Jolie urges world to speed up financial aid for quake affectees
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Hollywood celebrity Angelina Jolie, a UNHCR goodwill ambassador, Friday called for turning recent international assistance pledges into reality as soon as possible to help the survivors of the October 8 earthquake, exposed to biting winter in Azad Kashmir and NWFP.
"There are so many wonderful pledges of money that could come in the next few years but the winter is in the next few weeks,"Jolie told reporters with UNHCR Commissioner Antonio Guterres a day after visiting the quake-hit zones. SAFRON Minister Yar Muhammad Rind also addressed the press conference.
A weekend donors' conference pledged over 6 billion US dollars to help Pakistan in its reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts but Jolie stressed the country needed the money now.
Jolie, on a "semi-private" visit with fellow film star Bradd Pitt, Thursday visited some of the tent villages set up for the makeshift relief camps.
She also warned against the "donors' fatigue" because of "so many disasters worldwide during the year" and stressed the situation in Pakistan was grim and required an immediate world response.
"There are pledges and just need to be honoured. It (money) can by here to meet the winter," she stressed. Ealier, both Jolie, a goodwill ambassador of the U.N. Refugees Agency (UNHCR) and the, UNHCR Commissioner, met with President Pervez Musharraf to express grief and solidarity over the Oct 8 earthquake that killed over 75,000 people wounded close to 100,000. Commissioner Guterres assured his agency's full support to Pakistan, saying despite having no mandate in such disaster, UNHCR was obliged to do it for the country's long-standing support to help millions of Afghan refugees for many years.
"Solidarity is not a one-way thing, it must be two-way," he said whose agency together along with other U.N. agencies were involved in relief activities.
"As a relief agency, problem faced by people of Pakistan are our problems and all our resources at the disposal of the Pakistan government in this hour of need," he added.
"I guarantee all our resources are at your (Pakistan's) disposal," he added.
The Commissioner said the UNHCR would go on with the programme of voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees that is underway under an agreement signed by the U.N., Pakistan and Afghanistan. Federal Minister Yar Rind said that some 400,000 Afghan refugees returned to their country this year under the voluntary programme while another 400,000 would be sent next year.
He said the repatriation schedule would not change as a result of the earthquake. The Minister said that Pakistan has put in place an effective system at the border to ensure that those who returned to Afghanistan did not come back. He expressed his gratitude to the Commissioner for helping Pakistan in relief efforts in spite of the fact that the UNHCR did not have a mandate in such disasters.
The UNHCR Commissioner also appealed to the world to include projects for the returning Afghan in the upcoming London Conference being held at the conclusion of the Bonn process. He said it was important to have coherent projects to help the returning Afghanis integrate back in the Afghan society. "That is absolutely essential if the voluntary repatriation programme is to be sustained, he added.
The Commissioner said it was also very important for the world community to understand that the people of Pakistan had been suffering a lot in expressing solidarity with the Afghan refugees who had been on the country's soil for so many years.
He said it was essential to help both the Pakistani people and the Afghan refugees in this respect.