tatement by the Political Council of the Adolat People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan.

The ghost of extremism and terrorism is haunting many places in the world, including the Central Asia countries. If serious attention is not paid to this and the required tough measures are not taken, these mean phenomena may take root and extremists may bring still more misfortune and trouble to the peoples of the region. We must wage an uncompromising war against terrorism, organized crime and extremism and draw relevant political and moral conclusions in the wake of any manifestations of these phenomena.

The evil actions of the terrorist groups, which have invaded mountainous areas of Saryassiya and Uzun districts of Surkhandarya Region, have aroused great anger among all members and supporters of the Adolat Social Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, as well as among all people. Meetings have been held at the party's primary organizations and the party also held round-table conferences, severely denouncing the villainous actions by the evil men, who, having invaded our country, are trying to disturb our peaceful life. The meetings also called on citizens to be more vigilant.

It has not been too long since the Republic of Uzbekistan gained its state independence. Despite this fact, the republic is facing pressure from the forces which are trying to divert it from its chosen path, and for their evil purposes trying to take our republic under their control. Using holy Islam as a cover, armed foreigners are posing a threat to our independence, the country' social system and peaceful life. They are rising against us as henchmen of the above-mentioned evil forces. But they will never live up to their expectations. Patient Uzbek people are capable of everything.

The Political Council of the Adolat Social Democratic Party of Uzbekistan on behalf of all members and supporters of the party strongly denounce the actions by these monsters and their patrons, curse them and ask the Creator to turn his wrath on them.

The Political Council of the Adolat Social Democratic Party of Uzbekistan fully approves of and supports all the actions being taken by the government to ensure state security and completely wipe out the aggressors.

The elimination of the enemies which have invaded our country and the protection of peace is a just and noble deed. This is not only everybody's sacred duty but also our most important task. No-one should stay on the sidelines when it comes to the accomplishment of this task because our homeland, Uzbekistan is the dearest and the most sacred thing for us. Its soil is the most precious thing for us and we will protect every inch of it as the apple of one's eye. We will not give Uzbekistan to anybody. Evil people with mean intentions will not get what they want. No doubt, they will die like dogs, in disgrace and be punished accordingly.

court in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, has sentenced a member of an armed group of three to death for killing a policeman, `Turkiston' newspaper reported on 16th August.

The three men were found guilty of robbing a man in his foreign-made private car in Tashkent. They then robbed a second man in his car, wounding the driver, and shot dead a policeman who appeared "unexpectedly", the report added. The date of the incident was not given.

nder a Tajik government resolution from 19th June 2000, procedures are being carried out to hand over the Oltin-Topkan [northern Soghd, former Leninobod, Region] ore enterprise to the Committee for Precious Metals under the Tajik government.

This is the only mine which after the declaration of Tajikistan's independence [in 1991] was being worked by Uzbekistan, despite being situated on our country's territory.

A meeting between the heads of the Committee for Precious Metals, the Regional administration and the enterprise's management was held on 11th August. A new director of the enterprise, L. Rahmatov, was introduced at the meeting.

"Within the next few years, the ore enterprise will be operated together with Uzbek colleagues, as the ore extracted here will be processed at Uzbek plants," the head of the Region's industrial department, Shavkat Bobojonov, told an Asia-Plus news agency correspondent.

The reconstruction of the roads and the bridge leading to the Oltin-Topkan settlement has begun. The ore enterprise extracts mainly zink and lead. The talks on its handover to Tajikistan began in 1996. (Tajik news agency Asia-Plus, August 17)

eaders of former Soviet republics hold an informal summit in Yalta this week to discuss security and economic problems on their bumpy road to closer ties.

Despite a planned concert, a sea trip and a generous dinner in a luxurious palace in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort, the talks on Friday and Saturday are likely to be overshadowed by bloody regional conflicts, terrorism and huge debts. At their previous summit in June, leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose alliance of 12 ex-Soviet republics, agreed unanimously to boost economic ties and efforts to fight terrorism and extremism, but experts say concrete results are slow in coming.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who currently chairs the CIS, was originally expected to hold a number of separate talks with other leaders on security and economic issues. But it is unclear whether Putin will stick to his initial program, amid the drama of the effort to save 116 Russian sailors trapped in a crippled nuclear submarine since the weekend.

SECURITY TO DOMINATE TALKS

Putin had been scheduled to meet the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have faced an uprising of Islamic rebels on their common border this month.

But Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev have both said they will not attend the summit amid the crises at home. The presidents of the Caucasus states of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are locked in a decade-long dispute over Azerbaijan's mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh governed by separatist ethnic Armenians, are expected to meet.

"The meeting with Azeri President Haydar Aliyev is most important to us," said Vahe Gabrielyan, spokesman for Armenian President Robert Kocharyan.

Moldova and Georgia have indicated that Presidents Petru Lucinschi and Eduard Shevardnadze both want to meet Putin to discuss unresolved separatist conflicts dating to the early 1990s. Russian troops have helped keep the peace in both states. Economic issues will also be on the agenda at a time when high oil prices are helping Russia recover from its 1998 crash. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has said he will discuss with Putin Ukraine's debts for natural gas supplies.

"There are many problems, especially in the energy sector. We are hanging in mid-air in this respect," Kuchma said.

Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who seeks to forge a "union state" with Russia, has chided Moscow for the slow pace of integration. His press service said he had postponed talks with Putin until the end of the summit. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, who likes to show off his independent role in regional politics and the CIS in general, will not come to Yalta because of a "busy work schedule", but Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will attend. (Reuters, August 17)

ccording to a report from the presidential press service, President Islam Karimov's participation in the forthcoming summit of the heads of CIS states on 18th-19th August in Crimea will not be possible due to the aggravation of the situation on the southern borders of Uzbekistan and attempts to carry out subversive acts.

roceeding from the latest demographic data, Uzbekistan's total population numbers around 25 million at present. A fifty per cent increase in the population took place in the last 20 years. Such a continuous increase of the population demands from the Uzbek government urgent steps. According to the observers, if the situation remains as it is the Uzbek government would be forced to take measures to limit the number of children in the families, a step taken by the Chinese government. In neighbouring Kazakhstan it the opposite - in the last period, with a 17m population, the rate of population growth has decreased four times. (Turkmen newspaper 'Watan')

he popularity of media agencies is strongly affected by how sensational the news stories they carry are. That is why sometimes some agencies distort truth in pursuit of a higher popularity rating, as in the case of some foreign media reports about the fire which broke out in oil wells at Kokdumalak oilfield [in southern Kashkadarya Region of Uzbekistan] on 27th July. Various sources exaggerated the amount of damage caused by the fire. Uzbek Emergency Situations Ministry specialists were directly involved in putting the fire out. A report by my colleague Khaydar Hasanov gives reliable first-hand information.

[Hasanov] How did you manage to deal with the aftermath of the fire?

[A uniformed man, captioned as S. Okhunov, a department head at the Uzbek Emergency Situations Ministry, shown speaking to microphone, with trees in the background] A fire did indeed break out in storage facilities at the condensate depot at the Kokdumalak oilfield of the Uzbekneftegaz [Uzbek oil and gas] national holding company's Mubarek oil and gas directorate on 27th July, as a result of an accident. On the morning of 30th July the fire was extinguished, with the help of equipment and specialists from the Uzbek Internal Affairs Ministry's fire-fighting directorate, the Emergency Situations Ministry and the Uzbekneftegaz national holding company. The measures undertaken prevented the fire from spreading further to other facilities immediately next to them. The necessary number of firefighters and amount of specialist equipment were sent to the scene of the accident. Firefighting arrangements were made to avoid the loss of human lives. Within two days a temporary mechanism for collecting and transporting gas condensate from the Kokdumalak oilfield was devised and put into operation. The work was completed in the shortest possible time, under extreme circumstances, making the maximum use of all means available.

[Q] What was the cause of the fire at the oilfield?

[A] At the present time a government commission is dealing with the accident and will find out the cause of the fire and estimate the amount of damage caused.

[Q] Several Russia media agencies carried reports saying that Uzbekistan failed to deal with the fire on its own and had to appeal to Russian specialists for help. To what extent does this information match the reality?

[A] This information is untrue - we merely had a telephone conversation with the heads of the Russian Emergencies Ministry on ways of putting fires out, as the fire we had was the largest in the last 20 years. For this reason, we only had a conversation on ways of putting out fires. Reports on the number of people afflicted does not match the reality either, since the Kokdumalak oilfield is far from residential areas. And the population did not suffer any damage as a result of the accident. There were also rumours that there was a shortage of fuel and lubricants in the republic at the time when the fire was being fought. If you, correspondents, had gone to any gas filling station at the time, you would have seen for yourselves that there was no such shortage. The Bukhara and Fergana oil refineries were supplying the country's economy with sufficient fuel and lubricants at that time. (Uzbek TV, August 12)

he outbreak of anthrax in the Republic of Kazakhstan is causing serious concern in neighbouring countries. What actions are being taken to prevent this disease, which epidemiologists describe as being extremely dangerous to human life, from spreading in our country?

[N. Otabekov, captioned as head of the Health Ministry's public health and epidemiology department, shown speaking to camera, with trees in an enfenced area in the background] Anthrax is considered to be an extremely dangerous infectious disease. It is passed on mostly from animals. Because the situation around our republic is quite complex, measures have been outlined to prevent the disease spreading

Given that the disease is transmitted mainly through meat, the disease can be passed on as a result of slaughtering infected livestock without the approval of veterinary surgeons. Our people and forefathers know that the blood of infected cattle meat is dark red in colour. For this reason it is risky to buy and consume cattle meat which has not been inspected by a vet. (Uzbek TV, August 12)

n 2000-2003, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) may grant the government of Uzbekistan credits worth 660m dollars for 15 projects.

The money will be granted for projects in agriculture, education, motor and railway transport and also social infrastructure, national coordinator of the ADB office in Tashkent Rafael Nadyrshin told Interfax. Before the end of 2000, the bank intends to grant Uzbekistan 50m dollars for loans to small and medium businesses, 36m dollars for development of agricultural enterprises and 70m dollars for reconstructing part of the Samarkand-Bukhara railway line.

In addition, the bank's administration is currently considering projects aimed at supporting reforms in education, water-resources management and corporate management in the agroindustrial complex.

Since 1996, the ADB has granted Uzbekistan 50m dollars for development of small and medium businesses, 40m dollars to publish school textbooks, 57m dollars for development of high school vocational education, 70m dollars for reconstruction of railways and 50m dollars for repairing highways. (Interfax, August 11)

resident Karimov signed decrees appointing Risboy Juraev minister of public education and releasing Jura Yuldashev from this post.

easurements indicate that the water level in the Amudarya river, especially in its lower reaches, is currently the lowest since monitoring began. Supplying water to many areas of Karakalpakstan has become very difficult. Since early April, only 20-30 cubic metres of water per second has been discharged from the hydraulic section of the Takhiatash hydrosystem, which supplies water to 13 Districts of Karakalpakstan, while during the maximum flood period, quite unusually, it was no more than 200-250 cu.m. per second. And even that low level lasted only 21 days. An extremely difficult situation has developed in the northern areas of the republic. The canals have brought virtually no water to the area. In these circumstances, the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan has adopted a special resolution envisaging a package of effective measures intended to stabilize the situation in Karakalpakstan.

Amongst other things, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan plans to repair and equip 39 wells at rural water-intake facilities, to set up 2,000 manual pumps to supply the population of remote settlements with water from underground fresh water sources, to restore 53 desalination plants in the countryside and to buy and install 70 diesel pumps to water crops. An additional amount of cotton and husks have been allotted from the Cabinet of Ministers' insurance fund to support the cattle of agricultural enterprises.

The necessity of collecting water from unorganized sources of water in its turn creates hygiene and epidemiological problems. There are already frequent cases of outbreaks of infectious diseases. In this difficult situation the government bodies of the Republic of Karakalpakstan and various districts are exerting maximum efforts to stabilize the supply of good-quality drinking water to remote settlements and social infrastructure facilities. Special commissions have been set up in all districts, vehicles have been mobilized to transport drinking water and previously unused springs and wells are being restored. Hygiene standards at water supply resources are regularly monitored. At present 197 tankers, trailer cisterns and other equipment is being used to transport drinking water around the republic.

But the measures taken cannot solve the problem fully yet. Extra vehicles are sorely needed to transport water to the population and local municipal and health bodies are in need of the necessary quantity of disinfectants and reagents.

There is a hope that with the active assistance of the appropriate bodies and other areas of the country, the residents of Karakalpakstan will be able to overcome the difficulties caused by the unprecedented water shortage. (Narodnoe Slovo newspaper, August 5)

he Tojikiston State Airlines has prepared a pleasant gift for passengers. After a long break, caused by a number of objective reasons, regular flights resumed today between the capitals of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Dushanbe and Tashkent.

This was possible thanks to the recent summit and talks in Dushanbe of the heads of the two neighbouring states, President Emomali Rahmonov and President Islam Karimov, the management of the airline company told a Khovar news agency correspondent. Khovar news agency had reported that an agreement on eternal friendship was signed between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan [on 15th June 2000]. (Tajik Khovar news agency, August 14)