Hi uw,
I think you also need to include "woman" in that statement too. The men do play more on the death side of the equation though, women on the birth side.
Onto brighter things. Bridge now open.
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news.bbc.co.uk
Breakthrough in Afghan aid effort
Thousands gathered in Kabul to collect aid supplies
A train carrying vital humanitarian aid for Afghanistan crossed the border from Uzbekistan on Sunday. It is the first time the Friendship Bridge, which extends across the Amu Darya river from the border town of Termez, has opened to traffic for four years.
The move follows talks in Tashkent on Saturday between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Aid agencies say supplies are desperately needed in the north
And on Saturday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) began the biggest aid operation ever mounted in the country, handing out sacks of wheat in the capital, Kabul.
Thousands of people queued for the supplies at 16 collection points across the city. At some points, there were chaotic scenes as people jostled and pushed forward to get a single sack of wheat.
It is estimated that this winter, about six million people across Afghanistan will be dependent on aid from the WFP.
Click here for map of the border area of northern Afghanistan
In another development, the Tajik Government has reopened a ferry crossing to Afghanistan across the Pyandzh river,
A convoy of more than 20 trucks from Russia is reported to have crossed the river on Sunday morning and to be on its way to Kabul.
In other developments:
US forces in Afghanistan step up their hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other members of the al-Qaeda network. A Northern Alliance helicopter crashes killing 18 people, including an Alliance commander and two ethnic Pashtun leaders.There are conflicting reports about the situation in Kandahar, as rival militias seek to take control of the city. A team of United Nations experts arrives in Afghanistan to prepare for the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds talks in Kazakhstan with President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Uzbekistan has been under strong international pressure to reopen the Friendship Bridge as the harsh winter arrives, amid mounting concern about the welfare of Afghans displaced by fighting.
Decision welcomed
The train, pulling about 15 coachloads of grain and flour provided by the WFP and the Uzbek Government, shunted across the symbolic midway line marking the border between the two countries and came to a halt on the Afghan side.
Aid is currently being transferred across the border by barge
A sign in Russian on the side of the coaches read: "Aid from the Uzbek people to the fraternal people of Afghanistan".
As it reached the Afghan side, the train was met by the ethnic Uzbek Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who then inspected the load.
International aid agencies welcomed the announcement that the bridge was to be re-opened.
A spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund, Rudy Rodrigues, told the BBC he was delighted with the news, which he said would greatly speed up the delivery of aid.
We are sitting here hungry, on the brink of starvation, and nobody is interested in our plight
Refugee near Mazar-e-Sharif
The journey by road to Mazar-e-Sharif, the site of a major Afghan refugee camp, takes just 40 minutes along this route.
But without the bridge, it can take up to 10 days to deliver aid supplies to northern Afghanistan, using routes through Turkmenistan and Pakistan.
The bridge was closed in 1997 after serious clashes erupted between Taleban and opposition forces, sparking fears in Tashkent that violence could spread across the border.
During the current US military campaign against the Taleban regime, the Uzbek authorities have allowed the UN to ship aid by barge across the river, but agencies warned that this was insufficient to get supplies to the people who most needed them.
'Children dying'
There are an estimated 150,000 refugees living in flimsy tents in a refugee camp near Mazar-e-Sharif, where snows have arrived and temperatures drop below freezing every night.
Aid agencies say young children are already dying due to lack of warm clothing, and temperatures are expected to fall further in the days ahead.
Mazar-e-Sharif is regarded by the aid agencies as a key distribution point for supplying northern Afghanistan and for sending aid down to the central highlands, where many Afghans will soon be blocked off by snow. |
