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 107
12 - 18 April 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: NATO to take over command of ISAF
AFGHANISTAN: Insecurity threatening return programme, says UNHCR
AFGHANISTAN: Women complain of prejudice in Badakhshan
AFGHANISTAN: Powerful explosion on Kabul-Jalalabad road
AFGHANISTAN: Relief efforts for quake-hit villages continue
AFGHANISTAN: Taliban regrouping, says Khowst governor
AFGHANISTAN: IDPs continue arriving in the south
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide polio campaign begins
AFGHANISTAN: IOM delays IDP returns due to fighting
PAKISTAN: Repatriation of Afghan refugees living in urban areas begins
PAKISTAN: Singer complains of harassment
KAZAKHSTAN: RSF condemns blocking of Internet sites
TAJIKISTAN: IAEA concern over radioactive sources
TAJIKISTAN: Heavy rains threaten food security
TURKMENISTAN: Rights groups welcome UN human rights resolution
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

AFGHANISTAN: NATO to take over command of ISAF

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) - a 19-member military
alliance of Western states - will take over the command of the UN-mandated
4,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for
Afghanistan in late summer. "We have been asked by nations who have been
ISAF lead nations before to help in overcoming the growing problem of a
continued search every six months to find new nations to lead the
mission," a NATO spokesman, Yves Brodeur, told IRIN from the Belgian
capital, Brussels, on Thursday. He said countries heading ISAF had
requested the role for NATO.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33560&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Insecurity threatening return programme, says UNHCR

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that
deteriorating security in parts of Afghanistan is hampering its return
programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).
"Repatriation has slowed down significantly since last year. But last year
there was a great deal of exuberance. This year people are looking at the
economic and security situation, " a UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler, told
IRIN from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33573&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Women complain of prejudice in Badakhshan

Women in the northeastern province of Badakhshan are calling for concrete
steps to be taken towards ensuring their freedom of expression and the
elimination of all prejudice against them in that province. "We want
neutral and qualified people to lead the province, and government organs
which should not mix military and civil affairs, and ensure freedom of
expression," Zewar Karimi, a teacher and writer, told IRIN in the
provincial capital, Feyzabad.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33552&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Powerful explosion on Kabul-Jalalabad road

Authorities in Kabul reported a large explosion east of the capital on
Sunday. The blast occurred late on Sunday night two and half km from the
headquarters of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Yaka Tut
District on the Kabul-Jalabad highway, about five km out of Kabul. "It was
a mine explosion mixed with some more explosives placed on the side of the
road," Gen Abdul Rauf Taj, the chief of ninth precinct local police, told
IRIN, noting that three men from a government security post were injured
by fragments of flying glass, though there were no deaths or other
injuries reported.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33467&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]


AFGHANISTAN: Relief efforts for quake-hit villages continue

Efforts to provide relief to those affected by a moderate earthquake in
the northeastern province of Takhar last week continued on Monday, with
aid agencies struggling to access two remote villages. "Due to problems of
access and communications, we don't have exact details of how many homes
were destroyed," David Singh, a spokesman for the United Nations
Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN in the Afghan
capital, Kabul. "By Wednesday or Thursday, we will be able to do an
assessment of the damages and needs."

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33466&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban regrouping, says Khowst governor

Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Afghanistan's volatile eastern province of
Khowst, told IRIN on Friday that the country's former hardline Islamist
Taliban rulers were regrouping in an effort to step up anti-government
militancy. There are fears that this could further harm security in the
region and impact on aid work and reconstruction. "We know that they are
preparing, but they will not be able to achieve anything," he told IRIN
from the Afghan capital, Kabul, adding that although a lot of reports were
being received about Taliban activities, little movement had been seen on
ground.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33453&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: IDPs continue arriving in the south

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
maintains that arrivals of internally displaced persons (IDPs) - mostly
ethnic Pashtuns - in the south of the country as a result of harassment
and insecurity in the north are continuing. "We do have protection cases,
human rights cases of Pashtuns coming from the north, still in small
numbers, but continuing," Maki Shinohara, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, told
IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul.  There are hundreds of thousands of
IDPs throughout Afghanistan today, about 350,000 of whom are in the south,
most of them in six displacement settlements in Kandahar and Helmand
provinces.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33482&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide polio campaign begins

A three-day nationwide campaign to immunise over six million children
against polio was launched in Afghanistan on Tuesday, with government
officials noting significant strides towards eradicating the disease. "In
1999, there were 150 polio cases in Afghanistan, while we had only 10
cases confirmed last year," the director of information and medical
training at the health ministry, Amanullah Husayni, told IRIN in the
capital, Kabul. He said that with the support of the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the
ministry would try to make Afghanistan free of polio by 2005.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33498&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: IOM delays IDP returns due to fighting

The International Organisation for Migration [IOM] has delayed the return
of internally displaced persons [IDPs] to the northern Afghan province of
Faryab due to security concerns. "We are holding back for the time being
as all missions to the area have been suspended," the head of the office
for IOM operations in the north, Ghotai Ghazialam, told IRIN from the city
of Mazar-e Sharif. Some 774 IDPs registered with IOM in the northern
Jowzjan Province to return to Faryab, but will remain there, because
fighting between rival factions of the Jonbesh-e Melli-ye Eslami (National
Islamic Movement) and Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society) erupted in
Meymaneh, the provincial capital of Faryab. Movement was restricted for
aid workers as of 10 April, due to the fighting, reported to have started
on 8 March, according to IOM.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33489&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Repatriation of Afghan refugees living in urban areas begins

Monday saw the first repatriation of Afghan refugees who had been living
in urban areas of Pakistan. Assisted by the office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some 100 families from the country's
capital, Islamabad, and the southwestern city of Quetta returned. "With
the ongoing returns from camps, we are also emphasising on urban
repatriation," a UNHCR spokesman, Barbur Baloch, told IRIN on Tuesday from
Quetta. Some 89 families, numbering 438 individuals, left Quetta for home,
while another nine families left Islamabad.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33500&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Singer complains of harassment

A popular folk singer in Pakistan's predominantly ethnic Pashtun-populated
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has complained of mounting police
harassment, culminating in a recent raid on his house, during which police
beat and arrested his brother and two sons without preferring any charges.
Gulzar Alam believes that it is all part of the government's move to ban
traditional arts. "We are too weak and vulnerable," Alam told to IRIN from
NWFP's provincial capital, Peshawar. "They [authorities] are harassing us
to pay them bribes," he said.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33520&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

KAZAKHSTAN: RSF condemns blocking of Internet sites

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a watchdog group for imprisoned
journalists and press freedom throughout the world, has called on the
Kazakh government to unblock access to several websites, operated by
opposition groups or carrying independent news. "The fact that they are
blocking websites is an increasing sign that the Kazakh authorities are
not just concerned about their public image abroad, but also internally in
the country," Caroline Giraud, an RSF researcher for Central Asia, told
IRIN from Paris on Thursday, noting, however, that what was happening with
the Internet had been happening with mainstream media outlets for a long
time.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33569&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN]

TAJIKISTAN: IAEA concern over radioactive sources

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has voiced concern over
radioactive waste in Tajikistan falling into the wrong hands and being
used by terrorists to make "dirty bombs", and called for greater efforts
to keep such material secure. "Since 11 September, the idea of there being
dirty bombs being made from radioactive waste is of concern, particularly
if the terrorists get hold of them," the head of the IAEA's waste safety
section, Gordon Linsley, told IRIN from the Austrian capital, Vienna, on
Tuesday.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33501&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN]

TAJIKISTAN: Heavy rains threaten food security

Heavy rains have threatened food security in parts of Tajikistan, as the
banks of a river burst in an area near the capital, Dushanbe. The flood
comes within days after heavy rains killed a child in the southeast of the
country over the weekend. "Mud could be seen flowing down one of the main
roads, which had to be closed," Paul Handley, a humanitarian affairs
officer for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
in Tajikistan, told IRIN from Dushanbe on Thursday. "Although there is no
food-security emergency, people will have needs."

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33563&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN]

TURKMENISTAN: Rights groups welcome UN human rights resolution

Rights groups have welcomed a UN resolution criticising Turkmenistan's
human rights record adopted this week. The reclusive Central Asian state
has a poor rights record, and watchdog groups have reported a mounting
crackdown following an alleged assassination attempt on Turkmen President
Saparmyrat Niyazov last November. "We welcome this resolution as it
demonstrates increasing international concern," a Central Asia researcher
for Amnesty International, Anna Sunder-Plassman, told IRIN from London.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33574&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN]

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

In Central Asia this week another attack on an independent journalist in
Kazakhstan was reported, this time by AP. The head of an independent
opposition newspaper in Kazakhstan was badly beaten by unidentified
attackers outside his home, his wife and colleagues said on Thursday.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33577&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]


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