Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-138: 26-Aug-07
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 138
20 - 26 August 2007
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Women reluctant to seek marital redress through the courts
AFGHANISTAN: Hundreds of families displaced by fighting in Nangarhar
Province
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Sudden return of Afghans could cause crisis,
UNHCR warns
GLOBAL: US company sues American Red Cross over use of Red Cross emblem
BANGLADESH: Miraj, Dhaka, "Our house floods every year, but this year
was worse"
BANGLADESH: Over 4,000 primary schools closed by floods
BANGLADESH: Effective systems keep diarrhoea in check even during
floods
NEPAL: Activists demand new laws enabling equal access to water
ASIA: "Seize the opportunities of hope"
NEPAL: Traffickers exploit increased mobility of underage girls
SRI LANKA: Religious feast prompts brief lull in escalating conflict
AFGHANISTAN: Women reluctant to seek marital redress through the courts
Jamila - not her real name - was 14 when she was married to Habibullah,
31, a match arranged by her father. Habibullah left her just three
months into their marriage to go and work in Iran and has not reappeared
in 10 years. Jamila now lives with her in-laws but feels cheated as she
cannot get remarried and has not sought a divorce because of the social
stigma attached to such a move.
She feels trapped: "I have no future," she said.
[This story is also available as a radio report in the Dari language.]
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73829
AFGHANISTAN: Hundreds of families displaced by fighting in Nangarhar
Province
Hundreds of families have been displaced by ground and aerial military
operations by US and Afghan forces against insurgents in the Tora Bora
area of Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials
told IRIN on 22 August.
"Initial reports indicate over 400 families have been displaced as a
result of military operations in Tora Bora," said Nooragha Zhuwak, a
spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73861
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Sudden return of Afghans could cause crisis, UNHCR
warns
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has called on the government of Pakistan
not to close a refugee camp in its North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
until spring 2008. Pakistani security forces have ordered over 100,000
Afghan refugees currently living in Jalozai camp to leave the site by 31
August.
"We are worried that if there is a sudden return of Afghans from the
camp this may turn into a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan," said
Salvatore Lombardo, a UNHCR representative in Kabul.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73898
GLOBAL: US company sues American Red Cross over use of Red Cross emblem
The world's largest for-profit healthcare products conglomerate, Johnson
& Johnson (J&J), is suing the American Red Cross (ARC) over its use of
the life-saving emblem - the red cross on a white background.
On 8 August J&J filed a civil complaint in the US District Court in New
York charging the ARC with infringing its trademark for commercial use
of the red-cross-on-white-background by licensing it to for-profit
companies to produce items such as baby mitts, nail clippers, combs,
toothbrushes and humidifiers, which directly compete with J&J's own
products.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73919
BANGLADESH: Miraj, Dhaka, "Our house floods every year, but this year
was worse"
For 16-year-old Miraj in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, living along
the River Tongi has been both a source of livelihood and a curse for his
family. Each year monsoon rains flood low-lying impoverished communities
like his, but this year has been especially bad.
"My father was a fisherman along the river. After he died, we thought
about moving somewhere else, but my mother was afraid to. Moving would
have been expensive and we don't have much money. My family is quite
poor. Land is very expensive in Dhaka. Everyone wants to live here
because there are no jobs outside the city. That's why we live here.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73807
BANGLADESH: Over 4,000 primary schools closed by floods
For 10-year-old Yasmin and her eight-year-old brother Rabbi, nothing
will keep them from their studies - not even this year's worse than
average monsoon rains. Each day they make the perilous 20-minute journey
through flooded fields to their newly relocated school in Holan, a
bustling community of 2,000 inhabitants northeast of Dhaka, the
Bangladeshi capital.
"I've never missed a day," Yasmin claimed, navigating her way along an
irrigation pipe over a now flooded field, tightly gripping her younger
brother's hand. "Not even with the water."
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73833
BANGLADESH: Effective systems keep diarrhoea in check even during floods
Appropriate technology, strong government maintenance and repair
structures, and good preparedness are mitigating the humanitarian impact
of perennial flooding in Bangladesh.
In the latest crisis, more than 10 million people were affected and
hundreds of people killed, after torrential monsoon rains battered much
of Bangladesh over the past month. Hundreds of thousands of people were
left homeless and vulnerable to water-borne disease - making access to
safe drinking water all the more critical.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73894
NEPAL: Activists demand new laws enabling equal access to water
For 40-year-old Parbati Shrestha and her family, it is an everyday
struggle to find drinking water. She often has to skip her daily wage
job to spend hours walking to, and queuing at, a public tap used by
hundreds of villagers.
"We are literally surrounded by water but sadly are too powerless to do
anything," said Shrestha in her village of Gaigaura in Kaski District,
300km west of the capital, Kathmandu.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73814
ASIA: "Seize the opportunities of hope"
The Eighth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific
(ICAAP) opened on Sunday in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, with
speakers stressing the need for action to prevent a surge in the
regional infection rate.
UNAIDS, co-sponsor of the congress, along with the AIDS Society of Asia
and the Pacific (ASAP), recently revised its estimate of HIV-positive
people in the region from 8.3 million to 5.4 million. Nevertheless, the
epidemic in Asia and the Pacific is still increasing, with approximately
one million new infections in the last two years.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73832
NEPAL: Traffickers exploit increased mobility of underage girls
Sixteen-year-old Sushma does not want to reveal her true identity for
fear that the traffickers who sold her into the notorious brothel area
of Kamathipura in Mumbai, India, could track her down and kill her.
"I should have listened to my village schoolteacher who told me not to
be taken in by false promises of a job abroad," she told IRIN,
expressing regret that she had left her village in Banke, nearly 600km
southwest of Kathmandu, without even informing her parents.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73852
SRI LANKA: Religious feast prompts brief lull in escalating conflict
Uliyankulam, a key checkpoint along the line of control that separates
Sri Lankan government-controlled areas from those held by the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), only gets about 1,600 people passing
through per week.
An upsurge in fighting in the area has left civilians hesitant to
travel: The checkpoint is now open only three days a week after an LTTE
attack on a nearby Sri Lankan army camp on 24 July.
However, for one brief period that changed. Over 12,000 Catholic
pilgrims passed through Uliyankulam 10-16 August, according to the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has officials
stationed there as observers.
http://irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73920
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