Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-78: 27-Sep-02
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 78
21 - 27 September 2002
CONTENTS:
PAKISTAN: Christian NGOs to continue despite latest deadly attack
AFGHANISTAN: Elimination of export tariffs welcomed
AFGHANISTAN: Refugees get legal assistance and information
IRAN: NGO renews calls for assistance for Iraqi refugees
IRAN: Special report on the Hamun lake crisis
IRAN: Security remains key to resumption of repatriation at Milak
KYRGYZSTAN: Human Rights Watch flays deteriorating rights record
KYRGYZSTAN: US call for reform welcomed
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
PAKISTAN: Christian NGOs to continue despite latest deadly attack
In yet another attack on Christians in Pakistan, seven people were killed
when gunmen opened fire on a welfare organisation in the southern
commercial city of Karachi on Wednesday. This is the fifth such attack
targeting Christians since 11 September. In total the attacks have killed
30 and injured more than a hundred. According to initial reports, two
gunmen entered the third-floor offices of the Institute for Peace and
Justice (IPJ), a Pakistani Christian charity, spraying the room with
automatic weapons fire on Wednesday morning. Among the dead were three
Pakistani Christians and three Muslims, police said, leaving four others
injured. Authorities say the gunmen escaped.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30073&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Elimination of export tariffs welcomed
Economists have commended a move by Afghan government's decision to forgo
custom tariffs on exports to enhance trade and transform the country's war
economy into a peace economy. "We reached a conclusion that all goods
should for now be exempted from tax and this will go on until trade is
boosted and our main aim is to find jobs and food for people," said Afghan
finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30074&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Refugees get legal assistance and information
It's too much responsibility for 15-year-old Afghan refugee Sayed Haroon
to look after his 8-member family on US$ 20 a month. He gets this by
working 12 hours a day in a filthy spray shop, painting ageing vehicles,
in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Haroon's brothers are
garbage 'scavengers'. With sacks on their backs they collect anything
worthwhile, paper, bottles or pieces of metal in rubbish piles around the
town for less than half a dollar a day. Three years ago they fled Saray
Khoja village in the Shomali Plains north of the Afghan capital, Kabul
when the Taliban took away their father away - he was never seen alive
again.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30021&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
IRAN: NGO renews calls for assistance for Iraqi refugees
A leading NGO dealing with the plight of Iraqi refugees living in Iran has
renewed its calls to the international community for urgently needed
assistance to thousands living in squalid and destitute conditions. "There
is no real humanitarian work being done for these people in Iran,"
Khadijet Ak Kubra's director, Sami Mahdi, told IRIN in the Iranian
capital, Tehran. "Not even one percent of these people's needs are being
fulfilled," he complained.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30018&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
IRAN: Special report on the Hamun lake crisis
The Hamun lake region is one of the most critical social and environmental
emergencies in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Largely unknown by the
international community, this man made disaster with acute political and
social implications, has now hit crisis level, impacting on the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people in Iran and Afghanistan. "This is
devastating. This was a completely lake-based culture and it's been
completely wiped out," a consultant for the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), Murray Wilson, told IRIN in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
"It's just a dustbowl now."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30081&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
IRAN: Security remains key to resumption of repatriation at Milak
Security remains the main stumbling block to the resumption of Afghan
repatriation through the Iranian border crossing at Milak. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) suspended its operations
there one month ago following a shooting incident involving an Iranian
border guard. "UNHCR will resume its operations when security there is
ensured and guaranteed adequate logistical arrangements are put in place,"
agency spokesman, Mohammad Nouri, told IRIN from the Iranian capital,
Tehran, on Friday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30121&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Human Rights Watch flays deteriorating rights record
As Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev met George W Bush on Monday, the
Washington-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the White House to
address what it describes as Kygryzstan's dramatically worsening human
rights record, a country once heralded as an island of democracy in a
highly repressive region. "Basic protections of civil and political rights
in Kyrgyzstan have deteriorated dramatically during the past year,"
Central Asia researcher for the watchdog group, Acacia Shields, told IRIN
from New York.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30019&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: US call for reform welcomed
Experts have welcomed a call by US President George W Bush and Secretary
of State Colin Powel for democratic reforms in Kyrgyzstan, a tiny Central
Asian state once considered an oasis of democracy in a highly
authoritarian region. "Such statements are always positive," Filip Noubel,
a senior Central Asian analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG)
told IRIN on Tuesday from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. "But we have to
see the how they are translated into reality."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30053&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
This week saw significant developments in the demarcation of borders
between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. On Thursday, a joint commission headed
by the two prime ministers, Oqil Oqilov and Otkir Sultanov, agreed in the
northern Tajik city of Khujund on demarcating borders along Tajikistan's
northern Soghod region. In a separate move, Turkmen president Saparmurat
Nayazov announced on Tuesday that his country would build barbed wire
fences on its northern borders with neighbouring Uzbekistan along the
Dasguz region.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30122&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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