Full Coverage: Asia and the Pacific

08/31/2006 Architect Raed Jarrar was questioned and forced to change clothes at New York's JFK airport earlier this month because other passengers were apparently concerned about the Arabic script on his t-shirt. Here is his story.
From: Raed in the Middle blog

08/31/2006 One the UN Day of the Disappeared Wednesday, Amnesty releasing findings documenting rising enforced disappearances in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka in the context of the "war on terror."

08/31/2006 From caste discrimination to forced disappearances and torture, participants at a conference on human rights in Asia detail the abuses faced in 12 Asian nations.

08/31/2006 from People's Daily Online:
China has suffered record meteorological disasters this year, both in terms of the number of disasters and the losses sustained.

08/31/2006 A new report on labour and social trends in South Asia warns of a growing socio-economic disconnect in the sub region, as economic growth and improved productivity fail to translate adequately into job creation and better wages. The report, Labour and Social Trends in Asia and the Pacific 2006: Progress towards Decent Work has been produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

08/31/2006 Oxfam has expanded its operations in the north and east to meet the needs of displaced families as the humanitarian situation in the north and east continues to draw attention of the aid agencies. Though a few displaced families have returned to their homes, thousands of displaced families are still in camps in Trincomalee, Kilinochchi, Batticaloa and Jaffna districts.

08/31/2006 For years, Nawab Mohammed Akbar Khan Bugti battled the Pakistan Army. The 80-year-old renegade hidden in the mountains of Balochistan became a legend in his fight for greater autonomy against what he saw as colonial brutality.
And his death this weekend, during a fierce three-day battle that left more than 30 dead, could prove a serious blow to Pakistan's stability.

08/31/2006 Recycling paper is one of the many steps towards forest conservation and environmental degradation – we all talk about it, but how many of us really get down to doing anything about it? School students in Indian capital New Delhi, with help from an NGO, show the way.

08/31/2006 from The Independent:
Villagers on the South Pacific island of Tegua are packing up and leaving their homes for good - the first real victims of increasing sea levels caused by climate change.

08/31/2006

Dalit Aid

International NGOs (INGOs) vary greatly in size, approach and focus. For the majority, India continues to be a priority area for their activities, where they use a variety of working strategies. There are many different approaches the INGOs follow with regard to Dalit programmes in India. We need to learn from each other where there is an impact and where there are problems. We need to analyse the nature and context of caste discrimination, soical exclusion of dalits, caste conflicts and solutions to such conflicts, assess the political dimensions of Dalit empowerment, assess the different models and ways of working on Dalit issues.

08/31/2006 Sri Lankan organisation Sarvodaya is holding a meditation for peace initiative on October 2, 2006 - Mahatma Gandhi's birthday - at the sacred city of Anuradhapura. Sarvodaya expects to host one million people from all over the world - the largest gathering in Sri Lanka’s history - clad in white clothes to meditate for peace.

08/31/2006 UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) - Marking the International Day of the Disappeared, United Nations officials joined international human rights groups Wednesday to draw attention to the plight of the thousands of people around the world who have been seized and imprisoned without recourse to their families or lawyers.

08/30/2006 UN officials, scientific experts, and Mediterranean environment ministers have agreed on an international action plan to clean up last month's oil spill that has become Lebanon's worst-ever environmental disaster.

08/30/2006 Telemedicine has opened up the possibility of reaching out to rural and backward areas in the country in a most cost-effective manner, said Panabaka Lakshmi, Union Minister of State,Kerala for Health and Family Welfare.

08/30/2006 The World Bank has resumed its lending to health sector in India. Three projects totaling $662 million, which were held up for more than a year, have now been approved by the Board of executive directors of the World Bank, a finance ministry statement said here.

08/30/2006 The Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA),SriLanka has called on the Government and all relevant authorities to intervene to improve the quality of the State Health Service. They also demanded drastic changes to the higher education policy framework in keeping with changing needs of society.

08/30/2006 The ultimate goal in gender equality is to ensure that women and men have equitable access to, and benefit from society's resources, opportunities and rewards. And, as part of this, women need to have equal participation in defining what is valued and how this can be achieved, women's groups told the Planning Commission.

08/30/2006 Under considerable pressure for its perceived lack of clarity on the issue of pesticide residue in carbonated drinks, and lack of urgency in formulating norms to regulate their safety, India’s health ministry has promised that norms for these products will be in place by January 2007.

08/30/2006 It is nearly two decades since the Indian government banned child labour in Firozabad's bangle and glassware industry and created a law to rehabilitate thousands of children who had now been plucked out of factories. The reality is that the schools are shabby with no furniture and no teaching materials and many children continue to work in the factories.

08/30/2006 Besides Vidarbha, the current year has seen a marked increase in the number of farmer suicides in northern Maharashtra too, with the number of deaths in 2006 inching close to the cumulative figure for the past four years