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Monday 21 March 2005 |
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IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 10 covering the period 5 - 11 March 2005[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]CONTENTS: AFGHANISTAN: Child kidnapping alarming in the south - rights activist Government officials and human rights activists have been alarmed at the increasing number of child kidnappings in the southern Kandahar province after several kidnapped children were allegedly killed when their parents failed to meet ransom demands. Thousands of people rallied in Kandahar on Sunday calling for action to arrest and prosecute the kidnappers. Full report AFGHANISTAN: Floods expected following harsh winter Following the harshest winter Afghanistan has seen in a decade, the risk of flooding remains high in some parts of the country as temperatures improve and snows begin to melt in mountainous areas, according to aid organisations in the Afghan capital Kabul. In western Badghis province, reports indicated that early flooding in the Jauwand, Gardes and Murghab districts had forced some families to leave their houses in Panjab, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Thursday in Kabul. Full report AFGHANISTAN: Too many weapons in private hands - UN In an episode that suggests Afghanistan is slowly becoming safer, Shir Alam a 50-year-old local commander, surrendered several hundred mt of arms to a United Nations ammunitions stockpile and collection group on Thursday outside the capital, Kabul. Alam had amassed the arms over three decades of conflict, first fighting Soviet forces during 1980s and later against rival militia groups during the 1990s civil war in the capital. He also fought the hardline Taliban regime as part of the Northern Alliance. Full report AFGHANISTAN: Marking International Women's Day Thousands of Afghan women marked International Women's Day in the capital Kabul and some provinces on Tuesday 8 March. In Kabul, women pointed to the appointment on 4 March of the first female provincial governor and the appointment of three women cabinet ministers and several deputy ministers as positive evidence that women were making progress in male-dominated conservative Afghan society. Speakers at the main rally in the capital pointed to the fact that of more than 8 million Afghans who voted in the presidential poll of October 2004, more than 40 percent were female. Also for the first time in the country’s history, there was a woman among 16 presidential candidates in last October's elections. Full report AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: UNHCR Voluntary repatriation programme resumes The return home of 122 Afghan refugees on Monday from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) marked the resumption of the Afghan voluntary repatriation programme of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner or Refugees (UNHCR) for 2005. "The voluntary repatriation of Afghans has been resumed after a temporary suspension in the programme from December last year due to falling numbers of refugees seeking assistance to repatriate and also because of the harsh winter weather," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN on Tuesday in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Full report CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap Protests continued in southern Kyrgystan this week against what demonstrators said was a flawed parliamentary poll on 27 February. Thousands of opposition supporters demanded President Askar Akayev resign as they protested over alleged election violations, local media reported. The protests began a week ago after opposition candidates alleged widespread fraud in the polls. The vote was criticised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as falling short of democratic standards. Full report KAZAKHSTAN: Afghan refugees seek third-country resettlement Life has been hard on Saliha Azizullah. Arriving in Kazakhstan nine months earlier from her native Afghanistan, she had hoped for a better life in Central Asia's largest nation - only to have that dream turn into a nightmare. "All I wanted was a better future for my children," the 35-year-old told IRIN in her simple two-room, Soviet style flat, in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty. Full report KYRGYZSTAN: Poll ushers in new era of ethnic minority representation One positive outcome of the Kyrgyz parliamentary election held on 27 February, is that many representatives of ethnic minority groups have won seats based on preliminary results, a development welcomed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) High Commissioner on National Minorities, Ambassador Rolf Ekéus. "This represents a step forward in comparison with the last elections. In other words, this reflects much better the real ratio of the number of representatives of ethnic minorities living in Kyrgyzstan," Ekéus told IRIN on Thursday in the capital Bishkek. Full report KYRGYZSTAN: Election protests continue Angry protests continued in the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad on Monday, as thousands of people - supporters of opposition candidates who ran for parliament from the area - called for the resignation of Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev and a re-run to last week's parliamentary elections. Daily life has been at a standstill in the provincial capital for four days after protesters wearing rose coloured bows and scarves occupied three storeys of the region's main administration building. Full report NEPAL: Impact of conflict on food security Fears are growing that food insecurity is set to worsen in Karnali, which lies 400 km northwest of the capital Kathmandu and is Nepal’s least developed zone. The isolated area has seen food deficits since the 1970s, but the situation has been made worse by the Maoist conflict - the civil war against the state that has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Nepalis over the last nine years. Full report NEPAL: Vaccination and other health drives to continue Health workers in seven remote northwestern mountain districts of Nepal are gearing up for the final Nepal government and UNICEF have less than a month left to launch the final phase of an ambitious national measles vaccination campaign. Five of the districts form the western half of the Himalayan border with China where the major peaks are over 6,000 m. There are no roads in these areas, so the vaccines have to be flown in to the district headquarters. From there they are carried on mules and by porters to each village. Full report PAKISTAN: Protests against gang rape acquital Women in Pakistan took to the streets this week in a series of rallies across the country to protest against a court's acquittal of five men convicted of a gang rape in a remote southern part of Punjab province. The accused were released last week due to insufficient evidence. Mukhtaran Mai, 23, was allegedly raped in February 2002 on the orders of a council of village elders as retribution for an offence blamed on her 12-year old brother. In August the same year, the four alleged attackers and two village elders who ordered the rape, were sentenced to death in a judgement by a special court. However, five of the six convictions were overturned on Thursday 3 March by a provincial court. While the death sentence of the sixth man, one of the village elders was commuted to life imprisonment. Full report PAKISTAN: Afghan census concludes Officials conducting a census of Afghans living in Pakistan have failed to count hundreds of people living in parts of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, local Afghan residents told IRIN. The survey, which concluded on Sunday in most of the country, was run by the Pakistani government with financial and technical support from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). All Afghans residing in Pakistan since 1979 were obliged to take part. Full report PAKISTAN: Emergency relief still needed in Balochistan and northern areas About 100,000 people are still stranded with limited food supplies in the remote northern valleys of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) following weeks of widespread torrential rains, snowfall, landslides, avalanches and flooding. "Relief supplies of food and medicine from various national and international agencies have started reaching some of the snowbound areas. However, generally there is a severe shortage of edible items as the small roads have been closed in many districts for over a month now and local authorities lack bulldozers to clear the roads," World Health Organization (WHO) emergency medical officer Dr Quaid Saeed told IRIN from the town of Swat, some 250 km north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Full report UZBEKISTAN: Focus on southern labour migration Rasul Mirzaev, a former teacher in southern Uzbekistan, has fond memories of Soviet times. The retired professor recalls nostalgically the days when most people had a secure job, good working conditions and stable salaries. But his longing for the past also has a very personal aspect. His eldest son, Odyl, 42, went to Russia in search of work in the early 1990s where he reportedly died under mysterious circumstances in the central Russian province of Perm in May 2003. Full report [ENDS]
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