IRIN - Asia
Updated everyday



BANGLADESH: Border killings mount despite no-shooting decree (Dec 6)
RANGPUR 06 December 2011 (IRIN) - The death toll at the Bangladesh-India border continues to mount three months after the Indian government instructed its border security forces to stop shooting civilians suspected of being undocumented migrants or a threat to national security, say local residents.


PAKISTAN: SWAT women face dual burden (Dec 6)
MINGORA 06 December 2011 (IRIN) - Women in the Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtoonkh'wa province are working harder than ever to keep their households running.


MYANMAR-THAILAND: Slow pace of registering migrants (Dec 5)
MAE SOT 05 December 2011 (IRIN) - For decades, children of Burmese refugees and migrants in Thailand could not obtain an official birth certificate, vital to access healthcare and education. Even though legislation entitling them to a formal identity has been in place since 2008, registering and coaxing forth the undocumented has been "painstaking", according to community groups.


SECURITY: Mixed report on mine action progress (Dec 2)
BANGKOK 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Landmine clearance and donor support for mine action reached an all-time high in 2010, but more countries – four – deployed antipersonnel mines than in any year since 2004, according to NGOs.


THAILAND: Two days in the life of an urban flood expert (Dec 2)
BANGKOK 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - As 16 billion cubic metres of flood water bore down on Bangkok in early October, international experts flew in to help the government deal with an unprecedented potential calamity.


HIV/AIDS: Obama applauded for new treatment pledge (Dec 2)
NAIROBI 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - AIDS activists have welcomed a pledge by US President Barack Obama to provide antiretroviral treatment to some six million people globally by 2013, an increase of two million on the previous target.


LAOS: Looming threat of "catching up" on HIV prevalence (Dec 2)
VIENTIANE 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Kinoy Phongdeth, 34, was one of the first four people given antiretrovirals (ARVs) when the medication initially arrived in Laos in 2003. Now, there are 1,600 people on treatment and the number is expected to jump to 7,000 by 2015, according to the government.


HEALTH: TB programming, research slowed by inadequate funding (Dec 1)
NAIROBI 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - The number of people dying from tuberculosis fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2010, but experts warn that a shortfall of US$1 billion for TB programmes in 2012, and the recent cancellation of funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, threaten these gains.


HIV/AIDS: Following the Fund (Dec 1)
JOHANNESBURG 01 December 2011 (IRIN) - Running a deficit as high as US$6 billion and forced to cancel its latest round of funding, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria is at a crossroads, and a far cry from where it started.


PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Tackling maternal health "crisis" (Nov 30)
GOROKA 30 November 2011 (IRIN) - Decades of neglect, a failing health system and remote mountainous topography have created a "crisis in maternal health", according to a government taskforce in Papua New Guinea.


BANGLADESH: Boom brings few benefits to islanders (Nov 29)
KURIGRAM 29 November 2011 (IRIN) - While a recent boost in income for thousands of islanders living near Bangladesh's northern border district of Kurigram has transformed mud huts into concrete homes, overall conditions are still dangerously precarious for most, say locals and aid workers.


PAKISTAN: Girls desperate for education in rural Balochistan (Nov 29)
QUETTA 29 November 2011 (IRIN) - Gehava Bibi, 9, is very excited. She is visiting the city of Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, with her father to buy some basic school supplies. She has never held a pencil or piece of chalk. “This seems like magic,” she told IRIN as she awkwardly drew a few squiggly lines across a piece of paper offered to her by the shop-owner.


AFGHANISTAN: Women’s rights law poorly enforced, says UN report (Nov 28)
KABUL 28 November 2011 (IRIN) - Afghanistan still has a long way to go before women in the country are fully protected under the two-year-old Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law, a report concludes.


HOW TO: Build a flood-resilient city (Nov 28)
BANGKOK 28 November 2011 (IRIN) - Less than a year after Bangkok was chosen as a "role model city" by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) as part of the UN's 2010-2015 "Making Cities Resilient" campaign, the worst floods in half a century put that distinction to the test.


CAMBODIA: Schools and students struggle post-floods (Nov 24)
PHNOM PENH 24 November 2011 (IRIN) - Schools damaged in Cambodia's worst monsoons in more than a decade may take up to a year to recover after flooding delayed the start of school for thousands of students nationwide, say aid workers and officials.


BANGLADESH: "Enclave" residents campaign for citizenship (Nov 23)
RANGPUR 23 November 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of ethnic Bengalis living near the Bangladesh-India border have for decades found themselves citizens of one nation but bound within the sovereign territory of another. In recent months they have escalated their campaign for a land swap that will align their citizenship with cartography.


VIETNAM: Trafficked workers exploited in China (Nov 22)
THANH BINH 22 November 2011 (IRIN) - Growing numbers of Vietnamese labourers are being trafficked to factories and plantations in China where they are exploited, according to the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP).


MIGRATION: Australia will "pay the price" for mandatory detention (Nov 21)
MELBOURNE 21 November 2011 (IRIN) - Experts warn of long-term mental health consequences for thousands of asylum-seekers detained in Australia. "What we're witnessing in detention centres at the moment is an absolute crisis of despair, human misery and mental breakdown," Louise Newman, head of the Detention Health Advisory Group, told IRIN.


HIV/AIDS: "Unprecedented progress", despite poor funding (Nov 21)
NAIROBI 21 November 2011 (IRIN) - New HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have continued to fall, and the number of people on treatment has risen to nearly 50 percent of those eligible, despite an overall fall in global funding, states a UNAIDS report.


ASIA: Boosting cities' food resilience (Nov 18)
BANGKOK 18 November 2011 (IRIN) - From rooftops to railroad tracks, Asia's largest cities will need to maximize every bit of space to feed one of the world's fastest-growing populations, said experts at a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) workshop in Bangkok on resilient food systems in Asia.


ASIA: Regional disaster response "is the goal" (Nov 17)
JAKARTA 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - The ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Center) was formally endorsed at the association's summit on 17 November in Bali, signalling a greater role for regional mechanisms.


PAKISTAN: Balochistan mourns its missing (Nov 17)
QUETTA 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - A slightly faded black-and-white photograph of a young man hangs above the mantelpiece in Zarina Bibi’s tiny house in the town of Khuzdar in southwestern Balochistan province. Bibi, in her 70s, occasionally places a vase of flowers near the photograph. It is one of the few she possesses of her grandson, Abdul Rehman, who “vanished” some nine months ago.


THAILAND: Throwing mud at flood water (Nov 17)
BANGKOK 17 November 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of Thais - with noses pinched and fingers crossed - are tossing mud balls into fetid flood water, in the hope of improving the quality of stagnant water following weeks of flooding.


LAOS: Bridging culture to promote maternal health (Nov 16)
LUANG PRABANG 16 November 2011 (IRIN) - In 2010, for the first time in more than 20 years, 140 midwives graduated in Laos but specialists say their skills may go untapped because the country's women are not used to visiting health workers.


LAOS: Magdalen Muraa, "I started asking myself, 'Why did I come here?'" (Nov 16)
LUANG PRABANG 16 November 2011 (IRIN) - The Laos government is tackling its notoriously low maternal and child health indicators with a massive midwife training campaign.