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

Tel: +92-51-2211451 Ext 484 
Fax: +92-51-2211 450 
e-mail: irin@irin.org.pk


Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 98
08 - 13 February 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on winter education
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on mental health
AFGHANISTAN: Interview with WFP country director
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on Bamyan cave dwellers
AFGHANISTAN: New ISAF command
PAKISTAN: Focus on blood banks and HIV/AIDS
KAZAKHSTAN: Media rights group looking to assist journalist
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap



AFGHANISTAN: Focus on winter education

Remember the name Mursal. One day the 13-year-old Afghan girl is going to
be president of her country, she says. Right now, though, she’s just
started school for the first time in her life. At a time when most schools
are closed for winter, Mursal is one of 16,000 Kabul children still going
to classes in an effort to make up for the years of lost education.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32272&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on mental health

Standing in a gated cell, Nurallah Herawi wants out. "Open the door. I
want to go outside," the former police officer told IRIN. While his
request is a simple one, staff members at Afghanistan's only mental
hospital, a decrepit and ill-equipped facility in the capital, Kabul, are
not so sure. Brought in five days earlier by his wife, the 45-year-old
suffers from acute schizophrenia and is known to lash out. As doctors
ponder his treatment, Herawi is confined to room number three, a darkened
cell reserved for patients deemed violent.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32248&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Interview with WFP country director

One of the more crucial activities of the United Nations in Afghanistan
remains food security. About 4.3 million rural people will be facing
varying levels of food insecurity over the next year. In a comprehensive
interview with IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the country director for
the World Food Programme (WFP), Burkard Oberle took a look back over the
past year, and outlined some of the challenges ahead.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32230&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on Bamyan cave dwellers

Conditions for hundreds of families living in the caves near the destroyed
Buddha statues in the central Afghan province of Bamyan remain bleak -
with many wondering if help will ever arrive. "Things are terrible. We
don't have food - all I have is some beans that were given to me by a
neighbour," mother-of-six Majan told IRIN from one of the caves. "But I
just keep silent and go to try and find bread for my family."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32233&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: New ISAF command

German Defence Minister Peter Struck announced on Monday that the new
German-Dutch led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in
Afghanistan had many challenges ahead. ISAF, for more than a year now, has
played an important policing/security role in the capital Kabul only,
despite pleas from the government and NGOs that its mandate be extended to
other parts of the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32225&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN: Focus on blood banks and HIV/AIDS

Jamal Khan is so desperate to fund his drug habit that he sells his blood
and begs in the streets of Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi. "I
can’t work, I can’t steal. What else can I do to buy heroin?" the
35-year-old asked IRIN, who routinely sells a bottle of blood to one of
numerous blood banks in the North Nazimabad neighbourhood of Karachi
whenever he can - sometimes as often as three times a month.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32207&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: Media rights group looking to assist journalist's appeal

The French media rights organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB) told
IRIN on Tuesday that it was going to offer support to a prominent Kazakh
journalist who has appealed against his conviction on charges of raping an
underage girl. Lawyers for Sergei Duvanov filed an appeal on Friday
against his January conviction on rape charges for which he was sentenced
to three and a half years in jail, said one of the journalist's lawyers,
Vitaly Voronov.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32238&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

International condemnation over the imprisonment of Kazakh journalist
Sergei Duvanov continued this week. On Thursday, the European Parliament
called on Astana to free the journalist, jailed on disputed rape charges,
and urged the Central Asian state to respect human rights, international
news agencies reported.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32300&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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