Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-72: 23-Aug-02
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 72
17 - 23 August 2002
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Better coordination of aid needed
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on ICRC message service
AFGHANISTAN: Concern over UK refugee offer
AFGHANISTAN: Health workers refute forced abortion charges
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on food security
AFGHANISTAN: Families refuse to move from university site
AFGHANISTAN: Emergency hospital opens in Kabul
IRAN: Tehran boosts capacity to handle emergencies
IRAN: Robotic deminers put to the test
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly News Wrap
AFGHANISTAN: Better coordination of aid needed
Afghan government officials, independent international observers and aid
workers have joined the Afghan Planning Minister in questioning how
international aid is coordinated and spent in Afghanistan. "It [the
international aid] has worked well in some instances and has problems in
other areas," a high-ranking Afghan official told IRIN from Kabul on
Friday. The official, who requested not to be named, added that aid
mechanisms needed to be reviewed both inside the Afghan government
structure and internationally. The comments follow a BBC report quoting
the Afghan Planning Minister, Mohamed Mohaqeq, as saying that massive
amounts of reconstruction aid coming into the country were being misused
and squandered because there was no proper planning and accountability.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29487&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on ICRC message service
Abdul Ra'uf looked puzzled when a member of the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) turned up at his house in the Afghan capital, Kabul,
saying he had a message for him. His face lit up when he was told that a
message had come from Russia. "It must be from my son-in-law," he told
IRIN. Sure enough the message was from his daughter's husband, Abdul
Rasul, who had left for Russia five years ago in search of work. He had
been trying to get a message to his relatives following 11 September
through the battered Afghan postal system without much luck when he heard
about the ICRC's message service. This message was delivered to a house in
Kabul, where there are no street names or door numbers. But this was one
of the easier deliveries, according to ICRC's field protection officer,
Ghulam Sakhi Danishjo. He had stopped eight times to ask local people if
they knew of the street and Abdul Ra'uf. "This was not a remote area,
which made it much easier to locate the house."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29461&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Concern over UK refugee offer
Some Afghan and other refugee groups have expressed concern over the
British government's cash offer to asylum seekers volunteering for
repatriation. "It's a right decision, but at a wrong time," Zabih
Popalzai, the coordinator for the Society of Afghan Residents in the UK,
told IRIN from London. "The reality in Afghanistan is that rape, theft,
robbery, kidnapping and assassinations are going on. It makes nobody feel
safe." Popalzai's comments followed an announcement by the British Home
Office this week that it would give individual Afghan refugees wishing to
return the equivalent of US $916 each, while a family would receive
$3,818. However, the offer was termed "inadequate" by several Afghans. "A
working Afghan can make up to 200 pounds [about US $300] in a week. This
offer is too little," Ahmad Mohamand, another Afghan residing in London,
told IRIN. "It's not practical."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29462&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Health workers refute forced abortion charges
Health workers have rejected accusations by a US-based anti-abortion
group, the Population Research Institute (PRI), that the UN Population
Fund (UNFPA) promotes abortion and sterilisation among Afghan refugees.
"Its just a scandal," Fouzia Iqbal, a Programme Officer with the
international NGO World Population Foundation told IRIN in Pakistan’s
capital, Islamabad. "UNFPA is not involved in any forced abortion," she
added. The NGO is an implementing partner of the UNFPA in many projects in
Pakistan. In a 14 August statement, PRI said interviews with returning
refugees in the Afghan capital Kabul said that Afghan refugee women were
being coerced into abortions and forced to accept contraceptives. "Not one
women stated that abortion or contraception services were wanted or
needed," the PRI said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29429&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on food security
Afghanistan, which has suffered tremendously due to more than 20 years of
conflict and the worst drought in living memory, needs to look beyond
short-term aid in order to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure food
security, UN officials and agricultural experts told IRIN. "We have to get
out of the fire-brigade approach," Shukri Ahmed, an economist at the
Global Information and Early Warning System of the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IRIN from Rome. "We have to go for a
medium- and long-term plan to end food insecurity." Ahmed explained that
this did not mean that emergency food relief was not required - some six
million people in Afghanistan remained highly vulnerable to food
insecurity and need relief food assistance over the next year.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29430&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Families refuse to move from university site
Many residents have refused to move from a site in the southern Afghan
city of Kandahar in protest after their homes were bulldozed to make way
for a university. "We have been living here for the past 11 years and we
have nowhere to go now," Haji Fazil Mohammad told IRIN. He now lives in a
partly demolished house at the site in the Loyawala district of Kandahar.
The demolition took place on 18 July and continued for some 10 hours, he
said. Witnesses told IRIN that women and children were crying in
desperation when the houses were demolished. Battered pieces of furniture
were scattered around some 1,000 Jeribs (500 hectares) of land which had
been reduced to rubble as many were unable to move their belongings in
time. "People are now living under trees in tents and we are all in need
of food and shelter," Mohammad pleaded.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29410&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Emergency hospital opens in Kabul
A sophisticated mobile emergency hospital opened in Kabul at the weekend
to deal with the reproductive health needs of the Afghan capital's rapidly
growing population. United Nations statistics indicate that Afghanistan
has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world - with 1,700
deaths per 100,000 live births. "We expect to handle 20 to 30 births every
day, as well as about 2,000 medical inquiries. "We will be operational 24
hours a day and operate the emergency room, surgical theatres and
maternity ward around the clock," Danish trauma surgeon and chief medical
officer of the mobile hospital, Dr Finn Warburg said in a statement. Most
of the country's medical facilities are in disrepair or have been
completely destroyed and the health needs are rising rapidly, particularly
in Kabul, where thousands of refugees are returning from neighbouring
countries and from other parts of Afghanistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29391&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
IRAN: Tehran boosts capacity to handle emergencies
Representatives of NGOs, the United Nations, the Red Crescent and the
Iranian ministries of health and interior have gathered in the capital,
Tehran, this week in the context of enhancing of emergency preparedness in
the country. "We need to have our capacity, as well as our communication
skills, strengthened," Nazanin Kazemi, the country representative for the
International Consortium for Refugees in Iran (ICRI), a UK-based
facilitation unit for NGOs working in Iran, told IRIN on Wednesday. The
four-day government-approved meeting opened on Monday and is being guided
by two trainers from Save the Children-UK. It aims to provide emergency
preparedness planning (EPP) not only to government ministries but also to
UN agencies and NGOs with sufficient capacity, funding and access to react
during a time of crisis. "Mostly we have tried to pinpoint those NGOs that
have a baseline capacity to build on," Kazemi explained.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29431&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
IRAN: Robotic deminers put to the test
Robotic mine detectors were been slugging it out in the Iranian capital,
Tehran, on Monday in the first competition of its kind anywhere in the
world. "Our country has a significant mine problem and this contest is a
chance to meet the challenge head on," student chairman of the
competition, Mahmoud Ferdosizadeh Naeini, told IRIN. According to the
22-year-old, there had been numerous robotic competitions in the past in
Iran, but this was an opportunity to put the active interest and
experience to greater use. "Demining isn’t just a problem for Iran. This
is a global problem," he explained. Sponsored by Amirkabir University, the
UN country team, and the Iranian government, the three-day event focuses
on the detection and clearance of landmines using robots.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29392&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly News Wrap
Uzbekistan received medical supplies and equipment worth US $51 million
from the United States on Thursday for use in the Fergana Valley region.
Ambassador William Taylor, coordinator of US assistance to Europe and
Eurasia, delivered the aid personally at a ceremony in the capital
Tashkent, local media reported. The donation included equipment worth US
$16 million from the Defence Department and US $35 million worth of
medicines and other supplies donated by American pharmaceutical
manufacturers and US-based private organisations. Uzbekistan, in common
with other Central Asian countries, has a host of health problems with
insufficient resources to meet them. The United Nations Children Fund
(UNICEF) this week organised a seminar in Tashkent, on how to fight
anaemia, which is endemic in the country and related to a poor diet.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29486&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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