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Khalmurat Gylychdurdyev, an interviewee of the US-supported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that frequently broadcasts programmes critical of Turkmenistan's government, was reportedly detained by officers of the Turkmen Ministry of National Security (MNS) on Wednesday, Amnesty International (AI) said in a statement one day later. The 64-year-old was at risk of torture and ill-treatment, the watchdog group warned. RFE/RL correspondents and people interviewed by them have often become targets of persecution in the reclusive Central Asian state. Earlier this year, RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondents Rakhim Esenov and Ashyrguly Bayryev were detained in the capital, Ashgabat and later released following international pressure. In Uzbekistan, local media reported on Saturday that the government had tightened health controls to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease from neighbouring countries. The Uzbek UzA news agency, quoting the country's health ministry, said that cases of the disease were registered in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The authorities were implementing measures to mitigate the threat, Nurmat Atabekov, a senior official at the State Epidemic Inspection said, claiming that there had been no cases of the disease in Uzbekistan over the past 45 years. Washington expressed concern on Thursday over Tashkent's disappointing human rights record ahead of an impending decision whether to continue providing aid to the region's most populous state. US Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner reportedly said that although Uzbekistan had taken several constructive steps to address the issue of human rights, its overall rights record remained very poor. He cited serious abuses and deaths under detention, as well as a reluctance by the authorities to register none of the existing four opposition parties and shutting them out of parliamentary polls this winter. Uzbekistan has received tens of millions of dollars in US aid annually since 2001, when, following the 11 September terror attacks, it allowed Washington to use a major airbase near the Afghan border. Last year, US Congress-approved aid delivered to Uzbekistan totalled some US $86 million. Now, Washington has to determine Tashkent's progress in the areas of human rights, freedom and economic reforms before releasing $18 million for 2004. Going south to Tajikistan, a visiting International Labour Organization (ILO) official urged the Tajik government on Thursday to acknowledge the problem of child labour in the country and to take steps to eliminate it. Klaus Gunter, a senior coordinator of the ILO's child labour elimination project, reportedly said that Tajik children were forced to work in cotton fields and as market porters, beggars and prostitutes. "First of all the government has to acknowledge the problem. Secondly, there has to be in place a commitment that the government understands and is ready to do something to solve the problem," he said. According to the World Bank, the former Soviet republic is the most impoverished Central Asian country - 83 percent of the country's population live below the national poverty line, with some 17 percent considered destitute. A new bridge linking eastern Tajikistan with Afghanistan was set to be commissioned on 5-6 July, the Tajik Asia-Plus news agency reported on Thursday. This is a second bridge after the one built earlier near the town of Khorugh that links the Tajik and Afghan banks in the east of the country. Some 40 people had been hospitalised in southern Kyrgyzstan under suspicion of contracting typhoid with 20 cases confirmed, the KyrgyzInfo news agency reported on Tuesday. The Kyrgyz health ministry's sanitary control department said contaminated water in the Kara-Bel village in the southern Batken province was the source of the infection. On Thursday, KyrgyzInfo reported that around 30,000 people had migrated from the mountainous state over the past three months in search of jobs abroad. Some 35 percent of them hoped to improve their financial well-being, 28 percent were escaping unemployment and 27 percent hoped to improve their living standards, the report maintained. Meanwhile, the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported on Thursday that a mission by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would observe the elections to the lower house (Majlis) of the Kazakh parliament scheduled in September. Robert Barry, the head of the OSCE/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) long-term observation mission, was quoted by the news agency as saying at a meeting with the speaker of the Majlis, Zharmakhan Tuyakbay. Barry said about 20-30 long-term OSCE observers would be working throughout the country during the election campaign to keep track of the entire election process. On the day of the elections, the OSCE is planning to send up to 300 observers.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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