Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-77: 20-Sep-02
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia
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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 77
14 - 20 September 2002
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: UN wants to prevent refugees returning to Pakistan
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF continues despite rocket attack
IRAN: Interview with leading female reformist MP, Fatemeh Rakei
PAKISTAN: ADB signs poverty reduction agreement
PAKISTAN: Focus on deforestation
KAZAKHSTAN: Baby-friendly hospitals promote childbirth revolution
KYRGYZSTAN: Youth development through mountaineering
CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with Ahmed Rashid
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
AFGHANISTAN: UN wants to prevent refugees returning to Pakistan and Iran
Life for 70-year-old, Enjeer Gul has not changed much for the better since
he returned home after 20 years of exile in neighbouring Pakistan. "We are
happy to be back but we have nothing to rebuild our lives again," he told
IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "We find no work and nobody is giving
us food anymore. Even getting water is hard," he said. Gul's 20-member
family, comprising of his wife, children and grandchildren live in grey
threadbare tents pitched on open ground in northern Kabul. Two months back
they left a refugee camp close to the northwestern Pakistani city of
Peshawar after most of their neighbours had taken the plunge and returned
to Afghanistan. More than 200 families live in tents in the capital while
thousands more eke out an existence in damaged houses and buildings
nearby.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29975&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF and other agencies continue despite rocket attack
The work of the Office of United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in the
eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad has resumed, a day after two rockets
hit the compound early Tuesday morning, agency officials said. UNICEF
spokesman Edward Carwardine told IRIN that it was business as usual in the
Jalalabad office - located in the eastern sector of the city. The rockets
injured one guard, damaged parked vehicles and shattered windows. "We have
no reason to believe that the attack was aimed at UNICEF. Investigations
on the ground are going on at this time," Carwardine said from the Afghan
capital, Kabul. "However, it has shaken up the staff." Military
installations and the airport are also located in the east of the city.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29943&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
IRAN: Interview with leading female reformist MP, Fatemeh Rakei
One of the more pressing issues in Iran today is the rights of women.
Iranian women still lack essential rights such as being unable to travel
without a husband's permission, and the fact that their testimony in court
is only worth half of a man's. But since the 1997 election of reformist
President Mohammad Khatami, Iranian women have gained a degree of freedom.
The recent repeal of a ban on unmarried women studying abroad was a
significant step and just last month the Iranian parliament passed a bill
granting women the right to seek divorce in court - a right women haven't
had since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In an interview with IRIN,
47-year-old Fatemeh Rakai, a leading advocate for women, and one of only
13 female members of the 270-seat parliament, talked candidly about some
of the changes that have taken place.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29971&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
PAKISTAN: ADB signs poverty reduction agreement
Pakistan and the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed an
agreement on Monday aiming to reduce poverty by half by the year 2011,
government and bank officials said. Myoung-Ho Shin, Vice President of ADB,
told reporters in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, that the agreement
supported Pakistan's long-terms goals of attaining universal primary
school enrollment, reducing the population growth rate to less than 1.6
percent and infant mortality rate to less than 30 per 1000 births, and
increase the average life expectancy to at least 69 years. "We are
committed to give US $2.4 billion during 2003/05," Shin said after the
signing ceremony. The ADB has provided project and programme loans worth
about US $800 million to Pakistan in 2001. He said the figures for future
assistance were indicative and could be higher or lower depending on the
performance of the projects.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29896&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Focus on deforestation
Halima Bibi, 60, walks for kilometres through northern Pakistan's
Himalayan foothills each day, gathering firewood. For as long as she can
remember, this has been her daily chore. But it is getting harder each
year as forest cover in Pakistan shrinks at an alarming rate. "We have
neither a job, nor a business. This jungle is all what we have," Bibi told
IRIN in her small two-roomed mud house, perched on a slope overlooking the
picturesque Ayubia National Park - a government-protected forest. Her
village, Tohidabad, nestled in between the famous hill resorts of Ayubia
and Nathiagali, 50 km north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, is
typical of hill settlements where poverty is widespread. Men travel to the
plains or to the Gulf for menial jobs, and women stay behind to maintain
and manage their homes, depending mostly on what the forest and its
natural resources offer them.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29916&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
KAZAKHSTAN: Baby-friendly hospitals promote childbirth revolution
Of Lyailya Bakrayeva's five children, daughter Sof'ya Toktar, now four, is
by far the healthiest. "The first child died almost at once, another had
diarrhoea and pneumonia, but Sof'ya has never been sick, the others were
not like her" she told IRIN in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty.
The reason Sof'ya has enjoyed a healthy early childhood is simple; she was
breastfed for the first six months of her life. Thanks in part to the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization
(WHO) and government programmes promoting breastfeeding and baby-friendly
hospitals in Kazakhstan, a whole generation of children are growing up
stonger and healthier.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29969&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on boosting youth development through mountaineering
American Garth Willis came to Kyrgyzstan to climb mountains. During his
first visit in 1995, he remembers being troubled by how few young
mountaineers he met. Most were older, and few novices were learning the
skill. Shortly thereafter, Willis saw the United Nations Children's Fund's
(UNICEF) documentary entitled "Rabbits Sitting on a Fence" about at-risk
youth in Kyrgyzstan. Convinced by this that something needed to be done,
Willis returned to his native Minnesota and applied for a US State
Department grant to explore "youth mountaineering to help troubled
teenagers". "Boom!" he said three years later. "They went for it right
away."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29913&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with Ahmed Rashid
Ahmed Rashid is one of the most respected authorities on Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Central Asia. In his 2000 bestseller, Taliban: Militant
Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Rashid warned the world to
ignore Afghanistan at its peril. In a special interview to mark the
anniversary of the changes that have led to a new direction for the
region, Rashid spoke to IRIN from his home in Lahore. He called on the
international community to do more straight away to promote security,
reconstruction and human rights in Afghanistan. Calling Hamid Karzai
probably the most legitimate leader in the region, he sees Central Asia's
new relationship with the US as a valuable opportunity for authoritarian
regimes to become more democratic and accountable, which would in turn
lead to greater foreign investment. He also warns that Islamic militancy
will continue to thrive in the region unless political reforms are
forthcoming.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29917&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
A significant development in the Caucasus this week, which will have a
direct impact on Central Asia, was the start of work on the the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in the Azerbaijan capital. The pipeline
from Azerbaijan's Sangachal terminal, 40km south of the capital Baku, to
the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, has been under discussion for
eight years. When completed, it is expected to reduce worldwide dependence
on Gulf exporters and Russian pipelines. The pipeline will have the
capacity to transport one million barrels a day across its 1,737 km
length. The cost of transportation is projected at US $3.2 per barrel and
the whole project is estimated to cost US$ 2.9 billion. The pipleine will
enable Kazakhstan to export north Caspian crude and is expected to offer a
boost to its growing energy sector.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29993&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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