"We didn't have any access to clean drinking water since our village was established years ago. We used to drink water from these aryks [small irrigation ditches]," Takhir Akhmatakhunov,

As part of the exercise, running from

The Ferghana Valley is known as one of the main centers of Islamic activity in the region. The radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and other extremist groups were founded in the valley, which straddles the territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Prague, 17 October 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Nineteen-year-old Kayumars Ato Ato has spent most of his life in Pongoz, a Tajik village in the densely populated Ferghana Valley. Like young people everywhere,

The gradual drying up of the Aral Sea has left a toxic wasteland threatening some three million local residents and "will cause climate change over a vast territory", Rakhmonov said.

Clouds of pesticide-laden salt continue to be blown into the surrounding region, the central Asian republics of Kazkhstan and Uzbekistan.

BISHKEK, July 18 (AFP) - The death of a Kyrgyz man in a dispute with Uzbek border guards in Central Asia's fragmented Ferghana Valley has drawn fresh attention to the antagonisms dividing several of the region's former Soviet neighbours.

Adylzhan Orkunbayev, 21, was shot dead late Wednesday after he and three other Kyrgyz residents got into an argument with Uzbek guards over the Uzbek authorities' destruction of a bridge across a nearby section of river border, a Kyrgyzstan cabinet official said.

"The Kyrgyz man was on Kyrgyz territory,

In Brief

Appeal coverage: 69.3%; (As of

A Preliminary Appeal was launched on 21 September 2001 for CHF 8,765,000 for two months. Responding to the evolving situation, revision no. 1 was issued on 3 October 2001, with the budget increased to CHF 40,280,340 for six months. Revision no. 2 was issued on