Weekly Round-Up - IRINAS-185: 20-Jul-08
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 185
14 - 20 July 2008
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Wheat for locusts plan turns sour
AFGHANISTAN: High birth rate killing mothers, infants - UNFPA expert
AFGHANISTAN: Food prices fuelling sex work in north?
AFGHANISTAN: 1.5 million "severely" hit by drought - minister
BANGLADESH: Moving towards universal birth registration
BANGLADESH: Killer in the kitchen
CAMBODIA: Ecstasy tabs destroying forest wilderness
KYRGYZSTAN: Nine anthrax cases in south
MYANMAR: Nurse Moe Moe, Myanmar: "I want to do my bit"
MYANMAR: Cyclone victims harness rainwater to survive
NEPAL: Violence, abductions on the rise in volatile southeast
PAKISTAN: New survey indicates family planning weaknesses
PAKISTAN: Militants hampering anti-polio drive as new case confirmed
PHILIPPINES: Food crisis threatening nutrition of young children
SRI LANKA: Rising kidney disease among farmers puzzles researchers
THAILAND: Refugee policy gets mixed reviews
AFGHANISTAN: Wheat for locusts plan turns sour
Hundreds of people in northwestern Afghanistan are annoyed with the
authorities for allegedly failing to give them promised wheat aid in
return for dead locusts.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79229
AFGHANISTAN: High birth rate killing mothers, infants - UNFPA expert
Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia - 6.7 - which not
only means the deaths of thousands of young mothers and infants every
year but also poses long-term challenges, an expert of the UN Population
Fund (UNFPA) warned.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79236
AFGHANISTAN: Food prices fuelling sex work in north?
High food prices, drought, unemployment and lack of socio-economic
opportunities are pushing some women and young girls in northern
Afghanistan into commercial sex work, women's rights activists and
several affected women told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79278
AFGHANISTAN: 1.5 million "severely" hit by drought - minister
At least 1.5 million people in 19 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces - mostly
farming communities in the north - have been severely affected by
drought and are in need of urgent humanitarian relief, an Afghan
minister told IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79295
BANGLADESH: Moving towards universal birth registration
Bangladesh, the world's seventh most populated country, is moving to
provide its over 150 million people with official birth certificates.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79258
BANGLADESH: Killer in the kitchen
Women coughing in their sleep is hardly new in Bangladesh, particularly
in rural areas, where women spend more than half their working day in
the kitchen cooking food with solid fuels such as wood, dung and
agricultural waste, say health experts.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79309
CAMBODIA: Ecstasy tabs destroying forest wilderness
The production of sassafras oil, which is used to make the recreational
drug ecstasy, in southwest Cambodia, is destroying trees, the
livelihoods of local inhabitants and wreaking untold ecological damage,
according to David Bradfield, adviser to the Wildlife Sanctuaries
Project of Fauna and Flora International (FFI).
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79340
KYRGYZSTAN: Nine anthrax cases in south
Nine cases of anthrax in humans have been confirmed in southern
Kyrgyzstan and some 30 patients are suspected of having contracted the
disease.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79257
MYANMAR: Nurse Moe Moe, Myanmar: "I want to do my bit"
Over two months after Cyclone Nargis hit the country, leaving nearly
140,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million badly affected, thousands of
people throughout the Ayeyarwady Delta are struggling to restart their
lives. On the front-line of the relief effort, Moe Moe, 27, one of
scores of government nurses working in the area, told IRIN in the tiny
village of Thaman Chaung in Bogale Township what she was doing to serve
her community.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79234
MYANMAR: Cyclone victims harness rainwater to survive
Viewed as a curse by those who lost their homes and loved ones to
Cyclone Nargis, heavy rain in recent weeks is proving a saviour of sorts
to thousands of cyclone survivors in need of safe drinking water.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79298
NEPAL: Violence, abductions on the rise in volatile southeast
"I was given seven days to pay a huge ransom or face death," a
fear-stricken 55-year-old woman who requested anonymity told IRIN in
southeastern Nepal on 15 July.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79282
PAKISTAN: New survey indicates family planning weaknesses
World Population Day on 11 July with its theme "Family planning, is a
right, make it real" was a bleak reminder for Pakistani health
practitioners of the precarious state of maternal, neonatal and child
health (MNCH).
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79254
PAKISTAN: Militants hampering anti-polio drive as new case confirmed
A seven-month-old baby girl, Tanzeela, has become the 16th polio case to
be detected this year in Pakistan. The child, from the Kabal area of
Swat Valley, some 170km northeast of Peshawar, the capital of North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), had not received any drops of the polio
vaccine.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79297
PHILIPPINES: Food crisis threatening nutrition of young children
Rising prices of basic food commodities have forced the Philippine
government to scale down efforts to address malnutrition among children,
putting the under sixes at nutritional risk.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79274
SRI LANKA: Rising kidney disease among farmers puzzles researchers
A steep rise in kidney disease in farming communities in Sri Lanka has
baffled doctors and researchers struggling to pinpoint the factors
making people in several rice-growing districts vulnerable to the
debilitating illness.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79253
THAILAND: Refugee policy gets mixed reviews
Thailand's treatment of refugees has come under scrutiny for confining
some refugees in camps for years and allegedly forcing others back home
where they risk persecution.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79227
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