Global Highlights

• The global cereal price index increased by 8.8% on a year-on-year basis in the January-March 2013 quarter.This increase is driven by increases in real prices of maize and wheat (+8% and +13%, respectively).

In 2013 Merlin celebrates its 20th anniversary; here we take a look back over one of our first missions in the region of Nagorno Karabakh.

20-03-2013 News Release 13/47

Geneva (ICRC) – Two Armenian civilians interned in Azerbaijan returned to Armenia today under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The man and the woman were placed in the care of Armenian officials on the road between the Azerbaijani town of Gazakh and the Armenian town of Ijevan, at the international border.

ICRC delegates had visited the civilians prior to their repatriation in order to assess their treatment and conditions of internment.

*Map includes all USAID/OFDA DRR programs active in FY 2012

Link: Disaster RIsk Reduction – Europe, The Middle East, And Central Asiasia Fact Sheet #1, Fiscal Year (FY) 2012

By Enzo Mangini

STEPANAKERT (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Caucasus), Mar 4 2013 (IPS) - A Soviet-era 4×4 snores down the muddy road to the frontline. It’s another foggy day in the flatlands east of the borders of the tiny and once autonomous region Nagorno-Karabakh, sandwiched between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The capital, Stepanakert (population 50,000), is 30 kilometres west. Azerbaijan capital Baku is 400 km east and Armenian capital Yerevan 350 km west. The region is populated by Armenians.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday signed an order to improve living conditions for IDP families, AzerTac state news agency reported.

Under the order, AZN 14 million has been allocated from the President`s Reserve Fund for 2013 to the State Committee for Work with Refugee and IDPs for the construction of the new multi-storey residential buildings in Mushfigabad residential area Garadagh for 155 IDP families of 700 people temporarily settled in Binagadi district of Baku.

Highlights

· In 2012, donors give $45 million in humanitarian aid to the Caucasus and Central Asia ($18 million in 2011)

· Drop in outgoing aid: in 2012, the region gave $1.5 million compared to $13 million in 2011

· Assistance from Azerbaijan makes up the bulk of the region’s outgoing aid in 2012

· Russia emerges as top donor to the region in 2012, while Tajikistan remains the region’s largest aid recipient

29 January 2013

Gaza

The Government of Azerbaijan has donated USD 100,000 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Azerbaijan’s first contribution of the year will go towards funding the Agency’s regular programming in the Gaza Strip. The money will be used to improve the living conditions of the 1.2 million Palestine refugees living there, strengthening UNRWA’s regular education, health, and relief programming.

Resettlement scheme angers Azerbaijan, which sees it as an obstruction to an eventual peace deal.

Some of the Armenians fleeing the conflict in Syria are being welcomed as settlers by the authorities Nagorny Karabakh.

Robert Matevosyan, head of the resettlement department at Nagorny Karabakh’s Kashatagh district government, says 25 families have moved there since the civil war started in Syria.