Tajik
capital, Dushanbe, the winter season is getting longer and the timing of
spring is becoming unpredictable. The winter in Panjhok now runs from
October to April, instead of for a three-month period in the past. Deep
snow blocks road access for up to five months annually.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72573
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