IRINnews.org, 11. januar 2006

January 2005

4 January - More than 100,000 mt of ammunition will be collected from across the country under a new programme, the United Nations backed Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) confirmed. Although a huge programme of heavy weapons' collection, disarmament of militia forces and land mine clearance is already under way, the existence of such a sheer quantity of ammunition stockpiles is another major challenge for the post-conflict country. As part of the programme, ANBP has launched a three-month survey to identify the locations of the stockpiles and get ready for the actual collection programme. "The survey's task is to give us a proper map of where all the ammunition [stockpiles] are," Peter Babbington, acting programme director of ANBP, told IRIN in the capital Kabul.

12 January - Hundreds of Afghans have been arrested by Iranian police in a crackdown against illegal migrants, according to press reports. The Iranian daily, Iran Emrooz, said on Sunday that legal Afghan refugees have also been arrested and that the arrests have been taking place in the eastern cities of Zahedan, Zabol, Mashad and Kerman over the last two weeks. The newspaper said those arrested were held in a detention centre for up to four days and that some claim to have been beaten, although the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that so far, they could not confirm these reports.

13 January - Hundreds of people, including women and children, were braving freezing winter weather in the isolated Khartzan valley of the northwestern Faryab province after their houses had been looted by local armed groups, Faryab governor Amer Latif told IRIN from the provincial capital, Maimana, on Wednesday. Latif said the incident happened several weeks ago, but that news of their plight had only just filtered out of the isolated valley due to heavy snow. “We have a very serious problem - there is a dire need for emergency assistance. It is too cold and people need some security measures but we cannot do anything as the road is blocked and we were not provided with helicopters,” Latif said.

February 2005

10 February - Officials in Kabul have called for better emergency preparedness following the death of up to 100 people from cold weather in isolated rural areas. More than 60 people are believed to have died of acute respiratory infections, mainly pneumonia and whooping cough in southern, eastern and northern provinces of Afghanistan. On Thursday, the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) would only confirm 25 deaths. Several hundred people are thought to be stranded because of snow, ice and avalanches in northern areas of the country.

14 February - Turkey has assumed command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, a multinational UN-mandated force to assist the Afghan government and the international community in maintaining security. "NATO has held the command of ISAF for the last two years and yesterday was the change of command from Eurocorps, which is a NATO Rapid Deployable Force, to the Rapid Deployable Corps in Istanbul," Karen Tissot van Patot, an ISAF spokeswoman, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday.

21 February - After a decade of a lack of reliable information, Afghanistan launched its first-ever National Human Development Report (NHDR) on Monday. The report - entitled "Security with a Human Face" and based on two years' work by the government and the United Nations - is expected to help policy makers and stakeholders in the post-conflict country where there has been very little relevant or reliable information.

March 2005

1 March - The Afghan government, working in conjunction with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), launched a three-day national polio vaccination campaign on Tuesday in an effort to finally eradicate the virus from the country. An estimated 5.3 million Afghan children under the age of five will receive the life-saving polio vaccine under the National Imunisation Days (NID) campaign. Afghanistan is among only seven countries in the world, along with Nigeria, India, Egypt, Niger, Somali and Pakistan, where polio remains endemic.

7 March - In an episode that suggests Afghanistan is slowly becoming safer, Shir Alam a 50-year-old local commander, surrendered several hundred mt of arms to a United Nations ammunitions stockpile and collection group on Thursday outside the capital, Kabul. Alam had amassed the arms over three decades of conflict, first fighting Soviet forces during 1980s and later against rival militia groups during the 1990s civil war in the capital. He also fought the hardline Taliban regime as part of the Northern Alliance.

8 March - The return home of 122 Afghan refugees on Monday from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) marked the resumption of the Afghan voluntary repatriation programme of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner or Refugees (UNHCR) for 2005. "The voluntary repatriation of Afghans has been resumed after a temporary suspension in the programme from December last year due to falling numbers of refugees seeking assistance to repatriate and also because of the harsh winter weather," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN on Tuesday in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

14 March - A national campaign to boost girls' enrollment was launched in Afghanistan over the weekend as the country prepares for a new school year at the end of March. “This is a very important day as a week ago we celebrated 8 March International Women's Day and today we are launching an education campaign [targeting girls],” Noor Mohammad Qarqeen, minister of education, said at the official ceremony to launch the campaign on Saturday.

15 March - Local officials and NGOs are divided on the idea of legalising opium cultivation for medical purposes in Afghanistan, currently the world’s top producer of the illicit crop. “It is a new idea, and proper research has to be done to look again at all sides of it; the control mechanism, permission from the International Narcotics Control Board [INCB], and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC],” Habibulllah Qaderi, Minister of Counter Narcotics, told IRIN in the capital Kabul, on Tuesday.

22 March - Humanitarian relief began to be distributed on Tuesday to victims of Afghan floods, which have left at least four confirmed dead, 200 missing and thousands homeless, interior ministry officials said. "As of 22 March, three men and a woman have been reported dead in the Gezab district of [the central province of] Uruzgan and 750 houses destroyed in Dehrawood district of that province," Dad Mohammad, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told IRIN in Afghan capital Kabul.

30 March - The Band-e Sultan dam in Afghanistan’s southeastern Ghazni province burst on early Tuesday causing flooding in the area, a UN official told IRIN from the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday. "Initial reports indicated that there was flooding in two districts," Martin Battersby, a public information officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said, although he noted that it was hard to get confirmation at the moment.

April 2005

7 April - A key meeting between the Afghan government and international donors ended on Wednesday with renewed commitment from wealthy nations to reconstruction and Kabul calling for more attention on what it called “neglected infrastructure building.” Donor countries that have contributed billions of dollars in humanitarian and development aid to the country in the post-Taliban period, got the chance to talk directly to authorities about progress in reconstruction at the third Afghanistan Development Forum (ADF).

11 April - The Afghan authorities have called for strengthening of the justice system in Afghanistan saying that more than 50 percent of Afghans do not have access to judicial and legal services in the post-conflict country. Afghan Minister of Justice Ghulam Sarwar Danish, told IRIN on Sunday in the capital Kabul that donors and international organisations had spent millions of dollars on improving the justice sector, but that there had been little tangible sign of improvement.

14 April - The poppy eradication campaign in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar was interrupted on Wednesday by an armed encounter between police and protesters, local authorities told IRIN. The clash came a day after hundreds of people in the Maiwand district, 70 km southwest Kandahar city, had showed their anger in a demonstration against a government campaign to destroy poppy fields in the troubled province, which is one of the leading poppy cultivating provinces in Afghanistan.

May 2005

3 May - Female aid workers in Pul-e-Khumri city in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Baghlan have been advised to stay at home after three women were found hanged by the neck on Monday morning in the centre of the city. The bodies had a letter attached threatening women working for foreign aid organisations, according to local sources. One of the three was identified as being involved with the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and the second was a local civil servant. The third remains unidentified according to Baghlan deputy governor, Daulat Mohammad Rafee, who spoke to IRIN from Pul-e-Khumri on Tuesday.

June 2005

6 June - Preparations for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Afghanistan will continue despite the murder of an election worker in Trin Kot, the provincial capital of the southern Uruzgan province, the country's Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) announced on Monday in the capital, Kabul. The dead person was a 19-year-old civic instructor employed by the Afghanistan Development Association (ADA) and was the first election worker killed in the 2005 parliamentary election process. "It is a sad incident for all election workers but our people in the field, the JEMB secretariat and also our partners are committed to continue the work in all the provinces," Sultan Ahmad Baheen, a spokesman for JEMB, told IRIN in Kabul.

9 June - As summer temperatures rise across Afghanistan, the country’s health officials and the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) warned of an increasing risk of diarrhoeal disease in major cities. Diarrhoea is a leading cause of death among children in Afghanistan, accounting for more than 50,000 deaths annually amongst those under the age of five and contributing to one of the world’s worst child mortality rates.

13 June - The disarmament demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants has passed a significant milestone, the UN announced on Monday, the programme having processed a total of 60,000 former Afghan militia force members. The DDR, which started in November 2003, has so far cost the international community more than US $100 million and is considered a major step towards restoring national security and creating an enabling environment for further security sector reform.

27 June - Afghanistan has embarked on a concerted campaign to tackle its booming narcotics trade, the counter narcotics minister, Habibullah Qaderi announced, following an event that included the burning of 30 mt of refined and raw opium on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. The move marked the United Nations international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking.

30 June - A new tripartite agreement was signed on Tuesday between Iran, Afghanistan and the office of the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), facilitating the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran. "It is essential that the repatriation programme continues and UNHCR continues to be supported by the international community to enable us to assist in the voluntary repatriation and to provide assistance to Afghan refugees remaining in Iran," said Sten Bronee, UNHCR representative in Iran.

July 2005

7 July - The Afghan government and the United Nations celebrated the end of the disarmament and demobilisation phase of the UN-backed Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) as the last ex-militia member was disarmed at a ceremony in the capital, Kabul, on Thursday. “I am proud to have surrendered my arm to the president of my country, I hope I will now join the reconstruction Jihad [holy war],” said Jalalludin, a former officer of the 717 Kabul brigade and the last Afghan ex-combatant in DDR. He was speaking immediately after surrendering his AK 47 to president Hamid Karzai as a symbolic move to mark the formal end of disarmament.

20 July - Violence against women remains a huge problem in Afghanistan, a visiting United Nations official said in the capital Kabul, on Monday. Yakin Erturk, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, its causes and consequences, had spent ten days visiting Afghan cities. She said child marriages, many of them forced, continued to be a source of violence against women and girls.

27 July - Afghanistan is launching a nationwide religious campaign to reduce addiction in the post-war country, officials at the Haj and Awqaf (Religious Affairs) ministry announced on Tuesday. Around 500 Afghan religious leaders have participated in a symposium in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to discuss combating drug abuse throughout the country. "As drug abuse is forbidden in Islam, religious leaders can be very effective in the struggle against drug abuse - particularly at the grass roots level," Neyamatullah Shahrani, minister of Haj and Awqaf, said in Kabul.

August 2005

4 August - While Afghanistan moves from a state of emergency to a focus on development, the reality of the situation for women and children remains serious, UNICEF warned on Thursday in the capital Kabul. "Infant mortality and under five mortality are very high, girls' enrolment is one of the lowest in the world and malnutrition affects almost half of the country's child population," Cecilia Lotse, the UN childrens agency's regional director for South Asia observed, adding that the maternal mortality continued to claim 1,600 women per every 100,000 births in the country.

September 2005

5 September- More than 40,000 male and female volunteers have been deployed across Afghanistan in a three-day polio vaccination campaign. The joint government-United Nations campaign, which began on Monday, is expected to reach 7 million children under the age of five and is aimed at making the country polio-free. Afghanistan is among just six countries in the world where polio remains endemic: Nigeria, India, Niger, Somali and Pakistan. The campaign, which is led by the health ministry with support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), began as health officials confirmed four cases of the disease had been reported in 2005 so far, the same number as last year.

14 September - Around 9,000 trained teachers have been deployed across Afghanistan to distribute tablets to at least 6 million children in an effort to eradicate intestinal parasites, health authorities and United Nations agencies announced this week in the capital Kabul. The health and education ministries, with support from the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), launched the programme on Monday.

19 September - The turnout in Sunday's parliamentary and provincial polls in Afghanistan is estimated at around 50 percent of the electorate, considerably lower than last year's presidential poll where 70 percent of the electorate voted, election officials said on Monday. "Based on preliminary reports from about 35 percent of polling centres nationwide, our projections are that some 6 million voters participated in yesterday's election, which is quite satisfactory in the context of a post-conflict situation," Peter Erben, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) at the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said in the capital Kabul.

28 September - With almost 50 percent of all votes counted across Afghanistan following the country's first general elections in three decades, electoral officials have cited several places where the process needs to speed up. "We are half-way into the counting all over the country. However, at some places with more complex ballots and high voter turnout, like Kabul and Herat provinces, the counting process is slow," Peter Erben, chief electoral officer at the UN Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday.

28 September - The Afghan government has rejected a call to legalise poppy cultivation in the country, following a recent report advocating for its legitimate production. "Poor security in the country means there are simply no guarantees that opium won't be smuggled out of the country for the illicit narcotics trade abroad," Afghan Minister for Counter Narcotics, Habibullah Qaderi, said in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

29 September - The arrival of 21,000 Afghan families from Pakistan over the past six weeks has placed an additional strain on aid agencies in providing adequate humanitarian assistance, representatives say. "The return of such a large of number over [such] a relatively short period of time just before the winter has created additional pressures for reintegration operations," Tim Irwin, a spokesman of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Thursday.

October 2005

6 October - With the announcement of provisional results from two provinces in Afghanistan, the physical process of counting ballots across the war-ravaged country has been completed, Peter Erben, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said on Thursday in the Afghan capital Kabul. "We are pleased to announce the provisional results from two provinces today, Nimroz and Farah,” Erben said.

9 October - At least two children and an adult were killed and a number of houses damaged in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar on Saturday, when the strong earthquake that devastated northern Pakistan and the divided region of Kashmir, was felt in Afghanistan, the United Nations confirmed on Monday in the Afghan capital Kabul. There have also been reports of minor damage elsewhere. “In northeastern Badakhshan, a few houses were destroyed. We don’t have more information of casualties from there,” Kalanpari Saroesh, a public information officer for the United Nations Assistant Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

24 October - At least five people have been killed and six injured, when an earthquake struck Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan on Sunday, a defence ministry spokesman said. "The quake hit the Shinkai district of the [southern] Zabul province, damaging dozens of mud-build houses," Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi said on Monday in the capital, Kabul. He said details from the area were sketchy and it was not known exactly what time the quake struck.

25 October - The United Nations, Afghan human rights bodies and the national independent association of journalists have all criticised a two-year jail sentence given to the editor of a women's magazine for publishing anti-Islamic articles. Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly magazine Haqooq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights), was arrested on 1 October after complaints about his articles, in particular one which questioned Islamic punishments for crimes such as adultery.

November 2005

24 November - The results of September’s landmark legislative elections in Afghanistan have been finalised, the UN-government Joint Electoral Management Board (JEMB) announced on Saturday in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The results were initially scheduled to be released in October, but have been repeatedly delayed by inquiries into widespread electoral fraud across the country.

24 November - Results of Afghanistan’s first nationwide survey on drug use, released on Thursday, show high levels of abuse throughout the post-conflict country, which remains the biggest producer of opium in the world. The survey, conducted by the ministries of counter narcotics and public health over 2005, revealed that there were at least 920,000 drug users in Afghanistan, including about 150,000 who take opium, 50,000 using heroin and 520,000 taking hashish. A total of 1,480 key informants and nearly 1,400 drug users were interviewed across the country for the survey.

December 2005

6 December - An estimated 1 million child labourers under 14 are deprived of education, health care and other necessary facilities for human development across Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday. “[Some] 25 percent of all children aged between seven and 14 years are involved in various forms of work across the country,” Edward Carwardine, an information officer for UNICEF, said in the Afghan capital Kabul, adding the majority of child labourers were involved in domestic work.

12 December - Kabul has welcomed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) decision on Friday to expand its peacekeeping mission, saying it would boost security in the post-conflict country. NATO foreign ministers approved mission rules last week for an expanded Afghan peacekeeping force for 2006, which Washington hopes will allow it to reduce US troop levels in the country. The agreement makes NATO's Afghanistan mission its biggest ever operation outside Europe.

14 December - At least 10 people, including three children, were injured and 200 homes destroyed when an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale hit northeastern Afghanistan early on Tuesday, officials at the interior ministry said on Wednesday. The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan. It struck shortly before 02:30 local time.

15 December - Recent remarks by the UN suggesting that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was likely to rise again next year, despite a significant drop in 2005, have drawn criticism from the government. The remarks were made by Doris Buddenberg, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) Representative in Afghanistan, at a UN press briefing on Monday in the capital Kabul. Buddenberg said that poppy cultivation in 2005 was down by 25 percent compared with the previous year, but would likely rise again in 2006.

20 December - Members of Afghanistan's first parliament after more than three decades of conflict were sworn in on Monday, marking a major milestone towards the fledgling state's future peace and stability. Afghanistan has had no elected parliament since 1973, when a succession of coups and a Soviet invasion plunged the country into anarchy, leaving more than 1 million people dead. Civil war raged in the early 1990s, followed by the hard line rule of the Taliban until December 2001.

22 December - An Afghan journalist jailed for publishing anti-Islamic articles has been freed following an appeal, a senior judge said on Thursday in the capital, Kabul. Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly magazine Haqooq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights), was arrested in October and sentenced to two years in jail after complaints about his articles, in particular one which questioned Islamic punishments for crimes such as adultery.

23 December - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved the first part of a projected US $105 million programme to reform Afghanistan's fiscal management and public administration systems, with an assistance package totalling $55 million. A loan of $48 million and grant of $7 million comprise the first of two three-year programmes to develop new systems and procedures to improve budget programming, strengthen resource mobilisation, improve the civil service and enhance monitoring of public finance, the bank said in a statement.