Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-95: 24-Jan-03
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 95
18 - 24 January 2003
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Year-ender 2002
AFGHANISTAN: Women drivers take to the streets
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on poppy eradication
AFGHANISTAN: Whooping cough outbreak under control
AFGHANISTAN: Concern over crime in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: Cable TV suspension draws criticism
PAKISTAN: Year-ender 2002
PAKISTAN: New programme to boost literacy
PAKISTAN: Multi-million dollar drought package announced
PAKISTAN: Fuel shortages following pipeline explosion
PAKISTAN: Gas supplies to resume following rocket attack
TAJIKISTAN: Measles outbreak contained by mass vaccination
TURKMENISTAN: New report cautions of growing instability
CENTRAL ASIA: Year-ender 2002
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
AFGHANISTAN: Year-ender 2002 - tenuous nation building
Middle-aged Haji Khair Muhammad continues to assist his
anthropologist-turned-politician brother, Hakim Taniwal in governing one
of the most unruly places on earth, Khost in southeastern Afghanistan.
Although a tribal leader, he has all the responsibilities of a statesman
ranging from rebuilding the ruins of houses, schools and roads to
maintaining a fragile peace between rival tribesmen. "This year heralds a
fine new beginning for Afghanistan," he told IRIN from Khost.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31802&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Women drivers take to the streets
Following an absence of almost a decade, Afghan women drivers are once
again appearing on the busy streets of Kabul. While initial numbers are
low, the move is seen as symbolic of the development of women's rights.
"I love to drive myself and don't want to be too dependent," Suhaila
Kabir, a 42 year-old civil servant told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
"When I see a woman driving it gives me more confidence."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31828&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on poppy eradication
In a basement snooker hall in eastern Afghanistan, smoke from Halim's
hashish cigarette curled around his teenage face as he took leisurely
puffs. "You can get any drug here - opium, charas [hashish] and even
heroin if you want," the cement seller told IRIN in Jalalabad. The ease of
getting drugs and the open nature of their use is a direct result of the
boom in drug production, particularly of opium poppies, which the Afghan
government is struggling to stamp out.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31836&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Whooping cough outbreak under control
Following emergency efforts by aid agencies and the Afghan government, a
whooping cough outbreak that threatened the lives of some 40,000 children
in two remote districts of Afghanistan's northeastern province of
Badakhshan. The province borders Tajikistan. "Our intervention was quite
successful in containing the epidemic and preventing any complication that
might occur," Yon Fleerackers, an epidemiologist with the World Health
Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from the Khvahan District of Badakhshan on
Tuesday. The outbreak had been reported in the region earlier this month,
prompting aid agencies to deploy there.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31837&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Concern over crime in Kabul
Following the lifting of a government curfew late last year, residents in
the Afghan capital, Kabul, have expressed concern over a recent rise in
crime. "Crime is increasing with each passing day," Shekiba Jan, a
journalist reporting on criminal affairs for the Arman-e-Milie government
daily, told IRIN on Monday. In areas of the city without electricity, the
number of theft cases, many of them armed robberies, had increased
substantially, she said, warning as long as gunmen were allowed to roam
the streets unhindered, crime would be uncontrolled.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31798&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Cable TV suspension draws criticism
Residents of the Afghan capital, Kabul, have criticised a government
decision to suspend cable television rights in the city. The suspension
follows a similar move in the eastern province of Jalalabad last month. "I
wanted to release our war-affected people from two and half decades of
isolation," Aimal Khan, the owner of one of three cable networks operating
in Kabul told IRIN on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31869&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN: Year-ender 2002
The year 2002 was a testing one for Pakistan. In addition to growing
poverty - 32.2 percent of its population of 140 million now live below the
poverty line - the country has been plagued by major human rights and
security issues. Moreover, Pakistan, which spent 18.6 per cent of its
2001-02 budget and 16.5 percent of its 2002-03 capital outlay on defence,
was embroiled in a nuclear stand-off with its arch rival and neighbour,
India. Events after 11 September caught Pakistan in the international
limelight, and its international prominence continued throughout 2002.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31785&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: New programme to boost literacy
Sitting on a canvas mat in a dark, cold classroom in Pakistan's North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), seven-year-old, Reshma tries to read her book.
"I want to read so that I can be a doctor," she told IRIN in the town of
Mardan, some 150 km northwest of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Although
she is being taught in a crumbling government school in Jhandarpur village
in Mardan district, she is attending a new non-formal education centre,
that authorities hope will meet the huge educational needs in rural
Pakistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31744&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Multi-million dollar drought package announced
Aid workers have welcomed Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali's
announcement on Wednesday of a US $33-million relief package for the
five-year-long drought in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan,
but say much more is needed. "Any aid that mitigates the effects of
drought is welcome," Nasrullah Bareach, a local aid worker told IRIN from
Balochistan's provincial capital, Quetta, on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31885&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Fuel shortages following pipeline explosion
Hundreds of thousands of people in Pakistan will be without gas supplies
following what appeared to be a rocket attack on one of the country's main
gas supply lines. "This is a major calamity and we don't know exactly when
supplies will resume," assistant engineer for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines
Limited (SNGPL), Mohammed Muzammil Awais, told IRIN in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31843&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Gas supplies to resume following rocket attack
Natural gas supplies to the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Punjab
province will resume Thursday, following a rocket attack on one of the
country's major gas pipelines in the southwestern Baluchistan province two
days earlier. "Both lines have been repaired and gas is being injected
into those lines as I speak and started at 10 am [local time]," general
manager for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), Azam Khan, told
IRIN from the eastern Punjabi city of Lahore on Thursday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31868&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
TAJIKISTAN: Measles outbreak contained by mass vaccination
Government health workers along with international aid agencies and the
United Nations have managed to contain a measles outbreak in eastern
Tajikistan, following one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in the
country. The mass-immunusation reached more than 65,000 children in the
region. "We have managed to control the outbreak and this is a real
achievement for all those involved including the government in one of the
biggest efforts ever seen," country manager for Medicins Sans Frontieres
(MSF), Tajikistan, Paul McPhun told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31818&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN: New report cautions of growing instability
A new report by a prominent international organisation working on conflict
resolution, the International Crisis Group (ICG), has warned of increasing
political instability in the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan due to
the "increasingly authoritarian and idiosyncratic policies" of its
president, Saparmurat Niyazov. "In Turkmenistan the dictatorship has
reached unprecedented levels, resembling North Korea, or Mao's China
during the cultural revolution," ICG's Central Asia analyst, Filip Noubel,
told IRIN from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh on Wednesday.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31867&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Year-ender 2002
Many of the key issues that impinged on national development in the five
Central Asian republics in 2002 were regional in dimension. Humanitarian
professionals in the area continued to call for Central Asia-wide
collaboration in tackling them. The key areas for regional action in
Central Asia are: water, trade, transport, communications, trans-boundary
environment issues and drug trafficking, experts say.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31797&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCoASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
In Central Asia this week, AP reported that stories posted on the Internet
claiming high-level corruption, and calling for Uzbek President Islam
Karimov to resign, prompted rare public debate in the tightly controlled
Central Asian nation. The reports alleged high-level drugs dealing and
claimed that the government had staged terrorist attacks. The reports
appeared earlier this month on websites based in neighbouring Russia and
Kazakhstan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31898&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
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