IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 15 covering the period 9 - 15 April 2005
CONTENTS:
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Focus on the impact of the Kyrgyz revolution in the Ferghana Valley
KYRGYZSTAN: OSCE pledges support for presidential poll
KYRGYZSTAN: Landslide close to Mailuu-Suu uranium dump
KYRGYZSTAN: Land seizures challenge interim authority
AFGHANISTAN: Warlord attacks provincial disarmament team
AFGHANISTAN: Protest against opium eradication
AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence intolerable, say battered women and girls
AFGHANISTAN: Minister calls on donors to coordinate legal reform
NEPAL: CPJ pledges support for press freedom
NEPAL: UN human rights monitoring brings new hope
NEPAL: Focus on donor reaction to growing insecurity
PAKISTAN: At least six killed after drinking polluted water
PAKISTAN: Focus on improving basic education in Punjab
PAKISTAN: Diphtheria and measles strike capital
PAKISTAN: Northern flood and landslide victims await compensation
KAZAKHSTAN: Opposition groups attack new anti-demonstration law
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Focus on the impact of the Kyrgyz revolution in the Ferghana Valley
Recent protests that toppled the regime of former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev on 24 March are echoing in neighbouring Uzbekistan, particularly in the densely populated and volatile Ferghana Valley region, shared by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.Mamurjan Aminov, head of the Ferghana department of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU), a local independent rights group, said events next door had certainly been inspiring. "The Kyrgyz people demanded fair elections. We have to learn a lesson from that. The people here should also fight for their future."
Full report
KYRGYZSTAN: OSCE pledges support for presidential poll
Europe's largest security body, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is going to support the interim Kyrgyz authority in holding presidential elections slated for 10 July, following the change of regime in the country. "The OSCE centre in Bishkek will be continuing its Election Assistance Programme (EAP) aimed at assisting the Kyrgyz authorities to hold the upcoming elections in accordance with international standards," Lilian Darii, a political officer with the OSCE centre in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, told IRIN on Thursday.
Full report
KYRGYZSTAN: Landslide close to Mailuu-Suu uranium dump
A landslide which hit the area surrounding the southern Kyrgyz town of Mailuu-Suu on Wednesday evening is causing concern among the authorities because of its proximity to huge radioactive dumps from Soviet-era uranium mines. The land movement halted the flow of a key river and water source in Mailuu-Suu and blocked the road linking the town with the adjacent village of Sary-Bee, an official told IRIN on Thursday.
Full report
KYRGYZSTAN: Land seizures challenge interim authority
Social problems kept in check during the authoritarian era of former president Askar Akayev are already surfacing in Kyrgyzstan, three weeks after he was removed from office by protesters angry at election results, grinding poverty and corruption by the ruling family. On 7 April, tension was raised when people began to seize land on the southern outskirts of the capital Bishkek, demanding that they be granted legal title that they say they were deprived of under the former regime. They say they are part of a 14,000-strong movement demanding access to lucrative real estate close to the capital.
Full report
AFGHANISTAN: Warlord attacks provincial disarmament team
Several police officers and militia troops were injured in a serious armed encounter in Lashkargah, the capital of the southern Helmand province, on Wednesday after a local a commander refused to surrender arms under a provincial government programme disarming illegal militias in the troubled province. According to local authorities in Helmand the clashes happened when commander Khano, an infamous warlord in Lashkargah, attacked troops who had been assigned to disarm the commander's troops.
Full report
AFGHANISTAN: Protest against opium eradication
The poppy eradication campaign in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar was interrupted on Wednesday by an armed encounter between police and protesters, local authorities told IRIN. The clash came a day after hundreds of people in the Maiwand district, 70 km southwest Kandahar city, had showed their anger in a demonstration against a government campaign to destroy poppy fields in the troubled province, which is one of the leading poppy cultivating provinces in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, protesters reportedly gathered in front of the district headquarters, throwing stones at police officers.
Full report
AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence intolerable, say battered women and girls
The story of Zaynab, (a name adopted to conceal her identity) an 18-year-old mother of five who has taken refuge in a new women's shelter in the capital Kabul, illustrates how routinely women continue to suffer rights violations in conservative, patriarchal Afghanistan. She fled her home after refusing to put up with any more beatings from her husband, less than three weeks after giving birth to her youngest son. "My father forcibly married me to an old man when I was 11 and my husband treated me like a slave over the last seven years," she said, while sewing a blanket in the shelter, located in an upmarket suburb of the capital.
Full report
AFGHANISTAN: Minister calls on donors to coordinate legal reform
The Afghan authorities have called for strengthening of the justice system in Afghanistan saying that more than 50 percent of Afghans do not have access to judicial and legal services in the post-conflict country. Afghan Minister of Justice Ghulam Sarwar Danish, told IRIN on Sunday in the capital Kabul that donors and international organisations had spent millions of dollars on improving the justice sector, but that there had been little tangible sign of improvement. "We need much more coordination, in fact we should be given the chance to prioritise our needs," he said, adding that many justice reform projects were selected and implemented by international organisations.
Full report
NEPAL: CPJ pledges support for press freedom
Nepal is experiencing one of the biggest crisis in press freedom anywhere in the world, Ann Cooper, executive director of international NGO the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IRIN during her week-long fact-finding mission to the country which began on Monday. The CPJ works to promote press freedom worldwide. "It has been very difficult, especially for local journalists working outside the capital. They are continually harassed by local security force officials," Cooper told IRIN in the capital, Kathmandu. "We will continue to defend the rights of Nepali journalists. We think it is important that press freedom is maintained," Cooper added.
Full report
NEPAL: UN human rights monitoring brings new hope
Local human rights groups in Nepal have welcomed Kathmandu's decision on Monday to allow UN human rights monitoring in the country. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Nepali government signed an agreement on 11 April to establish a monitoring operation in the country to assess human rights abuses at the hands of security forces, as well as Maoist rebels. The Maoists have been waging an armed campaign against the state since 1996. More than 11,000 Nepalis have been killed in a conflict that shows not signs of ending.
Full report
NEPAL: Focus on donor reaction to growing insecurity
Some of Nepal's donors have said they are faced with having to choose between continuing with aid to the impoverished Himalayan kingdom, or reducing assistance in the light of growing insecurity and King Gyanendra's decision to suspend democratic government on 1 February. The consequences of a reduction in aid could be catastrophic for millions of poor Nepalis now caught up in the escalating civil war. Some 11,000 people have been killed in the Maoist revolt since 1996. Insurgents control large parts of Nepal's countryside and want to overthrow the monarchy in order to establish a communist republic.
Full report
PAKISTAN: At least six killed after drinking polluted water
At least six people, including two minors and one woman, have been reported killed by gastroenteritis while more than 35 have been admitted to hospital in the central districts of Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, health officials told IRIN on Monday. The patients, mostly children, fell ill after drinking contaminated water from Hamal Lake in the central district of Shahdad Kot, some 400 km north of the provincial capital Karachi. "About 36 people including 26 children are under observation in hospitals. The polluted water of the lake is reported to have caused the problem.
Full report
PAKISTAN: Focus on improving basic education in Punjab
With an extensively advertised mass literacy campaign carrying the slogan, 'Our dream - an educated Punjab', the provincial government of Pakistan's most populous province, has been actively trying to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education (UPE) by 2015 through a wide-ranging Education Sector Reform (ESR) programme. "[The} Punjab's education reform programme that started in 2003 focuses simultaneously on improving access, equity, quality and governance in the education system," Ahmed Javed Qazi, deputy director of monitoring the ESR programme, told IRIN from the provincial capital, Lahore.
Full report
PAKISTAN: Diphtheria and measles strike capital
Several cases of diphtheria and measles among children have been reported in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi over the past few weeks, raising concerns about the effectiveness of routine child immunisation on the ground. "An emergency operation against the two diseases was launched immediately in particular areas of the two cities where the reports came from, following the diagnosis of diphtheria and measles cases in the first week of April," Dr Jalil Kamran, head of the Epidemic Investigation Cell (EIC) at the National Institute of Health (NIH), told IRIN in Islamabad on Wednesday.
Full report
PAKISTAN: Northern flood and landslide victims await compensation
Immediate intervention is required to rehabilitate infrastructure in northern districts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a UN official told IRIN. The call follows heavy rains and snow in January and February of this year that killed hundreds and severely damaged houses, roads, schools and hospitals in isolated parts of the province.
"Despite the official announcements, no steps have been taken so far to help the affected people and compensate for damage to houses, livestock and agriculture," Dr Quaid Saeed, co-ordinator of the UN interagency co-ordination committee in NWFP, told IRIN from the provincial capital Peshawar. "The people [affected] are already poor and this year's unexpectedly intense winter has exposed them to more difficult situations."
Full report
KAZAKHSTAN: Opposition groups attack new anti-demonstration law
Kazakh opposition leaders lambasted a new law banning demonstrations immediately after polling day in Kazakhstan, claiming the bill was seriously restricting civil rights and freedoms ahead of presidential polls set for late 2006. "This is definitely a targeted measure that the authorities think can prevent any events similar to those that happened in Kiev and Bishkek," Petr Svoik, a senior official with the For a Fair Kazakhstan opposition alliance, told IRIN from the Kazakh commercial capital Almaty, on Monday.
Full report
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
The political situation in Kyrgyzstan remained one of the key issues covered by the media this week. The Kyrgyz parliament accepted the resignation of deposed president, Askar Akayev, on Monday following almost a week of discussion and dispute. The interim authority announced new presidential elections for 10 July. Also on Monday, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court acquitted Feliks Kulov, an opposition leader jailed under Akayev, of all corruption charges that he said were politically motivated, clearing the way for him to run for president in July. However, Kulov, seen as one of the strongest possible candidates along with prime minister Kurmanbek Bakiev, has not announced yet whether he would definitely run for presidency. "I need to consult with Bakiev before I make a decision [on that]," he said.
Full report
[ENDS]
|
|