ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 102 covering the period 9
– 15 December 2006
15 Dec 2006 14:26:40 GMT Source: IRIN
ANKARA, 15 December (IRIN) - CONTENTS: AFGHANISTAN-INDIA: Afghan Sikh refugees want a slice of globalising India
AFGHANISTAN:
Action plan for justice launched
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
NEPAL: Peace agreement leads to improved school security
PAKISTAN: Race is on for quake zone winter migration
PAKISTAN: Monitoring of
school feeding programme begins
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration gathers momentum
PAKISTAN: The long wait at a quake camp
PAKISTAN: Over 2 million children immunized in special cross-border campaignPAKISTAN: Afghan registration quickens ahead of deadline
PAKISTAN: Focus on forgotten quake victims of Kala DhakaAFGHANISTAN-INDIA: Afghan Sikh refugees want a slice of globalising IndiaManmeet
Kaur was four years old when her family fled Afghanistan. Today, this 18-year-old Afghan Sikh refugee calls Delhi her home, avidly watches 'L'il Champs' – a hugely popular show on one of India's
myriad satellite television channels for young, aspiring singers - and dreams of carving out a niche for herself. "Here, you have freedom! I would like to establish my own identity, achieve something
in life and be self-reliant," she said. Manmeet is one among the 9,000-odd Afghan refugees in India, 90 percent of whom belong to Hindu or Sikh faiths - religious minorities in Afghanistan.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56732 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-INDIAAFGHANISTAN: Action plan for justice launchedIn an effort to bring justice to tens of
thousands of victims of decades of civil war and internal strife in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai launched a three-year action plan on Sunday. The project, known as the
"Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice in Afghanistan" contains five key elements: acknowledgment of the suffering of the Afghan people; strengthening state institutions; finding out the
truth about the country's bloody past; promoting reconciliation; and establishing a proper accountability mechanism.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56702 and SelectRegion=Asia and
SelectCountry=AFGHANISTANCENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrapCentral Asia's two most populous and largest countries - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan - head the global list for prevalence of
multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB), AFP reported on Friday, citing a study to be published shortly in The Lancet, the UK-based medical journal. After a survey of 76 countries, researchers led
by the World Health Organization found that Kazakhstan had the highest prevalence, with 14.2 percent of TB cases having MDR strains, followed by Uzbekistan (13.8 percent).http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56753 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIANEPAL: Peace agreement leads to improved school securitySmiling behind her desk, school
teacher Sabita Adhikari is thrilled to see all 40 of her fourth grade students in class. "Nobody is absent anymore. It's because children feel safe to travel from their villages to attend class," said
Adhikari who teaches at Sri Bal Mandir Secondary School in Nilkanta village in Dhading district, nearly 100 km south of the capital. Until November's peace agreement, which brought a decade-long
conflict to an end, many rural children were afraid to come to school for fear of being abducted by Maoist rebels for 'indoctrination' training, or being forced to shoulder a rifle in the People's
Liberation Army (PLA).http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56712 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=NEPALPAKISTAN: Race is on for quake zone winter migrationAs the snow falls in the
mountains of quake-stricken northern Pakistan, the race is now on to provide support in the valleys below for thousands of families driven from their homes by severe weather. Up to 60,000 people could
swell the existing population in tented camps across the quake zone in the weeks ahead to almost 100,000, who will see out the winter under canvas or corrugated iron sheets in the valleys.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56752 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN: Monitoring of school feeding programme beginsA unique satellite-based monitoring system
has been installed in 15 Pakistani educational institutions in order to improve information gathering in a school feeding project. "The system permits authorised and trained schoolteachers to directly
input monthly data pertinent to their school, which will then be transmitted via the ARGOS global satellite system to WFP [World Food Programme] and other authorised officials for analysis," WFP
spokesman Amjad Jamal said in Jauharabad in Punjab province, 170 km southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56714 and SelectRegion=Asia and
SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN: Afghan registration gathers momentumAs the Afghan refugee registration campaign nears its end on 31 December, participation is gathering momentum particularly in
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), UN officials said on Wednesday. "The pace [of Afghan registration] has increased exponentially, especially in NWFP where more than 20,000 people are
getting registered daily through 19 static registration centres and mobile vans in the province," said Indrika Ratwatte, Assistant Representative at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) in Islamabad.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56731 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN: The long wait at a quake campAbdul Koayyum's life
was shattered by falling debris the day of the earthquake. His home collapsed, killing his wife. His leg was smashed. More than a year later Abdul's leg is still healing, pinned along its length after
a series of operations. But life goes on for the 38-year-old carpenter and his four children, waiting for the second winter under the canvas of a tented village at Jaba, near Balakot, in Pakistan's
North West Frontier Province (NWFP).http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56713 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN: Over 2 million children immunised in special
cross-border campaignTens of thousands of under-five children have been immunised against polio along both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan common border in a special three-day polio vaccination
campaign which concluded on Thursday. "Large scale population movements and security issues stand in the way of reaching every child in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas with polio vaccine.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56749 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN: Afghan registration quickens ahead of deadlineAs the campaign to register those
Afghans seeking temporary legal status in Pakistan draws to a close on 31 December, participation is gaining momentum particularly in the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), to secure
official identification cards validating their stay in exile. To date, more than 836,000 Afghan refugees have registered with Pakistani authorities, including over half a million living in NWFP,
according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56743 and SelectRegion=Asia and SelectCountry=PAKISTANPAKISTAN:
Focus on forgotten quake victims of Kala DhakaMore than a year after a powerful earthquake devastated northern Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir there are still communities that had been
left out in the quake zone. The isolated tribal area of Kala Dhaka in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) was badly affected by the last year's disaster but such is the remoteness of
this 'forbidden' corner of North West Frontier Province that no coordinated international aid effort ever came there.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56733 and SelectRegion=Asia and
SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
