Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-137: 14-Nov-03
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 137
8 - 14 November 2003
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: UN restricts staff movements in Kandahar after car bombing
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on second anniversary of the ousting of the
Taliban
AFGHANISTAN: New radio station to tackle women's problems
CENTRAL ASIA: Promoting stability and growth meeting opens in Almaty
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KAZAKHSTAN: Atyrau former nuclear testing site still a health hazard
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on poverty as stimulus to sex trade in the south
KYRGYZSTAN: Rising ground waters threaten settlements in Chuy Province
KYRGYZSTAN: New independent printing house opens in Bishkek
KYRGYZSTAN: Suspected typhoid cases hospitalised in Jalal-Abad
PAKISTAN: Special report on informal housing
PAKISTAN: Focus on killings of journalists in Sindh
PAKISTAN: Minority association head put on exit control list
PAKISTAN: Detained politician remanded to judicial custody
TURKMENISTAN: Ashgabat joins Caspian Sea convention
AFGHANISTAN: UN restricts staff movements in Kandahar after car bombing
The United Nations in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has told its
staff to stay home and banned all street movements in the city until
further notice after a car bomb exploded outside the office of the United
Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Tuesday. "All UN
international staff are now in their guesthouses and local staff have been
sent home. They will remain there until further notification," David
Singh, a UNAMA media relation's officer told IRIN, on Wednesday, noting,
however, that UN operations had not stopped and were not relocating
outside of Kandahar.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37802&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on second anniversary of the ousting of the
Taliban
Karimeh Malekzadeh used to sew quilts to support her family during the six
years of hard-line Taliban rule. Today she observes the situation of her
country through the lens of her digital camera, two years after the fall
of the regime. Each day, she roams the streets of the Afghan capital,
Kabul, alone and takes photographs without fears or worries from the
Taliban, who had banned women from leaving their homes and classified
photography as "haram" (a sin or forbidden). The Taliban fled Kabul in the
face of the US-led bombardment, abandoning it to the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance on 13 November 2001.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37863&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: New radio station to tackle women's problems
Sitting behind a microphone, Nurbegum Sa'idi speaks to her female audience
on a wide range of women-related topics, thereby rendering Radio Sahar
[Dawn], a newly established independent women's community radio station in
the western city of Herat, an invaluable mouthpiece for thousands of
Afghan women.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37755&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
CENTRAL ASIA: Promoting stability and growth meeting opens in Almaty
A regional meeting on promoting stability and growth in Central Asia
through expanded business opportunities, partnered by the United Nations
Global Compact and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and sponsored by
the German government, opened in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, on
Thursday. "This meeting is a part and next step in our continuing efforts
to emphasise the importance of development challenges facing the Central
Asian region," Fikret Akcura, the UNDP resident representative in
Kazakhstan, told IRIN from Almaty.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37850&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
This week in Central Asia was marked by a number of visits by senior
officials of international organisations, demonstrating the global
community's interest and commitment to the region. On Monday, US Assistant
Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones defended Washington's controversial
military alliance with Uzbekistan, a staunch ally in its war against
terror, and promised to bring pressure to bear the Uzbek government to
engage more vigorously in efforts to bring about greater human rights
reform. "There are still a number of threats in the region, but we have a
good partner in Uzbekistan," she said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37872&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA
KAZAKHSTAN: Atyrau former nuclear testing site still a health hazard
The Azgir former nuclear testing area in the western Kazakh province of
Atyrau, where two dozen nuclear tests were carried out during Soviet
times, remains a health hazard for local people. "Nowadays there are some
local spots of radioactive pollution on the soil on the technological
sites of the testing area, where the radioactive background is
considerably higher than a natural regional background," Zhenis Zhotbayev,
the acting director-general of Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Centre, told
IRIN from Kurchatov, a small town in eastern Kazakhstan at the centre of
the former Soviet nuclear testing area near Semipalatinsk.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37799&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on poverty as stimulus to sex trade in the south
In southern Kyrgyzstan, poverty and unemployment remain the main
contributing factors to the region's growing commercial sex trade. Faced
with poverty and limited job skills, Alya is one of a many growing number
of young women in the southern city of Osh, the country's second most
populous, turning to prostitution as a means of sustaining herself. With
more than four years' experience behind her, she has inured herself
somewhat to the tragedies she has faced.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37821&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Rising ground waters threaten settlements in Chuy Province
Rising ground waters are threatening the lives of thousands of people in
the northern Chuy Province, around the capital, Bishkek. "Our house is
falling down right before our very eyes. Moisture is everywhere," Nurbek,
a 41-year-old resident of Chuy village told IRIN. "Experts told us if the
water dropped, then our house would be ruined as the soil would sink right
into the earth. Our house is virtually standing on water now."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37851&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: New independent printing house opens in Bishkek
Friday marks the opening of the first independent printing house in the
capital, Bishkek. Funded by Freedom House, a Washington-based advocacy
group promoting the worldwide expansion of political and economic
freedoms, the facility will strengthen press freedom in the former Soviet
state.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37882&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN: Suspected typhoid cases hospitalised in Jalal-Abad
Over two dozen people suspected of contracting typhoid have been
hospitalised in the southern province of Jalal-Abad, regional authorities
have confirmed to IRIN. "Some 30 residents in the border villages of
Burgandy and Mombekovo [close to Uzbekistan] of Nooken District are
hospitalised," Aryn Akparaliev, the provincial deputy governor, told IRIN
in Jalal-Abad, adding that in 21 of the cases, the diagnosis had been
confirmed. His comments come amid other reports that the number of people
being hospitalised had already reached 50.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37759&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN
PAKISTAN: Special report on informal housing
At first sight it looks like a river of plastic bags; on closer
inspection, the bags merely form the top layer of a stream of thick sewage
- green-black, thick, and virtually stagnant. This open drain has earned
the locality along the coastline in the port city of Karachi the name
Machar Colony, or mosquito colony. About 200,000 people live on either
side of the open sewer which discharges directly into the sea.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37746&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Focus on killings of journalists in Sindh
The murder of a journalist, reportedly killed by unidentified men in a
rural town in the southern province of Sindh because of his consistent
exposes of human rights abuses by local chieftains, is still shrouded in
mystery, more than a month after he was shot. Ameer Bux Brohi, a reporter
for the Sindhi language newspaper, Kawish, was killed on the evening of 3
October. Newspaper reports said the murder was committed very close to the
local police station in Shikarpur by three men who stopped him as he was
about to drive to work and shot him at close range before disappearing.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37798&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Minority association head put on exit control list
The president of an association representing minorities in Pakistan said
on Wednesday that his name had been put on a list preventing him from
leaving the country because of his outspoken stance on securing equal
rights for religious minorities. "We asked the government why my name was
put on the Exit Control List (ECL), but they refused to specify the
reasons why they did so," Shahbaz Bhatti, the president of the All
Pakistan Minorities Alliance, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37816&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN: Detained politician remanded to judicial custody
A senior opposition politician, arrested on a treason charge in late
October, has been remanded to judicial custody after being detained for
over two weeks by police, according to the chairman of an opposition
alliance campaigning for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, a member of parliament and the president of the
Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), a coalition of opposition
parties demanding Pakistan's return to "true" democracy, was picked up in
a late-night raid outside his official residence in the capital,
Islamabad, on 28 October.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37852&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN: Ashgabat joins Caspian Sea convention
Turkmenistan on Sunday signed a landmark treaty designed to protect the
fragile environment of the Caspian Sea. Ministers from the other four
littoral countries - Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Russian
Federation - all signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of the
Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea at a ceremony in the Iranian
capital, Tehran, on 4 November. Officials said that Turkmenistan's initial
failure to sign was simply due to "procedural issues", although there is
still political mistrust between the co-signatory nations.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37794&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN
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