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 116
14 - 20 June 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Aid organisations call for strengthened security
AFGHANISTAN: Interview with head of Refugees International
AFGHANISTAN: Female education continues despite threats
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on returns and reintegration in the north
AFGHANISTAN: Government sets up commission to reform civil service
IRAN: UNHCR hails tripartite agreement on Afghan refugees
IRAN: Protests subside but anger still seethes
KAZAKHSTAN: Desertification spreading
KYRGYZSTAN: Health experts warn of possible malaria outbreak
PAKISTAN: Political crisis over constitutional changes deepens
PAKISTAN: Protestors claim new canal will ruin farmers in Sindh
PAKISTAN: IMF approves US $123 million for sixth tranche
TAJIKISTAN: UN donates money for anti-drugs drive
TAJIKISTAN: IOM and US praise government's progress on trafficking
TURKMENISTAN: Focus on the Russian minority
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

AFGHANISTAN: Aid organisations call for strengthened security

In one of the broadest appeals made to date, nearly 80 humanitarian, human
rights and conflict prevention groups have come together to call for an
expanded stabilisation security role for NATO as it prepares to take over
peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan in early August. "It demonstrates
the growing concern of the aid community about insecurity in the country,"
Paul O'Brien, the advocacy coordinator for CARE International, one of the
79 organisations signatory to the petition, told IRIN from the Afghan
capital, Kabul, on Tuesday.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34822&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Interview with head of Refugees International

As the international community marks World Refugee Day on Friday, Afghans
who went home after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001 are happy to
be back and optimistic about their future, but struggling to find work and
make a living. In an interview with IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul,
Larry Thompson, the head of the US-based NGO, Refugees International,
called for sustained aid for the country if its people were to have any
hope for a safer future. Although numbers vary, there are still well over
1.2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, while in neighbouring Iran,
government estimates put the figure there at 1.9 million.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34875&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Female education continues despite threats

Attending a literacy course being held in a tiny classroom, Qandigul tells
everyone that she has learned to count up to 100 and can write the word
"Afghanistan". "My husband did not let me go to a literacy course, because
he thought a 45-year-old person was too old to learn," the mother of 10
told IRIN in the southeastern city of Ghazni. Qandigul is one of the 200
women, most of them housewives, attending literacy classes at the
government’s newly established women’s affairs department.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34818&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on returns and reintegration in the north

The return and reintegration of more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees and
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their country and places of origin
following the dramatic events of 11 September present one of the most
urgent and demanding issues that Afghanistan faces today. Kheyrabad, a
village of ethnic Turkmen carpet weavers some 50 km northwest of the
northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif presents a telling example of the
challenges that returnees face in trying to settle into their original
communities and rebuild their shattered livelihoods.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34840&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Government sets up commission to reform civil service

The Afghan government has set up a commission to fight corruption and
nepotism and to reform the civil service. President Hamid Karzai issued a
presidential decree to this effect on 10 June. Speaking on Sunday, Karzai
said national revenues could not increase while the rotten administrative
system continued to exist. "We have a great nation, but this proud nation
does not have an efficient national civil service to lead it to
prosperity," he said. The government has linked economic recovery to
reform of the top-heavy civil service. The civil service is "the product
of 30 years of war and lack of development", Javed Ludin, a government
spokesman, told IRIN on Monday, noting that foreign investment and
development projects were hindered by corruption and inefficiency.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34777&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

IRAN: UNHCR hails tripartite agreement on Afghan refugees

The office of the United Nations Office High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) has welcomed the signing of a tripartite agreement on the
voluntary return of Afghan refugees from Iran. "This agreement reaffirms
the commitment of all parties to the principles of voluntary
repatriation," Marie-Helene Verney, a spokeswoman for the agency, told
IRIN from the Iranian capital, Tehran. Bringing all the parties together
in the process provided a solid continuum of what was happening in Iran to
what happened when Afghans returned to their homeland, she explained.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34800&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN]

IRAN: Protests subside but anger still seethes

Demonstrations against Iran's establishment appeared to have ended on
Friday with no reports of protesters gathering in the capital after nine
nights of protest. Riot police and hardline Islamic vigilantes lined the
streets in some hot spots and intersections where protests, which have
been strongly endorsed by Washington, had erupted on previous evenings.
Protests began when students reacted angrily to plans to privatise Tehran
University and related services. But the disturbances soon spread as
protesting students expressed their opposition to both reformist President
Mohammad Khatami and the conservative clerics who have blocked his
attempts at reform.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34883&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN]

KAZAKHSTAN: Desertification spreading

On World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, IRIN learnt on Tuesday
that desertification continues to take its toll in Kazakhstan, Central
Asia’s largest nation, with an increasing need for local awareness and
measures to be taken to curb it. "This is a very important problem for
Kazakhstan, because the soil degradation process continues and tends to
exacerbate [the situation]," Gulnara Bekturova, vice-president of the Fund
to Combat Against Desertification, a local environmental NGO, told IRIN
from the former Kazakh capital, Almaty. She called for urgent measures to
be taken to stop the phenomenon, emphasising the need for greater
awareness among local communities on the causes and effects of soil
degradation.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34797&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN]

KYRGYZSTAN: Health experts warn of possible malaria outbreak

Health experts warn of a possible malaria outbreak in Kyrgyzstan, the
south of which was affected by the disease last year. "A possible outbreak
of malaria, especially in the southern provinces of Kyrgyzstan, can happen
this year," Nurbolot Usenbaev, the deputy director-general of the
sanitary-epidemic inspection department of the health ministry, told IRIN
from the capital, Bishkek. Whereas there had been only 28 officially
registered cases of malaria in 2001, that number rose to 2,744 in 2002, he
noted.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34774&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN]

PAKISTAN: Political crisis over constitutional changes deepens

An outcry followed Saturday's declaration by the Speaker of Pakistan’s
National Assembly to the effect that the controversial Legal Framework
Ordinance (LFO) had passed into law. The LFO consists of constitutional
amendments introduced by the country's powerful military ruler, Gen Pervez
Musharraf, in August last year. Experts say the step taken by the Speaker
could serve to legitimise the changes, effectively incorporating them into
the constitution. "This ruling has no legal standing, and the Speaker’s
decision will have no impact on the credibility and legitimacy of the
LFO," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a leading opposition leader in the national
legislature, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Monday.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34801&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Protestors claim new canal will ruin farmers in Sindh

Environmentalists and politicians in the southern Pakistani province of
Sindh are protesting against the construction of a canal in the eastern
Punjab province, which is to irrigate land in Multan, saying it will
reduce water for irrigation in Sindh, still suffering from the effects of
three years of drought. "The diversion of water by irrigating so many
millions of hectares in a non-irrigated and uncultivated tract of land is
not justifiable when it is depriving the lower area of water where there
is cultivated land," Nisar Khuhro, the provincial head of the Pakistan
People's Party and member of the Anti-Thal Canal Action Committee (ATCAC),
told IRIN.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34855&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: IMF approves US $123 million for sixth tranche

The IMF has credited Pakistan with US $123 million following the fifth
review of the country's performance under a three-year Poverty Reduction
and Growth Facility (PRGF) arrangement amounting to $1.47 billion. This
brings the total of disbursements to date under the PRGF to $738 million,
which runs until November 2004. The PRGF is the IMF's concessionary
facility for low-income countries. Programmes supported by the PRGF are
framed around comprehensive, country-owned Poverty Reduction Strategy
Papers (PRSPs). Pakistan developed a PRSP in 2001 under the leadership of
President Pervez Musharraf.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34874&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

TAJIKISTAN: UN donates money for anti-drugs drive

To support an ongoing effort to curb drug trafficking via Tajikistan, the
UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) has granted the country US $10
million. "Tajikistan is the most affected country in Central Asia by
opiates flow from neighbouring Afghanistan. This is increasingly becoming
a heroin trade, so it needs more assistance to deal with the problem,"
Antonella Deledda, UNODC's regional representative for Central Asia, told
IRIN from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, on Wednesday.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34830&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN]

TAJIKISTAN: IOM and US praise government's progress on trafficking

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and Washington have
hailed Tajikistan's progress in fighting human trafficking. Their reaction
follows the release of a US State Department report earlier this month
removing Tajikistan from its list of countries that have failed to do
enough to stem the global problem. "This is a positive development," Igor
Bosc, the IOM chief of mission, told IRIN from the Tajik capital,
Dushanbe. "This has been long awaited. The government recognises it has a
problem with regard to trafficking, and is revising its legal code,
thereby allowing for better prosecution of traffickers."

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34886&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN]

TURKMENISTAN: Focus on the Russian minority

A sense of panic gripped the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, on Thursday as the
country's Russian minority battled to meet a Sunday nationality deadline.  
Between sobs, Tatiana, a former paediatrician, now jobless, told IRIN that
leaving Turkmenistan was the last thing she wanted, but for the sake of
her two children she was packing her bags. "It has been a month of vodka
and tears," she said from her run-down apartment in the capital. An ethnic
Russian, time is rapidly running out for her and more than 100,000 others
with dual nationality, who have until the weekend to decide if they want
to take Turkmen or Russian citizenship.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34862&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN]

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Freedom House, an advocacy group working to advance the worldwide
expansion of political and economic freedom, on Wednesday issued a
statement urging the Kyrgyz government to cease lawsuits against
independent media. "The recent pattern of lawsuits targeted at independent
newspapers in Kyrgyzstan is particularly troubling," said the
organisation's director, Jennifer Windsor, who recently had a meeting with
Kyrgyz government officials. "The government must impose a moratorium on
civil lawsuits against journalists and media outlets and move immediately
to initiate new legislation to guarantee a free and independent press,"
she said.

[For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34898&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]


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