KABUL, 1 Dec 2005 (IRIN) - Thousands of women and girls who toil in appalling conditions to make Afghan carpets for export are treated as unpaid slaves and suffer from routine exhaustion, long hours, low pay and health problems, according to a survey conducted by a local rights body released on Thursday. Full report

BISHKEK, 14 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has just approved a US $15.5 million grant for a project aimed at delivering better education to children in poor areas and from disadvantaged families in the Kyrgyzstan.Full report

MUZAFFARABAD, 11 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - The signs of panic are strewn amongst the rubble. School bags, books, pens, clothes and shoes, now covered in a thick layer of grey dust, lie abandoned in the collapsed classrooms of the Ali Akbar Awarn boys’ school in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Full report

DUSHANBE, 24 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - A photo exhibition highlighting United Nations activities in Tajikistan is under way in the capital, Dushanbe, as the world organisation marked its 60th anniversary on Monday.Full report

GARHI HABIBULLAH, 19 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Maryam, or Minno as she is called by everyone she knows, each day visits the ruins of the white, stone building that was once her school.Full report

OSH, 19 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Children in Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz national dress performed a play recently at a UN-sponsored summer camp designed to confront border tension in the poverty-stricken Ferghana valley region of Central Asia. Full report

KATHMANDU, 13 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Latest figures from the 2005 Human Development Report (HDR) indicate Nepal continues to languish at the bottom of the global human poverty index. The Himalayan kingdom’s infant mortality rate is the third highest in the world, with nearly 30,000 children dying each year during their first month of life.Full report

ISLAMABAD, 9 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Pakistan's leading independent rights body expressed grave concern this week over the poor humanitarian situation across remote parts of northern Pakistan. Full report

KATHMANDU, 9 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - A government initiative to hand over the management of all state-run schools to local communities has given new hope to parents and teachers alike in Nepal, where the education sector has suffered due to years of conflict.Full report

KABUL, 21 Jul 2005 (IRIN) - Female civic educators have been dispatched to provincial areas of Afghanistan to promote awareness of the forthcoming parliamentary elections among women, officials at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) announced on Thursday in the capital, Kabul.Full report

KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on lack of teachers

NEPAL: Community-run schools make progress

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on rehabilitation of child soldiers

TAJIKISTAN: Interview with Vladimir Sotirov, head of UN peace-building office in Tajikistan

NEPAL: Focus on challenges of rural education