Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-82: 25-Oct-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 82
19 - 25 October 2002
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: UNHCR welcomes agreement on Afghan repatriation
AFGHANISTAN: Medical teams probe whooping cough reports
AFGHANISTAN: Interview with the head of Islamic Injunctions Department
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on the struggle for shelter
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on landmine education for children
AFGHANISTAN: Afghans react strongly to EU repatriation initiative
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the plight of widows
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
AFGHANISTAN: UNHCR welcomes agreement on Afghan repatriation
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has welcomed
this week's agreement on a framework for voluntary repatriation from
Pakistan. Once officially signed, the accord on Afghan returns from
Pakistan will become the fourth in the series following similar agreements
reached with the governments of Iran, France and the UK. "This is the
framework of cooperation that we have been seeking since we began the
programme nine months ago," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN in
the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday. His comments follow an
announcement that the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and UNHCR had
on Tuesday agreed in principle, on the accord during a two-day meeting
held in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30564&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Medical teams probe whooping cough reports
The United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) told IRIN on Wednesday
that a public health team had been sent from the capital, Kabul and
another from the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif to verify reports of a
whooping cough outbreak in the remote Koofab district of Badakhshan
province in the northeast. "The two teams will arrive in Faizabad today
where they will receive help from a local commander to take them to the
area concerned," said Loretta Heiber Girardet, a WHO spokesperson in
Kabul. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a whooping cough outbreak in the
region could have killed as many 140 people in the past 10 days.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30562&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Interview with the head of Islamic Injunctions Department
The notorious Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice
as it was known during the rule of the Taliban, is up and running once
again, but under a different name - the Islamic Injunctions Department -
and has different priorities. In the past, the ministry was known for its
harsh rules and regulations that often discriminated against women.
Denying recent reports that Bollywood movies and female voices had
recently been banned from the airwaves, officials at the new department
say they are merely trying to promote what they describe as "the correct
version of Islam". In an exclusive interview with IRIN in the capital,
Kabul, the head of the Islamic Injunctions Department, Dr Sayed Abbas
Qasemi, said his department was promoting Islamic values but not forcing
them on people like the Taliban had done.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30577&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on the struggle for shelter
Standing outside his family's newly constructed home, nine-year-old Mas'ud
could not have been prouder. "This is our home, so of course I am happy.
Our house will soon be ready," he told IRIN. Originally from Mir Bacha Kot
district, a once prosperous enclave in Afghanistan's renowned Shomali
plains, he and his family fled the village when Taliban soldiers seized
control four years ago. Like thousands of other families, Mas'ud and his
relatives are now back to rebuild their homes - and their lives - creating
one of the greatest challenges for the aid community today. "Shelter is
one of our top priorities," Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and
Development (MRRD) Hanif Atmar told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "We
really need to push the donors on this issue."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30580&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on landmine education for children
As hundreds of thousands of refugees return to areas of Afghanistan that
were once battlefields, one of the most important and life-saving
programmes in the war-damaged country today is landmine education,
particularly for children. "Our main concern with children is that they
have been living with the problem for so long that they have almost become
oblivious to it," David Edwards, chief of operations for the UN's
mine-action programme for Afghanistan (MAPA), told IRIN in the capital,
Kabul. "Incorporating landmine education into the curriculum is
essential," he said. With more than 800 sq km left to clear, of which 410
sq km are high priority, Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country in
the world. The former front-line areas in the northern and central regions
contain the greatest concentrations of landmines.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30543&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Afghans react strongly to EU repatriation initiative
Afghans across Europe have reacted strongly to a proposed European Union
(EU) initiative to repatriate thousands of Afghan refugees living in the
15 nations comprising the Union. "The proposed repatriation of Afghan
refugees lacks any legal and humanitarian basis," Mirza Alam Hamidi, a
former Afghan government official told IRIN from Holland. "The reasons
that forced Afghans to flee their homeland are very much the same." He
added: "With the killing of two cabinet ministers and an assassination
attempt on [President] Karzai, who says that Afghanistan is safe?" he
asked. "Repatriating Afghans to a country where they will hardly find
enough food to eat is plain discrimination," he exclaimed.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30519&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the plight of widows
Sitting on the bare floor of her squalid home in the west of the Afghan
capital, Kabul, Bibi has few options. Washing clothes for her neighbours,
the 37-year-old widow can barely provide enough food to sustain her family
of five. As the smell of raw sewage permeates the air, she battles to
prevent a barrage of flies from waking her sleeping daughter to hours of
perpetual hunger. While it is hard to imagine a worse scenario, Bibi's
world has, incredibly, become just that. The owners of the house she had
been living in for years were returning from Pakistan - and she was being
evicted. "What am I to do? Where am I to go?" she asked IRIN.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30522&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan left Turkmenistan on Wednesday
after completing a 12-day tour of Central Asian nations. Turkmenistan's
President Saparmurad Niyazov, during the course of the visit, called on
the UN to support the 1,500 km planned gas pipeline from his country to
Pakistan via Afghanistan. According to international media Niyazov
maintained that the estimated US$ 2 billion project would boost Afghan
reconstruction by providing employment and sustainable revenues. The
pipeline will also prove lucrative for Ashgabat. During the visit that saw
Annan in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan as well as
Turkmenistan, the Secretary General highlighted the significance of the
international fight against terrorism, regional environmental issues,
water management and the fight against drugs.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30598&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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