KHUJAND, January 30, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Several newspapers in the northern Sughd province were not brought out yesterday due to severe power shortages.

Thus, the Khujand independent weekly, Varoroud, was not printed yesterday following electricity supply disruptions.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Joura Yusufi, deputy editor of Varoroud, said that this week, they had electricity only two days, and only two hours per day.  “Therefore, we failed to prepare this edition for publication,” Yusufi said, noting that serious financial situation of the weekly did not allow them to purchase generator.

Engineer-in-chief with the regional publishing house Hojibobo Sa’diyev said that although the enterprise had been put on the list of strategic sites that should not be affected by the electricity rationing, electricity disruptions have hit the enterprise, causing technical damage to it.  “Printing equipment may become unserviceable and the province will remain without periodicals at all,” Sa’diyev said.