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-CAS Weekly Round-Up 194
11 - 17 December 2004


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Concern at ministerial proposal to dissolve 2,000 NGOs
AFGHANISTAN: Kidnapped foreign construction worker executed
AFGHANISTAN: Interview with Japanese envoy Sadako Ogata
AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF helps demobilise 4,000 child soldiers
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
KAZAKHSTAN: Chechens mark 10th anniversary of war
KAZAKHSTAN: Education in need of reform says UNDP report
PAKISTAN: The challenge of integrating HIV/AIDS awareness into the school
   curriculum
PAKISTAN: Interview with the head of UN's volunteer agency, Ad de Raad
PAKISTAN: Military spending at the expense of children's health - UNICEF
PAKISTAN: Focus on poisoned water and disabilities
PAKISTAN: French humanitarian medical mission in Kashmir
UZBEKISTAN: Infant mortality rate decreasing - UNICEF


AFGHANISTAN: Concern at ministerial proposal to dissolve 2,000 NGOs

Afghan planning minister Dr Ramazan Bashardoost resigned on Monday,
following rejection by the government of his proposal that 2,000 aid
agencies should be wound up. Bashardoost had called on central government
last week to close down 80 percent of all national and international aid
agencies, labelling them ineffective and corrupt. According to ACBAR, NGOs
were shocked that talk of decimating the country's fledgling NGO movement
could seriously undermine the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.




AFGHANISTAN: Kidnapped foreign construction worker executed

A Turkish road construction engineer was killed after he was kidnapped by
a group of terrorists as he travelled with his translator and driver on
the Jalalabad-Kunar road in eastern Afghanistan, the interior ministry
confirmed to IRIN on Wednesday. According to Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman
of the interior ministry, Mohammad Ayub, along with his driver and
translator, were kidnapped on Tuesday.




AFGHANISTAN: Interview with Japanese envoy Sadako Ogata

In an interview with IRIN, Sadako Ogata, Japan's special envoy to
Afghanistan and head of Tokyo's International Cooperation Agency (JICA),
said there was a need for massive donor input to fund infrastructural
development such as roads, bridges and power lines to help boost the
economy. Japan is one of the major donors to war-ravaged Afghanistan and
the lead nation in supporting the disarmament of ex-combatants in the
country.




AFGHANISTAN: UNICEF helps demobilise 4,000 child soldiers

Nearly 4,000 child soldiers have been demobilised in 15 provinces of
Afghanistan under a UN-backed programme, a United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. The Child Soldiers Demoblisation
and Reintegration Programme is designed to target an estimated 8,000 such
children in the country mostly forcibly conscripted to fighting forces in
the last years of more than two decades of armed conflict and civil war.




CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia the BBC reported that anti-government feeling is
still running high in Uzbekistan's markets and bazaars after an
unprecedented outbreak of violence in the republic last month. In early
November, merchants in the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan's most populous
region, set fire to cars and chased customs police out of bazaars after
officials tried to impose a series of new trading restrictions.




KAZAKHSTAN: Chechens mark 10th anniversary of war

Kazakhstan's Chechen community marked the 10th anniversary of the start of
the first Chechen war with an appeal to the international community to
resolve their plight both at home and abroad. "The international community
is not listening," father-of-four Sharpudin Hamidov, told IRIN in the
commercial capital, Almaty. "I want this war to finish and return to my
homeland," the 46-year-old exclaimed.




KAZAKHSTAN: Education in need of reform says UNDP report

"This year's emphasis is on education," Shynar Imangaliyeva, a UNDP senior
programme assistant told IRIN, in the Kazakh commercial capital Almaty,
noting the main goal was to identify the influence education had on human
development. While Kazakhstan enjoyed almost 100 percent enrollment,
following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the country faced the
daunting task of re-establishing its own education system.




PAKISTAN: The challenge of integrating HIV/AIDS awareness into the school
curriculum

Integrating HIV/AIDS education into school curriculum HIV/AIDS awareness
needs to be taught in the context of wider health education, according to
practitioners. "HIV/AIDS education is not something isolated. Its all
about avoiding risky behaviour, learning healthy life skills and decision
making, which are not only responsible for HIV/AIDS but can cause several
other physical and mental disorders," Naureen Butt, programme officer at
the Aga Khan Education Services Pakistan (AKESP) told IRIN.




PAKISTAN: Interview with the head of UN's volunteer agency, Ad de Raad

Ad de Raad, Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV)
programme told IRIN in an interview in the Pakistani capital Islamabad
that the worldwide volunteer movement was playing an important devlopment
role in many countries. Raad attended the first ever international
conference held in Islamabad last week to highlight the role of
"volunteerism" in achieving the UN millennium development goals (MDGs).




PAKISTAN: Military spending at the expense of children's health - UNICEF

With a global under-five mortality ranking of 46, Pakistan could avoid 60
percent of child deaths by focusing on a limited number of treatable
diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia and neonatal infections, the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said. Acknowledging Pakistan's progress
in getting rid of polio at the launch of UNICEF's annual flagship
publication, the State of the World's Children, last week, Executive
Director Carol Bellamy said in Islamabad that countries like Pakistan
could do more to address children's health interests by diverting
resources from institutions like the military - responsible for consuming
up to 40 percent of GDP, according to economists.




PAKISTAN: Focus on poisoned water and disabilities

Tens of thousands of people in the eastern city of Lahore and other cities
of the Punjab face a threat from unsafe ground water, which contains
dangerously high levels of arsenic. So far, little tangible effort has
been made at the official level to counter the problem. The impact
poisoned water can have on communities has been evidenced at villages
around the Lahore and Kasur area, including Manga Mandi, Kalalnawala, Kot
Asadullah and Shamki Bhattian.




PAKISTAN: French humanitarian medical mission in Kashmir

A 26-member humanitarian mission of renowned French surgeons has treated
some 30 patients with complicated surgical disorders, at the Combined
Military Hospital (CMH) in Muzzaffarabad, capital of
Pakistani-administered Kashmir. "The team includes a gynaecologist,
urologists and general surgeons. They are here to treat gynecological
complications in women, such as fistula, Dr Qais Mehmood Sikandar,
provincial programme officer of the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), told IRIN in Muzzaffarabad.




UZBEKISTAN: Infant mortality rate decreasing - UNICEF

The rate of infant mortality is decreasing in Uzbekistan, with more than
1,000 newborns saved every year since 2000 in the most populous Central
Asian country. At a conference in Tashkent to mark the end of the
2000-2004 country programme, UNICEF's head of mission, Brenda Vigo, told
IRIN that "one of the achievements of the CPC for 2000-2004 is that infant
and maternal mortality has decreased".




IRIN-Asia
Tel: +92-51-2211451
Fax: +92-51-2292918
Email: IrinAsia@irin.org.pk

[This Item is Delivered to the "Asia-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central Asia                       www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/casia