Weekly news wrap

Authorities in Tajikistan were still cleaning up this week after two months of heavy rains and high temperatures resulted in heavy flooding in the country. Hundreds of homes were destroyed, 8,000 people evacuated and thousands of hectares of agricultural lands submerged by floods, AFP reported on Monday. Officials in the former Soviet republic have called for urgent international assistance to help residents cope with the floods that had devastated Khamadoni, a mainly agricultural region some 230 km southeast of the capital, Dushanbe, the report added. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday, the main areas affected are the Penjikent district of the northern Soghd Oblast, Hamadoni and Farkhor districts of the southern Khatlon Oblast, Ishkashim, Murghab, Roshtkalla, Vanj and the Shugnan district of the eastern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO). The Nurobod and Tavildara districts of Rasht Valley were also affected. The Tajik Ministry of Emergencies, however, reported that water levels had receded and the reinforcement of riverbanks was in progress, the OCHA report added. Citing the Tajik minister of land reclamation and water resources, Abdugohir Nazirov, the Tajik Avesta news agency reported that Japan planned to allocate some US $15 million in grants to reinforce river banks in Khatlon's flood-stricken Farkhor and Hamadoni districts. The impoverished state has long needed outside assistance. According to the Tajik Asia Plus news agency this week, Tajikistan had received $46.4 million in humanitarian assistance from some 35 foreign countries in the first half of 2005. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Tajik Finance Minister Safarali Najmuddinov announced that the country had over $900 million in external debt or roughly 40 percent of the country's GDP. "Tajikistan's debt has reduced by 70 percent compared with 2000 when its external debt was $1.3 billion (110 percent of GDP)," Asia-Plus cited the minister as saying. To the west in Uzbekistan, a prosecutor in that country on Monday demanded the closure of the local branch of the international charity Internews, for "illegally" supporting independent media. "Today a (Tashkent district) prosecutor demanded that the Uzbek branch of Internews be closed down," Internews lawyer Fyodor Kravchenko told Reuters. According to the Uzbek authorities, the US-based Internews, which provides assistance to media in around 50 countries, has supported independent Uzbek television channels and trained local journalists without an official licence. Long criticised for its human rights record and a lack of democratic reform, however, Monday's decision serves only to underscore Tashkent's distain for what it views as outside interference. On Tuesday, a Kyrgyz journalist reporting on the aftermath of a May government crackdown on protestors in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in which up to 1,000 civilians may have been killed, was detained by Uzbek border guards for lack of identification cards, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said. "Journalists who dare to mention the events in Andijan are subjected to a witch hunt," the media watchdog group claimed, noting Uzbek president Islam Karimov's refusal to allow UN, European Union (EU) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) fact-finding missions to find out the facts related to the rebellion demonstrated that the regime wanted to cover up the matter. But having won the support of Russia and China over his handling of Andijan, Karimov would continue to resist UN-led calls for an independent investigation into the 13 May incident, according to the Economist Intelligence Union (EIU) this week. Meanwhile, the plight of some 400 Uzbek asylum seekers who had fled across the border to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan to escape the violence of Andijan remained unresolved. Asylum seekers there say they want to be sent to the same country as a group, just as long as it is not Uzbekistan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) quoted the asylum seekers as saying. While most say they would prefer to return to their homeland that would be impossible under the current regime, the report added. Staying in Kyrgyzstan, the OSCE noted that the recent presidential election had helped stabilise the mountainous state, which had teetered on the brink of chaos following a March coup, Reuters reported. "I remember that revolutionary night when I could not see any policemen or soldiers or security people," OSCE special envoy Alojz Peterle reportedly said on Monday, referring to the looting and armed robbery that followed the 24 March ouster of President Askar Akayev after 15 years in power. "Now the country is in another situation." One day later, the US Senate reportedly accepted a bill providing Kyrgyzstan with $35 million to support democracy in the country. Under the terms of the bill, in addition to Kyrgyzstan, total assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine and Tajikistan among others amounted to $565 million. In neighbouring Kazakhstan, the region's largest nation, the EU on Tuesday called on that country's government to boost democratic reforms and the rule of law and to conduct free and fair presidential elections. Britain's Europe minister, Douglas Alexander, said talks between the EU and Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Akhmetjan Yesimov "emphasised the need for increased efforts to comply fully with international norms and standards," AP reported him as saying. Also in Kazakhstan, the Forum 18 news agency reported this week that religious minorities were facing increased state pressure. In addition to Baptists, other Protestants, Ahmadiya Muslims, non-state controlled Muslims and Hare Krishna devotees had all come under increasing pressure in the wake of a new law severely restricting religious freedom, thus breaking Kazakhstan's international human rights commitments.