Asia Pacific

UN, OPEC launch joint $4 million HIV/AIDS prevention project in Central Asia

16 March 2006
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development today launched a $4 million project to improve HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment among drug users and prisoners in five Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan.

Bangladesh starts mass anti-polio drive after first case in five years – UNICEF

16 March 2006
Bangladesh will immunize 18 million children under the age of five years three times in the next three months due to the re-emergence of the poliovirus after an absence of the disease for more than five years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

At UN meeting, poor Asia-Pacific countries call for free access for their exports

15 March 2006
The 14 least developed countries (LDCs) in the Asia-Pacific region today called on their trading partners to provide duty- and quota-free access to all their exports, as they wrapped up a two-day meeting organized by the United Nations to review their progress in meeting their development goals for the decade.

President of Timor-Leste meets with UN rights chief

15 March 2006
Far from encouraging impunity with a policy of forgiveness for past crimes, Timor-Leste is trying to establish conditions for its people build their future, the young country’s President Xanana Gusmão, said today in Geneva after meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights Louis Arbour.
Tom Koenigs

Government in Afghanistan must reach local communities, UN envoy says

14 March 2006
Against a backdrop of rising terrorism and insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, the top United Nations envoy to the country today said that the Kabul Government must, with international help, extend its reach to local communities.

UN and Cambodia sign key agreements ahead of Khmer Rouge trials

14 March 2006
The United Nations and Cambodia’s Government today signed agreements putting in place the legal foundations for the administrative set-up and operations of the Extraordinary Chambers to try Khmer Rouge leaders, accused of horrific crimes, including mass killings, during the 1970s.

Myanmar: UN rights expert calls for release of all political prisoners

13 March 2006
Deploring the continued detention of Myanmar’s longest serving prisoner, the poet and editor U Win Tin, who has now been behind bars for almost 17 years, a United Nations human rights expert has called for his unconditional release as well as that of more than 1,000 other political prisoners.

UN-backed repatriation programme for Afghan refugees in Iran extended

13 March 2006
The United Nations-backed voluntary repatriation programme for Afghan refugees from Iran, which has already seen the return of some 1.4 million people since its inception in 2002, has been extended for another year for the nearly 1 million Afghans still remaining in the war-torn country’s western neighbour.

UN deplores bomb attack against former president of Afghanistan

12 March 2006
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today deplored an attack against a former president of the country and parliamentary leader who escaped serious harm in the blast that took the lives of innocent bystanders.

UN refugee agency ‘deplores’ forced return of asylum seeker by Kazakhstan

10 March 2006
The United Nations refugee agency today deplored the forced return by Kazakhstan of an asylum seeker from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, saying that Kazakh authorities had also ignored a written communication from the UN agency regarding the case sent at the start of this month.