The list has the names of 9,716,413 registered voters. However, this is not the full list. Because the voter registration period had to be extended, as you'll recall the original plan was for voter registration to go until July and it was extended until the 20th of August, some 800,000 names did not make it by the cutoff date of September 24th. And when I say, "did not make it", it is that they have not yet entered into the database, which generates the list of voters. According to the rules set out by the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), 15 days before the election day, this list of voters had to be submitted to the JEMB. The deadline was Friday September 24th.

Even though the names of the 800 thousand or so are not on the list, all voters that have their registration cards will be able to present themselves at the voting stations and vote on October 9th.

Data entry of the remaining names will resume after the Presidential election. Registration, as we have been telling you, will also resume in order to allow refugees who are coming back to the country and have not yet registered, or people who missed the opportunity to register, or people who became 18 years of age since the closure of registration, will be able to register in order to participate in the legislative elections which will be taking place in this coming spring.

It is the view of the JEMB that a good-faith effort was made to give every eligible Afghan a reasonable opportunity to register and that registration procedures were implemented throughout the country.

Operations are on course in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, including of course Quetta and Peshawar. New arrangements by the IOM team with the support of the Pakistani authorities have made it possible to expand registration and voting to Islamabad as well. As a result there will now be 1,800 registration and voting sites in some 400 locations.

The Pakistani authorities are providing good support to the operation, in particular in what concerns addressing security concerns.

During his brief visit to the Pakistani capital, Deputy Special Representative Grandi met with the Minister of Interior and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Frontiers (SAFRON).

As you know, out-of-country registration in Pakistan is planned to take place for three days, beginning on October 1st and voting will be happening on the 9th October, the same day of voting here in Afghanistan and in Iran.

The Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) started collecting heavy weapons in Heart just eight days ago and has already moved about 130 of the 286 heavy weapons known to exist in the west. Cantonment began in Kandahar just six days ago and already 86 of the 337 heavy weapons in the area have been moved to a cantonment site as well.

The number of officers and soldiers who have turned in their weapons and started their return to civilian life is rapidly approaching the 17,000 mark. To date, more than 16,880 men have started the DDR programme, and some 12,870 weapons have been collected as soldiers and officers handed in their weapons. As a measure to indicate the new DDR momentum, I would like to note that on September 5th, which is two days prior the presidential decree of 7 September which established the basis for the speeding up of DDR, some 14,300 men had disarmed. This means that in just three weeks over 2,500 men have gone through disarmament.

Of these 17,000 that we have now, 13,835 have started the reintegration process. From the reintegration options made available to the by the ANBP, almost 42 percent are opting for agricultural package, and 40 percent are choosing vocational training in areas like carpentry, tailoring and metal work. 7 percent are choosing training in de-mining, and another 7 percent are opting for the small business packages. The remaining officers and soldiers have chosen to join the national army and the national police or contracting teams.

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is an internationally recognized system of gathering data on a selected number of indicators showing the condition of women and children in a particular country.

The second report that UNICEF is also launching, is titled "Changing Lives - an opportunity analysis", which attempts to further scrutinize the data provided by the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and other recent reports concerning women and children in Afghanistan, and provide recommendations on how the condition of children can be improved.

He said that UN agencies and donors provided support to the Provincial Emergency Fund and small grants are available to Provincial authorities for immediate relief in the form of trucking water and digging wells.

Participants will now be able to train their counterparts in concepts of participation, observation techniques, participatory planning approaches and effective presentation of results using a detailed analytical tool.

It also notes from the Code of Conduct that the mass media shall not publish or broadcast any material which, by its content or tone, carries a clear and immediate risk of inciting ethnic, religious or gender-based hatred. Mass media shall make every effort to ensure that their coverage of news and public affairs is factually accurate, complete, fair, equitable and unbiased. It also notes that the mass media play an essential role in the democratic process, therefore it is imperative that media be afforded the highest level of access to election-related events, access to information, and protection from all forms of harassment and or intimidation as reasonably possible during the election campaign.

The government, its authorities, officials or representatives shall not harass or prevent journalists from carrying out professional activities, including interviewing people, gathering information, publishing reports and criticizing views and opinions.

World Food Programme Public Affairs Officer, Maarten Roest

To begin with in Ghor province, where distributions were stalled because of the violence in Heart, only four days later we resumed distributions between September 16 and 22, 1,200 metric tons (MT) of food was dispatched to over 34,000 people. Now WFP plans to provide up to 1,700 tons of food to some 40,000 people in this province before winter sets in and the region becomes virtually inaccessible to humanitarian assistance.

Over the same period, 321,000 people received 1,130 MT of food assistance in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Nimroz, Uruzgan and Zabul. In the southeastern provinces of Ghazni, Paktiya and Khost, 500 MT of food was dispatched to nearly 35,000 people. And in the northern province of Faryab 250 MT of food was provided to some 70,000 people.

As you may aware this WFP drought response is part of the Afghan government's emergency drought appeal launched earlier this month. WFP is planning to extend assistance to an additional 1.4 million people up to the next harvest in May. This contribution involves up to 80,000 MT of food valued at US$52 million.

The main intervention of the assistance is through food-for-work where people are unable to work, there is free food distributions included.

There is a press release here at the side table. Thank you very much.

UNHCR Spokesperson, Mohammad Nader Farhad

There will not be voter registration for Afghan refugees in Iran because the registration of Afghans in Iran was conducted in 2003. However, UNHCR will continue during the election period to register those Afghans in Pakistan who seek to repatriate and will assist them to depart as of 11 October.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has set October 1-3 for the registration of Afghans who wish to participate in the election in Pakistan. The actual voting will take place on 9 October. It was feared that conducting repatriation at the same time could produce confusion and potentially prevent some Afghans from participating in the election.

The number of assisted returns of Afghan refugees this year had reached over 765,000 this week. The rate of return from Iran continues to increase. In recent weeks up to 4,000 people a day have returned from Iran. Over 400,000 Afghans have only returned since the beginning of the year.

More than one million refugees have returned from Iran to Afghanistan since the beginning of the UNHCR voluntary reparation programme in April 2002.

Since the voluntary repatriation programme began in March 2002, more than 2.25 million Afghans have repatriated from Pakistan, including 360,000 in the current year. About one million remain in refugee camps in Pakistan and an unknown, but substantial, number of Afghans live in urban areas.

UNHCR offers a package of assistance to those Afghans in Pakistan who wish to repatriate, including a travel grant ranging from $3 to $30 depending on the distance and $8 per person to assist in re-integration.

In addition to assisting the returns of Afghan refugees, UNHCR in collaboration with IOM and other partner agencies have assisted over 10,000 internally displaced people to return home this year. The returns are taking place mainly from the southern provinces, west and in the north.

The total number of Afghans who have been assisted or unassisted returned home since 2002 when UNHCR launched the voluntary repatriation programme is more than 3.6 million mainly from Pakistan and Iran.

Questions and Answers

Question: You've indicated in your report that this year's drought is the most severe ever, when in 1997 it was indicated that that drought was the most severe. What is the difference between this year's drought and the last?

Maarten Roest: If there are references to the most severe drought, then it is a reference to this year's drought on the assumption that this year's drought is a continuation of the drought that you are referring to. I'm not a meteorological specialist, but that is the assumption that is being held right now. So this drought that started in 1999 with a brief interruption last year seems to be continuing this year.

Compared to the references to four other droughts in this century, so I think that is more or less the reference the worst drought in living memory.

But I think we have to wait for the specialists to speak out and to see if this is true. As of yet it has been said by some of our colleagues, not by WFP if I recollect well, but this is more or less the size of the drought.