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 125
16 - 22 August 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Poor security frustrating aid and development work
AFGHANISTAN: Cereal crop largest in two decades
TURKMENISTAN: Helsinki Foundation to tackle human rights issues
TURKMENISTAN: Abolition of dual citizenship widely condemned
KYRGYZSTAN: Strong reaction to Supreme Court ruling on opposition leader
KAZAKHSTAN: Dyke project to save part of the Aral Sea
KAZAKHSTAN: Focus on potable water shortage in Kyzyl-Orda Province
KAZAKHSTAN: Four-year-old girl dies of bubonic plague
PAKISTAN: Authorities struggle with grounded oil tanker
PAKISTAN: Interview with Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao
PAKISTAN: Tribal custom forces girls into "compensation marriages"
CENTRAL ASIA-PAKISTAN: Illegal trade in pelts causes decline of snow leopards
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap


AFGHANISTAN: Poor security frustrating aid and development work

The international and national aid community in Afghanistan is concerned
over the phenomenon of increasing incidents, in the context of the bombing
of the United Nations office in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Such incidents
had included security breaches affecting aid workers, several of whom had
been killed in a recent upsurge in violence in Afghanistan, an official
said on Friday. "We have all been shocked by the Baghdad bombing of the UN
headquarters and the tragic loss of so many innocent and dedicated staff,"
Paul Barker, the country director for CARE International's Afghanistan
operations, told IRIN from the capital, Kabul.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36137&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Cereal crop largest in two decades

Afghanistan's cereal crop for 2003 will be the largest in two decades,
according to The Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission carried out by
the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme
(WFP). Yet many people will remain reliant on humanitarian assistance,
according to a joint report by the FAO and WFP found. "In spite of
relatively wide use of improved varieties [of seeds] and fertilisers, the
majority of Afghan farmers are far from reaching self-sufficiency in food
production and labour opportunities that could permit access to food,"
Antonio di Leonardo, the FAO emergency coordinator, told IRIN from the
capital, Kabul, on Thursday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36124&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

TURKMENISTAN: Helsinki Foundation to tackle human rights issues

The newly established Turkmen Helsinki Foundation is set to tackle human
rights issues in Turkmenistan, Central Asia's most reclusive state, with
the ultimate goal of placing them on the international agenda. "There is a
huge information gap in Turkmenistan now. Many Turkmen citizens don't know
where and whom to apply to," Kajigul Bekmetova, the head of the Turkmen
Helsinki Foundation on Human Rights (THFHR), told IRIN from Varna, eastern
Bulgaria.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36125&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN

TURKMENISTAN: Abolition of dual citizenship widely condemned

A new Turkmen constitutional clause that prohibits dual citizenship has
been widely condemned by Russian community leaders and rights groups. The
clause, announced on Wednesday, effectively enshrines in the constitution
a semi-official policy that has prompted thousands of Russians to leave
the former Soviet republic and sparked a dispute with Moscow.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36126&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN: Strong reaction to Supreme Court ruling on opposition leader

Activists and opposition figures have strongly criticised a Supreme Court
decision on Friday upholding the earlier conviction of a former
vice-president and opposition leader, Feliks Kulov, currently serving a
10-year sentence on charges of abuse of office and financial misconduct.
"This is a frustration not just among those in the human rights community,
but also among those in the opposition and the Kyrgyz public alike,"
Natalia Ablova, the director of the Kyrgyz Bureau of Human Rights, told
IRIN from the capital, Bishkek, noting, nonetheless, that the court's
ruling had not come as a surprise.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36088&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: Dyke project to save part of the Aral Sea

With the help of the World Bank, Kazakhstan seeks to secure the survival
of the northern section of the Aral Sea by improving ecological and
environmental conditions in its delta area by means of constructing a dyke
and stimulating additional flows into that part of the sea, now a zone of
ecological disaster. "The Aral Sea is in a critical condition and it has
actually divided into three parts, two main parts - the Northern Aral Sea
(NAS) and the Southern Aral Sea (SAS)," Amirkhan Kenchimov, the deputy
head of the water resources agency at the Kazakh agriculture ministry,
told IRIN, noting that the SAS had split into two sections along a
north-south axis. The whole of the NAS was within the territory of
Kazakhstan, he noted.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36093&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: Focus on potable water shortage in Kyzyl-Orda Province

For 46-year-old Maira Omirbayeva, just getting a pail of water can be a
real chore. Standing outside her humble home in the tiny dust-blown
village of Tokabay, 50 km north of the former Aral Sea fishing town of
Aralsk, she depends for safe drinking water on deliveries by tanker truck.
"Sometimes the water is not enough and we have to wait up to two or three
days," she told IRIN, noting that people often had to borrow from
neighbours just to get by. "Water is everything for us, but we understand
that more and more now."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36057&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: Four-year-old girl dies of bubonic plague

A four-year-old girl died of bubonic plague on Saturday in the
south-central Kazakh province of Kzyl-Orda, while another 27 people who
had been in contact with her were now under treatment. "We have a
confirmed diagnosis [of plague] regarding the dead child - a girl born in
1999, who had lived in the Aral District of the Kzyl-Orda Province and
passed away on 16 August," Baurzhan Bayserkin, the deputy head of the
epidemiological inspection agency of the Kazakh health ministry, told IRIN
from the capital, Astana, on Monday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36038&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

PAKISTAN: Authorities struggle with grounded oil tanker

An oil tanker grounded off the coast of the southern Pakistani port city
of Karachi since late July continues to leak as efforts to contain the
damage intensify, according to a scientist. "The Tasman Spirit continues
to leak some small quantities of oil," Dr Karen Purnell, a scientist with
the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF), told IRIN
from Karachi on Tuesday. A non-profit-making organisation, ITOPF is funded
by the majority of the world's shipowners to provide technical services,
usually focusing on oil spills.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36062&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Interview with Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao

Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, the Minister for Water, Power, Kashmir Affairs
and Northern Areas, has recently had his hands full, formulating new
strategies for additional water reservoirs and power generation, as well
as handling the always prickly issue of repatriating Afghan refugees from
Pakistan. A veteran politician from the once hugely popular Pakistan
People's Party (PPP), and having twice served as chief minister of the
North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, Sherpao now heads
a splinter group of the PPP, and spoke to IRIN in the Pakistani capital,
Islamabad, where IRIN began by asking about the recent floods in the south
of the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36030&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Tribal custom forces girls into "compensation marriages"

A tribal custom which forces families to give their daughters away in
marriage as "compensation" to aggrieved parties is deeply entrenched in
local culture and needs to be handled very carefully, according to
analysts and rights activists. "It is part of the Pakhtun [more commonly
known as Pathan] culture, which is very entrenched; it needs to be handled
very carefully," Sajid Kazmi, an advocacy coordinator at the Sustainable
Development Policy Institute, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on
Wednesday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36089&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

CENTRAL ASIA-PAKISTAN: Illegal trade in pelts causes decline of snow
leopards

Random killings by poachers, who benefit from a clandestine trade in
animal skins in the Central Asian region and Afghanistan, are threatening
the already endangered snow leopard, according to a report by TRAFFIC, the
wildlife trade monitoring network. The report, entitled "Fading
Footprints: The killing and trade of Snow Leopards", was the first-ever
global assessment of the illegal killings and trade in the animal's skin,
a programme officer for TRAFFIC-Europe and the study's author, Stephanie
Theile, told IRIN from the university town of Cambridge in England.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36034&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA-PAKISTAN

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

A four-year-old girl died of bubonic plague on Saturday in the
south-central Kazakh province of Kyzyl-Ordinskaya, while another 27 people
who had been in contact with her were placed under observation. According
to the Kazakh health ministry, the disease had been caused by the bite of
a flea carrying plague bacteria; the child had lived in the village of
Shomysh, located in a natural reservoir of the disease. On Monday, US
Senator Dick Lugar, reportedly said that the US would give Kazakhstan US
$40 million over two years to fight and prevent dangerous infectious
diseases. The money would come under the Nunn-Lugar programme designed to
help former Soviet countries to destroy and safeguard weapons of mass
destruction, said Lugar, one of the programme's architects.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36141&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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