By empty (8/27/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Heroin from Afghanistan is sweeping through Russia with drug trafficking operations extending across the nation\'s eleven time zones, a senior government official said Tuesday. \"A heroin attack from the south has become the most acute problem for us,\" said Alexander Mikhailov, deputy head of Russia\'s newly-established drug control committee. In a move which highlighted the Kremlin\'s concern about the rapid spread of drugs, President Vladimir Putin set up the committee in March, naming Viktor Cherkesov, a longtime confidant and fellow KGB veteran, to head it.

By empty (8/2/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

A bomb attack on a military hospital in southern Russia has killed more than 30 people, officials have said. Eyewitnesses say a lorry packed with explosives crashed through entrance gates at the hospital, and a suicide bomber at the wheel blew himself up. The blast destroyed the four-storey building at a military base in the town of Mozdok, 10 kilometres (six miles) away from the breakaway Russian province of Chechnya.

By empty (8/5/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The recent outbreak of plague in western Kazakhstan has been traced to desert gerbils found near the village of Zhangeldi in Mangystau Oblast, the home of the three confirmed plague victims, and at desert camps not far from Aktau, the oblast administrative center. Local residents and the staff of the oil and gas companies working in the oblast are being vaccinated against the disease. Oblast health officials are reportedly trying to find out why a vaccine given to camels in Zhangeldi did not prevent one of the animals from passing the disease to the three victims.