U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 46
16 - 22 February 2002


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Aid worker attacked
AFGHANISTAN: Maslakh demonstrates need for better monitoring
AFGHANISTAN: 'Khar-cruisers' get UNICEF vaccine through
AFGHANISTAN: Revival of flag brings hope
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on Hazara returnees to Bamian
AFGHANISTAN: Maslakh nutritional survey draws criticism
AFGHANISTAN: Pressing need for civil service reform
AFGHANISTAN: IRIN interview with governor of Herat
AFGHANISTAN: IRIN interview with Russian ambassador to Pakistan
AFGHANISTAN: Kofi Annan calls for greater gender-equality
AFGHANISTAN: Forcible returns from Iran continue
PAKISTAN: New influx of Afghans
PAKISTAN: Women's bank to launch new loans
PAKISTAN: Fuel conservation project launched
KAZAKHSTAN: World Bank help for Aral Sea
UZBEKISTAN: HIV/AIDS cases on the rise
TAJIKISTAN: Coordination needed for new NGOs
CENTRAL ASIA: Peace Corps to return in three weeks



AFGHANISTAN: Aid worker attacked

With the Afghan capital Kabul suffering a series of security breakdowns,
an aid worker for UNICEF in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif was
shot after four armed men raided his house over the weekend, a UN official
confirmed to IRIN on Monday. In a separate incident, also in Mazar-e
Sharif, a worker for the British-based Focus aid agency was believed to
have been abducted on Friday. Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai
has pleaded for a beefed-up international military presence throughout
Afghanistan in order to consolidate his rule and allow aid work and
reconstruction to take place. Despite the deployment of 4,200 ISAF
(International Security Assistance Force) troops in Kabul, residents were
edgy on Monday following the recent murder of a minister and British
troops coming under fire at the weekend.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21320&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Maslakh demonstrates need for better monitoring

Maslakh camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM) on Friday concluded its re-registration
of some 100,000 IDPs at the windswept facility, 20 km west of Herat. The
move followed an earlier registration of the population- taken during the
time of the time of the Taliban - which put the figure at over 300,000,
demonstrating that a stricter monitoring of humanitarian assistance was
needed. "This was an inflated figure, and undoubtedly many people,
including the Taliban, succeeded in cheating the aid community," the IOM
chief for western Afghanistan, Rafael Robillard, told IRIN. "We must now
concentrate on assisting those in real need at the camp, while not
allowing it to become a magnet for others," he said, adding assisting
people at their place of origin was now crucial.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21270&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: 'Khar-cruisers' get UNICEF vaccine through

"There are about 120 villages that make up Argo District," says Dr Abdul
Fattah, the Kabul University-trained medical doctor responsible for Argo
District, Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan. "You can
probably tell from the mountains around us and all the snow that many of
them are unreachable by road or vehicle. That's why we use Afghan
'khar-cruisers'[donkeys] - they're both reliable and cheap." Measles is
the number-one killer of Afghan children, and getting them vaccinated is
an enormous challenge - particularly during the winter months in
northeastern Afghanistan when narrow mountain roads disappear completely
under snow.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21477&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Revival of flag brings hope

Pointing to the newly restored Afghan flag flying high over Kabul,
Mohammad Ebrahim - a recently returned refugee - told IRIN that the
tricolour is a symbol of his country's proud past. Ebrahim was a refugee
in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar for more than five years.
He had recently returned home, and was waiting in the bustling ministry of
education, looking for a job. "We are happy and hope that our country will
return to peace," he said. After the Taliban were defeated in December
2001, both the 1992 flag and the 1973 flag have been flown by different
factions within the Northern Alliance. In another move designed to assert
Afghan identity and to distance the country from its recent past, the
interim leader, Hamid Karzai, issued an order to replace the lunar
calendar with the traditional Afghan solar calendar.


http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21186&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on Hazara returnees to Bamian

Nurollah lives at one of the most well-known spots in the world. His home
is a dark and dusty cave next to where the famous ancient Buddha statues
in central Afghanistan stood for centuries. Last year, in a senseless act
of rage, the hardline Taliban blew them up. Nurollah's family, is one of
some 100 dwelling in the dismal caves - once used for meditation by
Buddhist monks - huddled together, fighting the dry, biting cold, and
waiting for international aid to reach them. He told IRIN that he and his
family of eight were happy to be home once again. There are no official
statistics of how many have returned, but he is one of hundreds of members
of the Hazara ethnic group who have returned to Bamian Province to live in
deplorable conditions. They had fled the area some years ago in fear of
ethnic persecution by the Taliban after the orthodox Islamic movement
gained control of the region in 1998.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21187&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Maslakh nutritional survey draws criticism

A nutritional survey which earlier this month reported a severe increase
in malnutrition among thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
living in western Afghanistan's Maslakh camp, came under criticism on
Saturday. "The prevalence they are quoting needs to be double-checked," a
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) nutritional officer, Cyridion
Ahimana, told IRIN in the provincial capital, Herat. "Whenever you are
talking about acute malnutrition, you must use the weight/height test. The
MUAC [mid-upper arm circumference test] method is not sufficient to
conclude such findings," he stated. Whereas MUAC provided a quick
assessment method for an overview of the nutritional situation among
children under five, the weight/height method remained the recommended
indicator, he added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21264&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Pressing need for civil service reform

Revitalising the country's civil services presents the Afghan interim
administration and the international community with a major challenge as
they both struggle hard to put in place a working system of governance.
"Our primary aim is to bring back and enforce a merit system into the
civil services," Gul Rehman Qazi, head of the expert group for the
revitalisation of the Afghan civil service, told IRIN in the Afghan
capital, Kabul, on Thursday. Qazi said many of the 200,000 to 250,000
government employees in Afghanistan had been recruited without being
subjected to any procedures. Most of them lack the necessary experience
and qualifications. Afghanistan has suffered its worst-ever brain drain as
the result of years of fighting and economic stagnation.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21290&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: IRIN interview with governor of Herat

General Isma'il Khan recently regained the governorship of western
Afghanistan's Herat Province. Three years ago, after being captured by the
Taliban, he reached Iran after a dramatic escape from a Kandahar prison.
The legendary 56 year-old regional strong man is feted for liberating
Herat from 12 years of communist rule. Khan is a key player in the new
interim administration in the delicate unification process ahead.
Surrounded by 20 soldiers armed to the teeth, he told IRIN that security
wasn't a problem in his province, and dismissed a new role for himself in
any future government. Describing reports of increasing Iranian influence
in Herat as pure propaganda, he warned that the Taliban remained a threat
to Afghanistan's stability. "The Taliban have simply changed their
uniforms," he said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21352&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: IRIN interview with Russian ambassador to Pakistan

As the international community re-establishes its presence in Afghanistan,
one of the more interesting players to return is Russia. Soviet troops
withdrew from the Central Asian country in 1989 after having invaded it a
decade earlier, leaving behind a difficult legacy for both nations.
Calling it a tragic mistake, Eduard Shevchenko, the Russian ambassador to
Pakistan, told IRIN what Moscow's role in the reconstruction process would
be and what the humanitarian community must now do to maintain long-term
peace and stability in the region. The veteran diplomat maintained that
without security in Afghanistan - reconstruction would be impossible.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22102&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Kofi Annan calls for greater gender-equality

A report released on Wednesday by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls
for increased international support for measures to promote gender
equality in Afghanistan. "Afghan women should be seen as the primary
stakeholders and agents of change who have identified their own needs and
priorities in all sectors of society," the report said. Entitled
"Discrimination against women and girls in Afghanistan", the report will
be considered by the UN Commission on the Status of Women next month.
Reacting to the issues raised in the document, the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has warned that if the
Northern Alliance stays in power, incidents of violence against women will
increase.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21980&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Forcible returns from Iran continue

Although only 29, Bibi Gol's story is one of life's tragedies. Unassisted
and penniless, this widowed mother of six stands alone near the Afghan
border town of Eslam Qaleh, just minutes away from Iran. Glancing back
over the barren frontier she has just been forced to cross, she knows she
can never go back, but feels only for her children. "If you can't help me,
at least help my children," she told IRIN. A refugee from Afghanistan's
central Kapisa Province, Bibi Gol has been living in Iran like millions of
other Afghan refugees. Since 1997, her husband had toiled as a day
labourer in the capital, Tehran, trying to provide a better life for his
young children than the one he had left behind in his war-ravaged country.
When he died last year, however, Bibi's life changed for ever.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21830&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN: New influx of Afghans

About 20,000 Afghans who have entered to Pakistan over the last 10 days
are mainly Pashtuns fleeing from ethnic harassment, an aid worker told
IRIN on Wednesday. "The reports coming out from the north [of Afghanistan]
suggest that it is very difficult for Pashtuns there," said the aid
worker, who asked not to be named. "People with guns and political backing
are definitely picking up on Pashtuns," the worker added. Northern
Afghanistan is predominantly Tajik and Uzbek, but is also home to large
Pashtun populations. Overall, Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in
Afghanistan. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there are now nearly 20,000 Afghans at the edge
of the Killi Faizo transit camp at the Chaman border post in Pakistan
awaiting registration.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21835&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Women's bank to launch new loans

Pakistan's First Women Bank Ltd (FWBL) plans to introduce four new
financial instruments, including business and personal loans, with effect
from March, as part of its overall objective of financially empowering the
country's women. "I am launching four new products from 8 March, addressed
to women where they actually need support," Zarine Aziz, the bank's
president, told IRIN from Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province. She said
the bank has a target of disbursing US $1.6 million respectively in
Punjab, the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and in Sindh and Baluchistan
provinces together, and $800,000 in the North West Frontier Province over
the next quarter. This target figure greatly exceeds the disbursement of
just one million dollars in the last quarter (October-December) across
Pakistan.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22101&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Fuel conservation project launched

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Pakistani
environmental authorities on Tuesday launched a US $3 million revolving
fund to set up 180 vehicle tune-up centres across the country with a view
to decreasing harmful emissions and to conserve fuel. "Conservation of
energy is of paramount importance, with a direct impact on the overall
fuel-import bills, economy and environment of the country," Pakistan's
Minister for Environment, Local Government and Rural Development Owais
Ahmad Ghani told a news conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21500&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: World Bank help for Aral Sea

The implementation of a project to improve the Northern Aral Sea in
Kazakhstan, to be funded by the World Bank, moved a step closer this week
after being ratified by one of the country's two chambers of parliament.
The US $64.5 million loan was approved by the World Bank in June 2001 to
help sustain and increase agriculture, livestock and fish production in
the Syr Darya basin and secure the existence of the Aral Sea, which, since
the Soviets began diverting the rivers flowing into it for irrigation in
the 1950s, has shrunk to a third of its original size. Environmentalists
in the region say there also needs to be a stronger commitment from the
Kazakh government.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21822&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

UZBEKISTAN: HIV/AIDS cases on the rise

Authorities in Uzbekistan have registered a total of 779 HIV-positive
people, more than three quarters of whom are men, showing a sharp rise in
numbers over the last two years, a UN official told IRIN on Tuesday from
the Uzbek capital Tashkent. "HIV/AIDS is increasing sharply," said Aziz
Khudoberdiev, a programme officer at the United Nations AIDS programme in
Uzbekistan. "It has risen sharply in the last two years, spreading fast by
sharing of syringes by drug users." According to official statistics, the
first HIV case was registered in 1987. By the end of 1998, the total
number of registered HIV cases reached 51, including 27 foreigners. In
1999 the figure jumped to 76, and to 230 in the year 2000.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21476&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Coordination needed for new NGOs

In an effort to reduce disease due to an expected massive influx of Afghan
refugees into Tajikistan, the number of NGOs offering healthcare in the
Central Asian republic has dramatically increased in recent months. The
proliferation means there needs to be more coordination, a WHO official
told IRIN on Monday. "Some of the NGOs did not have a clear objective when
they first arrived," head of the WHO office in the Tajik capital,
Dushanbe, Lubomir Ivanov said. Some 40 new NGOs have established offices
in Tajikistan over the past three months in order to access northern
Afghanistan and to provide cross border services. He added that in such an
emergency situation there is always a rush of aid organisations and that
coordination was the key to ensuring that all aspects of health were
covered.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21297&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

CENTRAL ASIA: Peace Corps to return in three weeks

US Peace Corps volunteers are expected to return to Afghanistan in about
three weeks and to other central Asian states soon afterwards to help in
reconstruction work, US President George W Bush said in Washington last
week. "They'll be returning to the republics of Central Asia. And within
three weeks, a team will leave for Afghanistan, to address how the Peace
Corps can assist that country in reconstruction," Bush told a news
conference on Friday. Peace Corps volunteers worked in Afghanistan in the
1960's and 1970's before the Soviet occupation. The organisation also
worked in some of the Central Asian states after their independence from
the former Soviet Union but suspended work following the events of 11
September.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21275&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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