Weekly news wrap

The Tajik Health Ministry said on Saturday that the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS in the country was growing. The disease was primarily brought into the country by young men who had travelled abroad searching for jobs, particularly to Russia, the Tajik Deputy Health Minister Ziyovuddin Afghonov reportedly said. As of today, 96 HIV/AIDS positives had been reported in various places of Tajikistan, he added. Tajik Interior Minister Khumdin Sharipov said on Monday that the country's law enforcement bodies had detained over 200 members of the [banned Islamic] extremist organisation Hizbut Tahrir over the past two years alone. Tonnes of extremist literature calling for the overthrow of the existing secular regime in Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries had been confiscated from the detained members, he said. A civil democratic forum was held in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, with the support of the US National Democratic Institute ending on Monday, adopting a resolution to set up a coalition of Tajik NGOs. Forum participants maintained that the purpose of the coalition had been to boost the activities and role of NGOs in developing democratic processes, as well as the independent monitoring of elections and related issues. The forum was attended by representatives of more than 60 NGOs in the country, media and international organisations. Tajik media reported on Tuesday that the Tajik Drug Control Agency had set up an integrated information centre with the United Nations [UN] support. The Russian ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the director of the agency, Rustam Nazarov, as saying that the Tajik law enforcement bodies and Russian border guards had seized some six mt of drugs over the first eight months of 2003, with heroine accounting for two thirds of that. Tajikistan was seizing 92 percent of all the heroine being seized in Central Asia, he claimed. NATO Secretary General George Robertson arrived in Dushanbe on Wednesday for a two-day visit to discuss the fight against terrorism and relations between the alliance and the mountainous state. "Even before 11 September, we were engaged and involved in Central Asia. Since 11 September, it has become the front line of the war against international terror and NATO recognises that," Robertson said. After meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov, he said that the European-based alliance was interested in helping with the modernisation of the Tajik military. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) was interested in investing in Tajikistan, bank's president Ahmad Mohammad Ali said on Thursday at an IDB meeting in Dushanbe. Tajikistan joined the IDB in 1996 and had already received US $64 million worth of credits from the body. Based in Saudi Arabia, the IDB aims to boost development in accordance with Islamic law. Staying in that country, the Tajik news agency Asia-Plus reported on Thursday that the country had received almost 140,000 mt of humanitarian aid, worth some US $90 million, from 35 countries in the first eight months of the year. "The most considerable part of the aid came from the USA - 54.6 percent," the agency said. Going north to Kazakhstan, elections for local representative bodies at all levels began on Saturday. The Central Electoral Commission of Kazakhstan reported that 3,322 constituencies would elect a total of 550 deputies. The voting took place at 9,500 polling stations, with some 7,000 candidates being registered in the country. The United States and Kazakhstan signed an agreement on Monday to exempt each other's citizens from prosecution in the International Criminal Court without the permission of the other government. The agreement, signed at the United Nations by US Secretary of State Colin Powel and his Kazakh counterpart, Kasymzhomart Tokayev, brought to 63 the number of countries, which had such agreements with Washington, a senior US State Department official reportedly said. A congress of world and traditional national religions ended in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Wednesday. The final session of the congress passed a declaration and decided to set up a secretariat of the congress in Astana, and hold the second congress there in 2004. The congress was attended by the delegates of 17 faiths and denominations. Meanwhile, the row between the top political department of Kazakhstan and neighbouring Uzbekistan was deepening. The row broke out after the Uzbek ambassador referred to the Kazakh media coverage of shooting incidents on the Kazakh-Uzbek border as 'irresponsible and tactless", while in response, the Kazakh foreign ministry issued a statement harshly criticising the stance of the Uzbek side. "Weapons are used only when a border detail is attacked," Turdyqul Botayorov, the Uzbek Ambassador to Kazakhstan reportedly said on Thursday. In neighbouring Uzbekistan, local media reported on Saturday that some 20 percent of disabled people in the country were minors. The report said that 32,000 children out of some 160,000 were being educated at special education institutions, 20,000 were attending special groups in kindergartens and 6,000 were being educated individually at home. Also in Uzbekistan, it was reported on Monday that Tashkent had intended to step up its activity to prevent human trafficking. "Falling under the influence of doubtful people and firms, many people go abroad without knowing the real employment situation there," Vladimir Norov, the deputy foreign minister said at a seminar on preventing human trafficking held in the Uzbek capital. US Charge d'Affairs to Uzbekistan, David Appleton said that the Uzbek government had taken serious steps towards fighting the 'modern slavery'. On Monday, Russia signed an accord with Kyrgyzstan to set up its first foreign military base following the collapse of the Soviet Union 12 years ago. Under the pact, agreed between Moscow and Bishkek last December, Russia will station up to 10 S-27 jet fighters and Su-25 ground attack aircraft on a base in the Kyrgyz town of Kant, 20 km away from Bishkek. Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev called the agreement 'evidence of the important role Russia plays in ensuring security not only in Kyrgyzstan, but in the whole Central Asia, which is facing new threats.' In Turkmenistan, the US embassy said on Tuesday that Stephan Minikes, US Ambassador to Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] had spoken to Turkmen officials of rising international concern over that country's human rights record on emigration, lack of religious freedom and other alleged abuses. "Minikes emphasised the need for Turkmenistan to remain engaged with multilateral organisations such as the OSCE and to honour its commitments to international conventions," a statement by the US embassy in Ashgabat said. The statement coincided with an announcement that Turkmenistan would release more than 6,000 prisoners, including 181 foreigners, in the latest mass pardon by the autocratic president Saparmurat Niyazov on Tuesday. However, a recent report commissioned by the OSCE said that mass prisoner releases in Turkmenistan were simply a way of emptying overflowing penitentiaries in a country where people were allegedly imprisoned on flimsy charges. In 2000, officials said there were some 22,000 prisoners in the country with the population of some five million, making Turkmenistan's imprisonment rate among the highest in the world.