U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
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Central Asia
IRIN-CAS Weekly Round-up 148
24 - 30 January 2004


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Special report on voter registration
AFGHANISTAN: Major polio campaign aims to vaccinate five million
AFGHANISTAN: Bomb attack kills one peacekeeper injures three in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: Bomb kills one British peacekeeper injures several others
IRAN: Focus on Bam survivors four weeks after quake
KAZAKHSTAN: New NGO umbrella organization
KAZAKHSTAN: New environmental project for schools
KAZAKHSTAN: First reading of new electoral law welcomed by OSCE
KYRGYZSTAN: Interview with prominent Uighur human rights activist
PAKISTAN: Balochistan assembly passes resolution against honour killings
PAKISTAN: UN agencies sign country plans worth US $411
PAKISTAN: Poultry farmers face huge losses from bird-flu
PAKISTAN: Focus on people living with leprosy
UZBEKISTAN: New registration procedure for international NGOs
CENTRAL ASIA: IOM welcomes new protocol on smuggling of migrants
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap


AFGHANISTAN: Special report on voter registration

Gulsum rubbed her hands under her blue all-enveloping burqa and stamped
her feet in the snow to keep warm as she queued patiently along with
hundreds of others. She's determined to take part in the first ever
democratic election in Afghanistan, scheduled for June this year, so she
has responded to a UN-backed voter registration drive in the capital,
Kabul.

Full copy of this report



AFGHANISTAN: Major polio campaign aims to vaccinate five million

The Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Monday launched a three-day
child vaccination campaign against polio by deploying 40,000 volunteers
across the country.

Full copy of this report


AFGHANISTAN: Bomb attack kills one peacekeeper injures three in Kabul One
Canadian peacekeeper was killed and three injured on Tuesday morning in
the Afghan capital, Kabul, when a suicide bomber attacked a vehicle from
the NATO-led 5,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
on a routine patrol. One Afghan civilian also died, and eight other people
were treated for injuries at local hospitals, police and doctors said.

Full copy of this report



AFGHANISTAN: Bomb kills one British peacekeeper injures several others

One British peacekeeper was killed and other soldiers injured in a suicide
bombing on Wednesday in the capital Kabul, officials from the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. It's the second
attack on peacekeepers in the Afghan capital in two days.

Full copy of this report



IRAN: Focus on Bam survivors four weeks after quake

One month after the devastating earthquake that hit the Iranian city of
Bam on 26 December, claiming the life of at least 42,000, most survivors
are still living in tents close to their former houses, reluctant to move
to emergency camps rapidly established with foreign assistance. A
combination of a well-organised local response and speedy deployment of
international resources and know-how has meant no reported outbreaks of
communicable diseases, and fairly equitable emergency food distribution
among the estimated 100,000 survivors. Sanitation and hygiene shortages
remain.

Full copy of this report



KAZAKHSTAN: New NGO umbrella organisation

Establishment of a new civil society group is under way in Kazakhstan with
the aim of developing civic society and supporting the fledgling NGO
sector in the country. "The purpose of establishing [the group] is to
solve common problems that have accumulated in the third sector," Dametken
Alenova, head of "Yedinstvo".


Full copy of this report


KAZAKHSTAN: New environmental project for schools

The Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia (CAREC), a local NGO,
supported by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), launched a US $28,000 (24,000 Euro) environmental education
project, geared toward promoting environmental awareness among school
students, a CAREC programme officer told IRIN on Monday.

Full copy of this report




KAZAKHSTAN: First reading of new electoral law welcomed by OSCE

A new electoral law passed its first reading in the Kazakh parliament on
Monday aiming at creating a legal framework for the next democratic
election in the energy rich ex-Soviet Central Asian republic.

Full copy of this report



KYRGYZSTAN: Interview with prominent Uighur human rights activist

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, five newly independent
states emerged in Central Asia. The presence of these states stimulated a
separatist movement among the Uighur minority in neighbouring China's
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Uighurs are a Turkic, Sunni Muslim
people, with close cultural and linguistic ties to other ethnic groups in
Central Asia, including Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Turkmen.

Full copy of this report



PAKISTAN: Balochistan assembly passes resolution against honour killings

A landmark resolution was adopted by the southwestern province of
Balochistan’s provincial assembly on Tuesday, which urged the federal
government to produce laws protecting women from honour killings,
according to a parliamentarian.

Full copy of this report


PAKISTAN: UN agencies sign country plans worth US $411 Four United Nations
agencies signed their Country Programme Action Plans (CPAP) with the
government of Pakistan on Tuesday, pledging to undertake development work
worth US $411 million over a five-year period stretching till the end of
2008.

Full copy of this report


PAKISTAN: Poultry farmers face huge losses from bird-flu

Pakistani poultry farmers face huge economic losses after a strain of the
deadly bird-flu virus, which has already claimed lives in Vietnam and
Thailand, set into the local chicken breeding pattern and caused the
deaths of close to four million chicks, an official from the country's
poultry association said on Tuesday.

Full copy of this report



PAKISTAN: Focus on people living with leprosy

Sister Adelheid Nestele strode down the path in the garden of the
Rawalpindi Leprosy Hospital, her white coat flapping behind her in the
slight breeze. She stopped to wave cheerfully at a family come to visit a
relative, before striding confidently towards a simple structure that lay
in the shadow of the main hospital building.

Full copy of this report



UZBEKISTAN: New registration procedure for international NGOs

All foreign NGOs operating in Uzbekistan are supposed to register with the
justice ministry by 1 March, according to an existing law on foreign NGOs,
a government official told IRIN on Thursday. "In 1999 our parliament
adopted a law and according to this, international non-governmental,
non-commercial organisations, their representative offices and branches
operating in the republic of Uzbekistan should be registered with the
justice ministry," Ilkhom Zakirov, the foreign minister's press-secretary.

Full copy of this report



CENTRAL ASIA: IOM welcomes new protocol on smuggling of migrants

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has welcomed a new
protocol against the smuggling of migrants, set to come into force this
week. "This protocol will help raise awareness of the issue of smuggling,
and undoubtedly help in bringing in greater external assistance to the
countries that need it most," Charles Harns, head of IOM's technical
cooperation service.

Full copy of this report


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Kazakhstan has closed its borders with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to
prevent the import of meat, animal products, cattle and poultry,
agriculture minister Akhmetzhan Yesimov said on Thursday. Yesimov said
that the action was taken due to reports of cases of cattle being infected
with foot-and-mouth disease have been logged in those countries. "We are
strongly concerned over this and we had to close the border," he said.
Tashkent has not officially acknowledged the presence of foot-and-mouth
disease.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=39241&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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