DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Nov 4 (UNHCR) - The UN refugee agency and the Canadian government have teamed up in programmes that could resettle nearly 2,000 Afghans who had been stranded in Central Asia for years with no hope of returning to their homeland.

Two Canadian immigration officers have just concluded weeks of interviews in Tajikistan that are likely to lead to the resettlement of about 1,000 Afghan refugees. At the same time, UNHCR announced in Turkmenistan that Canada had accepted some 140 refugees interviewed there - 64 Afghans, followed by 47 ethnic Armenians who had fled Azerbaijan

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A resolution issued by Uzbekistan's government on 4 February that allows the Uzbek authorities to tax foreign humanitarian assistance at a rate of 40 percent of its value could endanger the work of such organizations in Uzbekistan, RIA-Novosti reported on 25 February. The report cited remarks made at a press conference at the German Embassy in Tashkent that day by Wolfgang Schreiber, who was the representative of the Adenauer Foundation in Uzbekistan for many years and who is now the coordinator of a foundation providing information to entrepreneurs.

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ANDIJAN, 19 January (IRIN) - Although Uzbekistan is the world's eighth largest producer of natural gas, many of its people are forced to sit out the sub-zero winter months with little or no power, leading to serious health problems, like tuberculosis asthma and influenza. Many families risk death and serious injury by constructing their own highly dangerous heating systems.

Sanobar Kurbonova is a 52-year-old widowed mother of eight children who has to endure such conditions. Her husband