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 114
31 may - 06 June 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Agricultural projects at risk, says FAO
AFGHANISTAN: Citizens threatened for expressing views on constitution
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on the new constitution
AFGHANISTAN: School for the blind reopens after a decade
AFGHANISTAN: Over 100 women civil servants sacked
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the new national army
AFGHANISTAN: Water a serious problem nationwide
KYRGYZSTAN: Freedom House head arrives amid media crackdown
KYRGYZSTAN: HIV situation in south continues to worsen
PAKISTAN: No improvement in child rights, says NGO report
PAKISTAN: Rights groups fear effects of Islamic law
PAKISTAN: New atlas launched to improve health and education
PAKISTAN: Poverty marginally declines, says survey
TAJIKISTAN: UN peace-building mission extended
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

AFGHANISTAN: Agricultural projects at risk, says FAO

The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers in Afghanistan could
be at stake unless urgently needed donor funds are provided, the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned.  "My main concern is that what
we have done over the past few years, after Afghanistan suddenly popped up
on the international agenda, will be wasted, because the commitment from
donors on long-term funding has been diverted," the FAO programme manager
for Afghanistan, Manfred Staab, told IRIN from the capital, Kabul, on
Monday.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34467&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Citizens threatened for expressing views on constitution

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and the United
Nations in the capital, Kabul, have expressed concern over a reported rise
in the number of threats and incidences of harassment against people in
the provinces expressing their political views on the country's new
constitution. "We have received reports of increasing threats, physical
aggression and even arbitrary detentions," Nader Naderi, an AIHRC
commissioner, told IRIN in Kabul on Sunday.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34463&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Special report on the new constitution

In the relatively quiet Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood of the Afghan
capital, Kabul, 35 Afghan men and women are deliberating on one of their
country's most important documents. These members of the constitutional
commission are reviewing the first draft of the new supreme law before
embarking on a wider consultation process this month. In this special
report, IRIN puts the process into perspective, highlighting the key
political questions in Afghanistan as it seeks to bring about
reconstruction and development.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34455&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: School for the blind reopens after a decade

Moving fingers swiftly across on his battered Braille book, Mohammad Ali
aged 12 reads a Dari poem entitled "school makes a human complete". Among
tens of thousands of blind people in the war-ravaged country, Ali is a
student at Afghanistan's only school for the blind. "I want to learn
knowledge and serve other blind children in the country that are deprived
of education," the third-grade student of the newly reconstructed High
School for the Blind told IRIN in the capital, Kabul.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34451&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Over 100 women civil servants sacked

Standing in front of women's affairs ministry gate, Simagul and four of
her colleagues were remonstrating with the gatekeeper, who was refusing to
let them in. Just a week earlier, the five civil servants had been treated
with great respect when they had reported to the ministry as full-time
employees. "I just want to know why we were sacked," the 40-year-old widow
and mother-of-seven told IRIN in the capital, Kabul. Simagul is one of 112
women who were sacked by the ministry early this week.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34527&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the new national army

Pte Rahman Jan, aged 24, sweats as he is drilled under the bright sun on
the dusty parade ground of the Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC). "I
will fight to my last breath to defend my country," he told IRIN in the
capital, Kabul. Jan is one of the 4,000 soldiers now serving in the new
Afghan National Army (ANA), which may change the course of Afghanistan's
history by bringing about stability, protecting the country from foreign
occupation and interference, and ensuring that its new political system
survives through storms of uncertainty.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34555&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Water a serious problem nationwide

As the world marks Environment and Water Day on Thursday, the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Afghanistan has announced that a
major part of the country is experiencing water scarcity. "Water is a
major problem in rural and urban areas due to water scarcity,
mismanagement and damaged water systems," Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of
the UNEP Afghanistan Task Force, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul.
According to the UNEP Post-Conflict Environment Assessment report on
Afghanistan, whereas the country as a whole uses less than one-third of
its potential 75,000 million cubic metres of water resources, regional
differences in supply, inefficient use and wastage mean that a major part
of the country experiences scarcity.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34552&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

KYRGYZSTAN: Freedom House head arrives amid media crackdown

Amid claims of a deepening crackdown on the country's independent media,
the executive director of Freedom House, Jennifer Windsor, has arrived in
the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The watchdog group works extensively on
promoting the worldwide expansion of political and economic freedoms. "The
purpose of the visit is to conduct meetings with NGOs, journalists,
human-rights defenders and government officials as well," Michael
Goldfarb, the senior press officer of the US-based group, told IRIN from
New York.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34569&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN]

KYRGYZSTAN: HIV situation in south continues to worsen

Drug trafficking and addiction continue to strengthen the prevalence of
HIV/AIDS in southern Kyrgyzstan. While a total of only 213 official cases
have been registered in the three southern provinces of Osh, Batken and
Jalal-Abad, health experts assess the real figure to be closer to 3,000.
"The situation is clearly worsening," Tugelbay Mamaev, the head physician
at the regional AIDS centre in the provincial capital of Osh, told IRIN,
citing drug addiction and drug trafficking as the root causes.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34530&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN]

PAKISTAN: No improvement in child rights, says NGO report

One of Pakistan's leading NGOs working on children's rights warns that the
situation of children in the country is not improving, while very little
progress has been made in the past. "As far as child-labour programmes are
concerned, there is not much effort from the government, and children are
still suffering," the head of Pakistan's Society for the Protection of the
Rights of the Child (SPARC), Anees Jilani, told IRIN in the capital,
Islamabad. Children make up half of the country's population of 140
million. SPARC released its annual report, entitled "The state of
Pakistan's children 2002", on Thursday, saying much work was still needed
to protect vulnerable youngsters.

[For complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34542&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Rights groups fear effects of Islamic law

Pakistani and international human rights watchdogs have expressed concern
over the legislature in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) passing a
new bill on Monday introducing Islamic law, or shari'ah, in the region
bordering Afghanistan. "We are deeply concerned with what's happening in
the NWFP with regard to the implementation of the shari'ah law," Nelum
Asif, the Pakistan researcher with Amnesty International, told IRIN from
London on Tuesday.  The new legislation calls for the "Islamisation" of
existing laws, meaning that they will be interpreted in accordance with
the provisions of the Koran. The NWFP government has also called on the
central government to implement the shari'ah nationwide.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34499&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: New atlas launched to improve health and education

A new atlas giving the locations of health and education facilities across
Pakistan has been launched to help district authorities and aid agencies
plan services for people more effectively. "We want to give the planners
and decision makers a tool which will help make these facilities more
effective," the director of the Pakistan Planning Commission's Centre for
Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CRPRID), Dr Mushtaq
Khan, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34521&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Poverty marginally declines, says survey

Poverty has marginally declined in Pakistan, according to the latest
Economic Survey 2002-03 released by the government on Thursday in the
capital, Islamabad, ahead of the annual budget. The survey, carried out by
the government on a five-percent sample (726 households out of the total
sample size of 14,536) conducted in February 2003, shows a marginal
decline in poverty. Between 1992-93 and 2001-01, poverty increased by five
percent to 32 percent, but now stands at 31 percent.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34567&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

TAJIKISTAN: UN peace-building mission extended

As proposed by the Tajik government and recommended by the UN
secretary-general, the UN Security Council has extended the mandate of the
United Nation's Tajikistan Office of Peace-Building (UNTOP) by a year
until 1 June 2004. "The extension of mandate gives us an opportunity to
continue and build on the positive results gained by the activities of the
UN's political presence here together with the government of Tajikistan,"
Vladimir Sotirov, the head of UNTOP and representative in Tajikistan of
the UN secretary-general, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on
Thursday.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34566&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN]

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Press freedom in Central Asia was again under the spotlight this week in
two of the five former Soviet Republics. Reporters Without Borders on
Tuesday voiced their concern over judicial harassment of the Kazakh
opposition newspaper SolDat and its editor Ermurat Bapi after the
newspaper was ordered to pay some US $350,000 for alleged tax evasion. In
neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, Freedom House expressed deep concern over an
increase in attacks against human-rights defenders and independent media,
culminating with the arrival of its executive director to the country's
capital, Bishkek, on Thursday. Recent press freedom violations include
numerous lawsuits against newspapers filed by the government officials.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34574&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]


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