Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-88: 06-Dec-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 88
30 November 06 December 2002
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Currency transition proceeding despite problems
AFGHANISTAN: Bonn meeting a milestone, says minister
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide livestock census under way
IRAN: Afghan repatriation slows with onset of winter
UZBEKISTAN: International support for alleged torture victim
PAKISTAN: Focus on mental health care
KAZAKHSTAN: IOM welcomes Kazakh membership
TAJIKISTAN: Interview with head of aid coordination unit
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
AFGHANISTAN: Currency transition proceeding despite problems
One place the Afghan public can keep warm in during the chilly winter
weather in Kabul right now is behind the ministry of finance building.
Every day workers unload lorryloads of the old Afghan currency and burn
the notes in huge brick furnaces. The country's transition to its new
money has been going on since October. The change from old to new is
proceeding well despite logistical problems, Isa Turab, deputy governor of
the Central Bank of Afghanistan, told IRIN while sitting on a huge pile of
12 billion in old notes awaiting destruction. "We only have two
helicopters to deliver new money to the north - this is not enough," he
said. Afghanistan is banking on the introduction of the new currency to
help stabilise its weak economy and attract desperately needed foreign
investment.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31242&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Bonn meeting a milestone, says minister
As another international conference on Afghan reconstruction took place on
Monday in the German city of Bonn, Sayed Makhdom Raheen, Afghan
information minister, told IRIN in the capital Kabul that the world should
look to the achievements that had been notched up over the past year. The
conference, which was attended by the United States, Russia, China,
European nations and countries neighbouring Afghanistan, as well as UN
senior special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, took place in the
same hotel outside Bonn, the former German capital, where a historic
gathering last year promised to rebuild the war-ravaged nation. "Most of
the Bonn accords and decisions were implemented and accomplished," Raheen
said, pointing to freedom of the press, the uprooting of terrorist
networks, the formation of a transitional government, the nucleus of a
national army and police force and three million children in school as
proof of how far Kabul had come since the original Bonn gathering.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31196&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide livestock census under way
For the first time in more than six years, a nationwide census is under
way to establish the extent of livestock losses in Afghanistan, as part of
the rehabilitation process. Millions of people lost their sources of food
and income as a result of a devastating drought and years of civil war.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is taking the lead role
in conducting the survey. "We want to know what impact the four-year
drought has had as it is essential for the rehabilitation process," Simon
Mack of the FAO's animal production service told IRIN from the Italian
capital, Rome. At a cost of US $700,000, the survey will be carried out in
more than 30,000 villages in almost every district across the country.
"There are a few places on the border with Pakistan that we cannot access
due to the conflict there. But we will cover 95 percent of the country,"
he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31240&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
IRAN: Afghan repatriation slows with onset of winter
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on
Thursday reported that despite the onset of winter, and a clear and
predictable drop in numbers returning during the Ramadan fasting month
which ends this week, Afghans were still being repatriated from Iran. "We
can expect the pace of voluntary repatriation to slow further until
Nowruz, the Iranian new year, which falls in March," a UNHCR spokeswoman,
Laura O'Mahony, told IRIN from the Iranian capital, Tehran. "In October,
an average of 1,200 people were repatriating with support from UNHCR per
crossing day. That number halved in November." Since the start in Iran of
the joint UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme on 9 April, 362,949
Afghans have gone home. Of this number, over a quarter of million - or
255,876 people, including almost 37,000 family groups - have received
assistance from UNHCR. The remaining number - just over 107,000 - returned
spontaneously or without UNHCR assistance.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31259&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
UZBEKISTAN: International support for alleged torture victim sentenced to
death grows
Pressure continued on Wednesday as the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) called
on the international community to condemn the recent verdict in the trial
of Iskandar Khudoiberganov, sentenced to death for allegedly propagating
religious extremism in Uzbekistan. "This decision shows that the Uzbek
authorities are not taking the issue of torture seriously," Matilda
Bogner, HRW office director in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent told IRIN.
"What is particularly concerning is the fact that a death sentence has
been given on the basis of evidence allegedly taken under torture." In a
statement, the watchdog group said that Judge Nizamiddin Rustamov
sentenced Khudoiberganov to death on 28 November, ignoring testimony by
the accused and two witnesses that their confessions and incriminating
statements were coerced under torture.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31243&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Focus on mental health care
Javed, a 22-year-old helpless young man sat in hysterics chained up under
a tent in the grounds of a shrine in Tatta, some 170 km northeast of the
southern Pakistani city of Karachi. "I want to leave this place but I
don't know when," he told IRIN, as he lay muttering to himself. He had
been brought to the Saint Shah Aqique shrine by his mother two years ago
from Lahore in the Punjab Province. "We know other people who have been
here and they have been cured, and I can see that he is getting better,"
Javed's mother, Najma, told IRIN at the shrine. "He used to roam the
streets and wander off. His mind was uncontrollable and I never knew what
he would do next."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31214&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
KAZAKHSTAN: IOM welcomes Kazakh membership
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has formally welcomed
Kazakhstan as a full member state. After Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which
joined in 1994 and 2000 respectively, Kazakhstan is the third Central
Asian state to join the global network. "IOM welcomes the membership of
Kazakhstan, a country that has been shaped by migration," agency
spokeswoman, Niurka Pineiro told IRIN from the Swiss city of Geneva on
Tuesday. Kazakhstan was a place where Russian dissidents were often
deported, as were large numbers of Koreans, Germans and Chechens. She also
noted that the country had long proven a place where different ethnic
groups had lived together in peace. Her comments follow the unanimous
decision to admit Astana at the 84th session of the IOM counsel meeting in
Geneva on Monday. In addition to Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Rwanda, Cambodia and
Zimbabwe also joined, bringing to 98 the total number of member states.
Three applications for observer status were also accepted, including
Burundi, and rights watchdog groups, Amnesty International (AI) and Human
Rights Watch (HRW), bringing to 33 the total number of observers.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31216&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Interview with head of government's aid coordination unit
As the poorest of the former Soviet republics, Tajikistan depends heavily
on international assistance for more than 60 percent of its needs. Emin
Sanginov is director of the government's recently established Tajik Aid
Coordination Unit. In an interview with IRIN, he maintained that although
generous donor pledges continued to be made to Dushanbe, getting wealthy
nations to honour these promises was not easy.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31191&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
In Central Asia this week, the Turkmen authorities announced they had
arrested suspects involved in the attempted assassination of the
president, Saparmurad Niyazov on 25 November, according to reports from
the country's capital, Ashgabat. Niyazov was attacked by gunmen while
travelling to the presidential palace. Niyazov's motorcade reportedly came
under fire as he travelled to work Monday morning. Niyazov was not hurt,
but several bystanders and a security officer were injured in an exchange
of gunfire. He has held absolute power in Turkmenistan for more than a
decade. The Turkmen Attorney General, Kurbanbibi Atadzhanova said a number
of former Turkmen politicians masterminded the attack. The accused were
the former first deputy agriculture minister, Saparmurat Yklymov, former
deputy prime ministers, Boris Shikhmuladov and Hudayberdy Orazob and the
former Turkmen ambassador to Turkey, Nurmuxamed Hanamov, none of whom are
currently living in the former Soviet Republic. Other suspects included
three Chechens, six Turks, one Moldavian, one Armenian and 12 Turkmens.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31294&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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