2008/09/30
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96345
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Amal Jayasinghe
Agence France Presse
KHANAQIN, Iraq: A mirror image of Kirkuk, the Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near the border with Iran, that holds sizeable oil reserves is being exposed to ethnic tensions and rival territorial claims. Local Kurdish political leaders warn that the area could see an explosion in ethnic violence, as they call for Khanaqin to join the adjoining autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq.
"What we are telling the government is simple. Implement the constitutional provision for a referendum for people in Khanaqin to decide their future," said Mala Bakhtyar, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish political party of Iraq's President Jalal Talabani.
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However, Khanaqin itself has no Iraqi forces. Iraq's flag is flown by the Kurdish peshmerga fighters alongside their own flags at checkpoints and outside mini-camps.
All government buildings and private homes fly the Kurdish flag. The Kurdish tricolor - red, green and white, with a rising star in the middle - is also seen outside most homes along the main highway to Khanaqin.
Talks are under way between the PUK, a key coalition partner in the KRG, and the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the simmering tension between federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga troops.
The Kurds in Khanaqin are mainly Shiite Muslims.
A peshmerga field commander, Bakhtyar, led Kurdish fighters to take control over this town after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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The stakes in Khanaqin have risen because of high world oil prices. The town's mayor, Mohammad Mala Hassan, 52, said he was "sitting on an ocean of oil, but unable to get anything out of it. I don't have any money for work here."
Hassan, who drives his own pick-up truck accompanied by heavily-armed peshmerga and with a pistol at his waist, said the region could see violence if Iraqi authorities resist a move by Khanaqin to join Kurdistan.
He said one of Iraq's first oil wells was located in his town after the discovery of black gold in Iraq in 1927. "We don't have a refinery here. We had 35 oil wells before they were closed down by Saddam," he said.
Asked if there was a peaceful way to resolve ethnic tensions and exploit the vast oil wealth, Hassan said: "Yes. Hold the referendum. That is the only way."
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80641
KABUL, 29 September 2008 (IRIN) - Population growth and the construction boom in Kabul over the past few years have resulted in the daily production of over 3,000 tonnes of solid waste. Some of this has been accumulating, causing serious health and environmental damage, according to Kabul Municipality.
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Despite its 2,000 workers and 110 trucks, the municipality says it cannot keep pace with daily solid waste production in Kabul.
"We need more and better resources to keep the city somehow clean," said Ghori, adding that weak public support for waste management was a "major problem".
Kabul Municipality dumps tonnes of solid waste and rubbish in the Dashte Chemtala plains, about 7km north of Kabul. However, there is insufficient equipment to dispose of all the solid waste safely.
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Water-borne diseases
Kabul's estimated three million-plus residents have no integrated sewage system and according to the State of the World's Toilets 2007 report, Afghanistan's toilets are "the world's worst".
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that only 12 percent of Afghans have access to sanitation and 23 percent to improved drinking water, and says water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea kill thousands of children annually.
Medical doctors at Kabul's Indira Gandhi Child Hospital (IGCH) said many children had picked up diarrhoea, dysentery or cholera from contaminated water. "Unsafe drinking water causes almost half of the diseases among children," said Khalilullah Hodkhil, head of the IGCH.
The city's once teeming River Kabul has now dried up and is a repository for waste and a source of disease. Officials in Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency have requested US$5 million to clean up the river.
"Uncollected waste pollutes the air and also produces various harmful vermin," Kabul Municipality's Ghori said.