U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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Asia
IRIN-AS Weekly Round-Up 21
21 - 27 July 2008


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Mine clearance making good progress - UN agency
AFGHANISTAN: Increasing attacks on aid workers could provoke
   "humanitarian crisis" - NGOs
AFGHANISTAN: Insurgency, insecurity threaten health progress
AFGHANISTAN: Nine new polio cases in south
BANGLADESH: 70,000 people vulnerable to landslides
INDONESIA: Child malnutrition aggravated by food, oil price rises
INDONESIA: Poverty at root of commercial sex work
MYANMAR: Cyclone losses top US$4 billion
MYANMAR: Malaria risk high in cyclone-hit delta
MYANMAR: Access is there, donors should respond generously, says Holmes
NEPAL: Government prepares for possible diarrhoea epidemic
PAKISTAN: Lack of food prompting extreme actions by parents
PAKISTAN: Humanitarian situation in northwest deteriorating - rights
   group
SRI LANKA: "Holistic" approach to waste management
SRI LANKA: Remembering the riots that triggered 25 years of conflict
THAILAND: Buffaloes play greater role as fuel and fertiliser prices soar
THAILAND: Food and fuel price surge hits the lower and middle class
THAILAND: The challenge of reintroducing buffaloes


AFGHANISTAN: Mine clearance making good progress - UN agency

Mine clearance agencies have made "unprecedented progress" in clearing 
the country of mines, according to the head of the UN Mine Action Center 
for Afghanistan (UNMACA).

The agencies had demolished 38,294 anti-personnel landmines, 419 
anti-tank mines and over 957,000 explosive remnants of war over the past 
six months, Haider Reza, the director of UNMACA, told reporters in Kabul 
on 21 July.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79351


AFGHANISTAN: Increasing attacks on aid workers could provoke 
"humanitarian crisis" - NGOs

The increasing number of attacks on aid agencies is reducing their 
ability to deliver life-saving assistance to vulnerable communities; the 
consequences are "serious" and could lead to a "humanitarian crisis", 
aid workers have warned.

The warning comes as millions have been affected by severe drought and 
high food prices, and are in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Aid 
agencies said a substantial response was urgently needed.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79366


AFGHANISTAN: Insurgency, insecurity threaten health progress

Up to 100,000 people have been deprived of access to basic health 
services in different parts of Afghanistan over the past four months, 
due largely to worsening insecurity, with attacks on health workers and 
health centres, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said.

[Listen to the audio report in Dari and Pashto: 
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79420]

The new figure is in addition to the over 300,000 people who last year 
lost access to primary health facilities, mostly in the volatile south 
and southeast.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79396


AFGHANISTAN: Nine new polio cases in south

Despite high hopes for the eradication of polio in Afghanistan, nine new 
cases have been reported in three southern provinces over the past 
month.

Six polio cases have been reported in Maiwand, Shahwali Kot and Gorak 
districts of Kandahar Province, two in Nadali District in neighbouring 
Helmand Province, and one in Urozgan Province since late June, the 
Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said.

This brings the total number of confirmed polio cases in the country in 
2008 to 14. Five cases had been confirmed earlier in the year.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79417


BANGLADESH: 70,000 people vulnerable to landslides

Illegal hill-cutting due to rampant building has left some 70,000 people 
at risk of landslides in 18 sub-districts of Khagrachhari, Rangamati and 
Bandarban hill districts, as well as the city of Chittagong, warned 
specialists.

Of these, 40,000 live in Khagrachhari, 20,000 in Rangamati and 
Bandarban, and 10,000 in Chittagong, the country's industrial centre, 
according to Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon, a forum of citizens and 
organisations working on the environment.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79406


INDONESIA: Child malnutrition aggravated by food, oil price rises

Thirteen toddlers are fighting for their lives in Ba'a hospital in a 
remote village in Nusa Tenggara Province, eastern Indonesia. All of them 
are suffering from malnutrition. "They are very weak - only skin and 
bones and swollen stomachs," Dr Rina Sudjiawati told IRIN. "Because of 
their condition they are very vulnerable to other serious illnesses."

Dozens of Indonesian children under five died of malnutrition in the 
first six months of 2008, according to the health authorities, although 
no accurate figure can be determined.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79350


INDONESIA: Poverty at root of commercial sex work

In a district of the northeastern part of West Java, commercial sex 
workers are touting for business right outside the mosque. Bandungwangi, 
a local NGO working against trafficking, says half the women and 
children it rescues from prostitution in Jakarta come from this 
district.

"The root of the problem is poverty, but in some areas - like that 
district [child protection agencies have asked that its name not be 
revealed] in West Java - prostitution is accepted. It's the culture," 
explains Arum Ratnawati of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) 
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, with people 
so poor they are forced to sell or send their children into commercial 
sex work to earn income for the family.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79441


MYANMAR: Cyclone losses top US$4 billion

Cyclone Nargis, which battered Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta on 2 and 3 
May, left an estimated US$4 billion worth of damage, on a par with the 
devastation caused by the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, according to a new 
assessment.

The figure includes $1.7 billion in damage to physical assets, including 
homes, schools and health centres, as well as Buddhist temples and other 
religious buildings, which are important sources of community and social 
support.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79369


MYANMAR: Malaria risk high in cyclone-hit delta

The risk of malaria remains high in Myanmar's cyclone-affected 
Ayeyarwady Delta, health officials warn, almost three months after 
Cyclone Nargis struck.

Close to 140,000 people were killed or registered missing when the 
category four storm hit the southern coastal area on 2 and 3 May, 
affecting some 2.4 million people.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79435


MYANMAR: Access is there, donors should respond generously, says Holmes

Following a three-day mission to Myanmar, the UN Under-Secretary-General 
for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes 
says he hopes for stronger donor response in the wake of the Post Nargis 
Joint Assessment Report (PONJA) report released in Singapore on 22 July.

"There's every reason for the donors to now respond generously," he told 
IRIN in Yangon.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79450


NEPAL: Government prepares for possible diarrhoea epidemic

Health workers at Nepal's Epidemiology and Disease Control Division 
(EDCD) in the Department of Health Services (DHS), are making 
preparations to control a diarrhoea outbreak, which occurs during the 
annual monsoon season between July and September in rural areas.

"We have our teams ready in the district, regional and central levels 
where all the medical stocks and staff have been already propositioned," 
Sagar Dahal, chief of natural disaster management of the EDCD told IRIN 
in Kathmandu, the capital.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79368


PAKISTAN: Lack of food prompting extreme actions by parents

Poverty and deprivation are evident everywhere as one drives out of the 
southern Punjab city of Muzzafargarh, some 400km southwest of the 
provincial capital Lahore.

However, an incident that took place recently in Basti Badani village, 
in the south of Muzzafargarh District, has left everyone shocked.

Several days ago labourer Abdul Salam clubbed to death four of his six 
children (ranging in age from 11 years to 18 months). Two others, who 
had also been badly beaten, survived. Salam said he did this as he could 
not feed his children.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79338


PAKISTAN: Humanitarian situation in northwest deteriorating - rights 
group

About half a million people in the Kurram Agency along the border with 
Afghanistan, which has seen fierce fighting between rival groups of 
militants in the past few months, are suffering "horrific violence", 
according to a leading human rights activist.

Asma Jahangir, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 
told IRIN the fighting had intensified over the past year and that the 
government had "lost its writ" in the area.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79387


SRI LANKA: "Holistic" approach to waste management

Staff at the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) who manage a 
waste-management project in the southeastern Sri Lankan District of 
Ampara consider it a sign of success when town residents complain that 
their rubbish needs collecting.

"When we started [the project] there was very little awareness of the 
negative aspects of improper disposal or of proper waste-management 
systems," Gary Morris-Iveson, UNOPS's programme manager for 
environmental restoration in Ampara, 350km east of the capital, Colombo, 
told IRIN. "Now when they complain that bins are full, it shows they 
want the waste removed."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79379


SRI LANKA: Remembering the riots that triggered 25 years of conflict

For a quarter of a century, Selvadurai Sornalingam has treasured a 
faded, yellowing document. "It is a reminder of my honeymoon," he told 
IRIN, only half-jokingly.

He received the document when he registered at a welfare centre 
established in an airport hanger south of the Sri Lankan capital, 
Colombo, during the fourth week of July 1983, when deadly anti-Tamil 
riots spread through the Sri Lankan capital and into outlying 
neighbourhoods.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79447


THAILAND: Buffaloes play greater role as fuel and fertiliser prices soar

"Buffaloes are like having capital," Kongsin Wilaikham, from Norgpue in 
Khon Kaen Province in northeast Thailand, told IRIN. "I rely on my 
buffaloes because the tractor is now so much more costly, given fuel 
prices. I use them for ploughing, for their manure and for cash when 
needed."

Five years ago, Kongsin took a 100,000 baht (US$2,940) loan from the 
government's Agricultural Bank to buy four buffaloes. From the offspring 
he has kept 11 and sold another 10 to supplement his income.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79391


THAILAND: Food and fuel price surge hits the lower and middle class

"Everything is more expensive," Somkeirt Boonna, a 35-year-old security 
guard who works in Thailand's capital, told IRIN.

[IRIN's in-depth on the food crisis: 
http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=72&ReportId=77872]

"Not only oil but food prices are also rapidly increasing. Before the 
oil price started to surge, I usually spent about 4,000 baht [US$119] 
per month on fuel; now I have to spend 7,000 baht [$208]." Somkeirt said 
that with three children in school and a monthly family income of about 
30,000 baht ($895), his financial situation was increasingly dire.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79422


THAILAND: The challenge of reintroducing buffaloes

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand has for years said buffaloes were 
integral to a sustainable agricultural policy and since 2000, Thai NGOs, 
with the UN Development Programme's (UNDP) Global Environment Facility 
(GEF) Small Grants Programme, have been working with farm groups to 
boost output and cut back on chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The 
buffalo has been crucial to that strategy.

>From 2000, the programme began donating buffaloes to 11 different 
communities throughout Thailand. In batches of 10 to 27, they have over 
time led to sizeable numbers of offspring on farms throughout the 
country.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79442


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