Asia Pacific

Amb. Pleuger briefs press on mission

Security Council mission heading to Afghanistan to check progress on rebuilding

30 October 2003
A United Nations Security Council mission is heading to Afghanistan to show support for the reconstruction process there and to check on its progress, according to the delegation's chairman, Ambassador Gunter Pleuger of Germany.

Demobilization in northern Afghanistan about half way finished, UN says

30 October 2003
About half the 1,000 ex-soldiers voluntarily disarmed in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz have completed the multi-step demobilization programme there, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said today.

UN survey finds opium production on the rise in Afghanistan

29 October 2003
The United Nations released a survey today showing that opium production is on the rise this year in Afghanistan, by far the world's biggest producer of the drug.

Green concerns to be integrated by UN into Afghan development plan

28 October 2003
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today announced a €4.27 million (euro) scheme to support the rehabilitation of Afghanistan’s environment and integrate green concerns into the country’s development.
Thoraya Obaid

UN agency deplores infanticide of girls in India; praises government for study

28 October 2003
The ratio of girls to boys in India has shown a shocking decline in the last decade due to the elimination of girls by sex-selective abortion and infanticide, practices that must end, the head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said.

UN rights experts deeply concerned about post-election events in Azerbaijan

28 October 2003
Four independent United Nations human rights experts are "deeply concerned" about information they have received that one person died, many were injured and hundreds of protesters and election workers were detained in Azerbaijan in connection with the 15 October presidential elections.
Trucks wait for newly-returned families at Pul-i-Charki

UN refugee agency says more than 2.5 million Afghans have returned home

28 October 2003
The United Nations refugee agency announced today that more than 2.5 million Afghans have returned to their homeland since a repatriation programme began in March last year.
Returnees transport door for their home in Shomali Plain

UN agency’s Afghan housing programme intensifies in advance of winter

24 October 2003
A scheme to rebuild homes for thousands of returning refugees in Afghanistan has been stepped up in a bid to beat the country’s usually bitter winter, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.

Afghanistan needs people to hold pens not guns, UN envoy tells ex-soldiers

24 October 2003
Some 1,000 former combatants, marching without their rifles thanks to a United Nations disarmament programme, paraded in front of Afghan President Hamid Karzai today, in what he called "one of the best days in Afghanistan," according to a UN dispatch from the capital Kabul.
USG Guéhenno briefs Security Council

Key causes of insecurity remain in Afghanistan, top UN official says

24 October 2003
The United Nations' top peacekeeping official told the UN Security Council today the many of the fundamental causes of insecurity in Afghanistan "remain unresolved."