Weekly news wrap

The week began tragically, with five Kyrgyz children losing their lives in a landslide over the weekend, a spokesman for the Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said on Monday. "They had set out for school but seem to have been buried under the landslide," the ministry's spokesman Emil Akhmatov told AFP. Fearing a further landslide, rescuers decided on Monday to call off their search at the site in the Kara-Suisky district, around 200 km north of the southern city of Osh, Akhmatov said. About one million cubic metres of soil and rock were displaced in the tragedy. Landslides and avalanches are common in this former Soviet republic that boasts some of the world's highest mountains. Fatalities are also relatively common in Kyrgyzstan due to the unsuitable location and flimsy construction of many homes. Also at the weekend, a hurricane hit many regions of Tajikistan, damaging at least 90 houses, no casualties were reported by the end of the week. The hurricane hit 37 houses in Tojikobod District, in eastern Tajikistan over four hours on 18 April, a source at the Tajik Ministry of Emergency Situations and Civil Defence said on Tuesday. The villages of Nushor, Qala-i Lab-i-Ob and Shirin-Chashma, all in eastern Tajikistan, were the most badly affected by the disaster. Preliminary damage caused by the disaster to the economy of the Tojikobod District amounts to approximately US $13,800 the source added. An agreement for a highway project linking 32 Asian nations could forge economic and cultural connections the way the ancient "silk route'' opened up remote, land-locked societies centuries ago, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The Asian Highway Agreement will be open for signatures during a session of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) from April 26-28 in Shanghai. The 32 nations included in the project are invited to attend and sign the agreement. The U.N. said that the agreement, if approved, would start construction to link existing highways and build new ones to form a network covering 140,000 km between all major Asian capitals in Southeast and South Asia. The main corridor, named Asian Highway One, is expected to start in Tokyo, link via ferry with the Koreas and stretch across the Asian continent to Istanbul, St. Petersburg and finally to the border of Finland. The UN said that the highway is likely to improve understanding and communication between peoples and countries over a huge landmass that is dissected by mountains, deserts and maritime straits. It said that land-locked countries like Bhutan, Laos, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan would be better linked to the outside world by the highway. In a related move, China will open a border crossing with Tajikistan in May, according to an announcement on Wednesday by Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov's office. The decision will enable Central Asian countries to establish road links with China, the statement asserts. Tajikistan and China completed the demarcation of their 519 km border in 2002, the same year that Tajik border guards assumed responsibility for keeping watch on the border from Russian border guards. Tajikistan's border with China was closed under the Soviet Union. The Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that the frontier post will open on 25 May. Kyrgyzstan's president has signed an amnesty expected to lead to the release of about 700 prisoners, officials said on Wednesday. The amnesty was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Kyrgyz Constitution and 2,200 years of Kyrgyz statehood, the state-owned newspaper Erkin-Too said. President Askar Akayev signed the amnesty on 10 April, said his spokesman, Dosali Esenaliyev. It will apply to women over 58 years old, men over 65, and those whose offences are not considered too serious. About 700 prisoners are expected to be released, said Anarbek Ismailov, head of Akayev's legal department. The amnesty was also expected to lead to reduced sentences for 1,000 prisoners. A total of 69 Kyrgyz prisoners being held in Uzbekistan were pardoned by President Karimov this week. The prisoners were deported to Kyrgyzstan, leaving 151 in Uzbek jails who are Kyrgyz citizens. The Kyrgyz embassy in Uzbekistan has received 49 letters from Kyrgyz citizens asking for assistance in pardoning or transferring from penal institutions in Uzbekistan to serve their terms in Kyrgyzstan, the head of the main directorate of the consulate, Ruslan Kazakbayev, told a news conference held at the Foreign Ministry dedicated to protecting the rights and interests of the Kyrgyz citizens. Prison conditions in Kazakhstan were in the news this week. The Constitutional Council of Kazakhstan admitted on Monday that prison conditions created for inmates in the country do not meet the approved norms. "The real conditions created for inmates do not fully correspond to the commonly-approved standards," Chairman of the Constitutional Council Yuriy Khitrin, announced. Khitrin was delivering an annual speech in parliament on the state of constitutional legality in Kazakhstan. He also noted that "despite all efforts" human rights were being violated in correctional institutions and detention centres where people who have committed crimes are kept. In connection with this he said that 100 convicts and nine people who were on trial were released from cells and detention centres last year. He pointed out that not enough measures were being taken to ensure the protection of the constitutional rights of this category of people and urged the stepping up of the law-enforcement agencies' coordination activities and more personal responsibility to ensure the observance of inmates' rights. Staying in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Thursday vetoed a controversial bill that critics said would restrict media freedom. Nazarbayev announced his decision on Thursday after Kazakhstan's Constitutional Council also opposed the legislation. "I decided not to object to the council's decision. This means that the new media bill has been rejected,'' Nazarbayev said at the controversial Eurasian Media Forum in the country's commercial capital, Almaty. Parliament passed the legislation in March despite strong criticism by opposition and media groups who said its provisions for stricter registration and licensing rules would limit freedom of speech. The Constitutional Council opposed a regulation in the bill that would allow government agencies to withdraw or suspend a media organisation's license for breaking the law, the council's chairman, Yuri Khitrin, told journalists in the capital, Astana.``Such actions can be taken only by courts,'' Khitrin said. The council also rejected the articles that said only Kazakh citizens had the right to disseminate and refute information within the country, saying this would limit the rights of other people residing here. In what appears to be a trade off between Moscow and Ashgabat, Turkmenistan has assured Russia it will take measures to improve the situation for its Russian-speaking citizens, Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov told Interfax on Wednesday. He said that, taking these assurances in account, Russia "considered it proper" to abstain from voting on a resolution on violation of human rights in Turkmenistan during the 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. "We based this decision on the fact that so-called country resolutions, especially in the UN's Human Rights Commission, will hardly improve the real situation," Fedotov said. "That is why the Russian diplomacy focuses on individually working with the countries that problems arise in, including the problem of Russian-speaking citizens." On 10 April 2003, a Russian-Turkmen protocol was signed suspending an agreement on dual citizenship, which had been signed in 1993. Later, the Turkmen president unilaterally signed a decree stating that people with dual citizenship should choose one nationality within two months. Fedotov noted that "it is possible that this question will arise in the fall, during the 59th session of the UN's General Assembly. Then we will make our decision, taking into account all the factors, firstly the real situation of Russian-speaking citizens' rights," Fedotov said.