By empty (7/28/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Hussein Dzhabrailov, deputy director of Moscow\'s Rossiya Hotel, told ITAR-TASS on 25 July he will \"soon\" officially inform the Chechen Central Election Commission of his intention to contest the 5 October presidential ballot. He argued that the standoff between Chechnya and the federal center should be resolved exclusively by political means, through the consolidation of Chechen society. Four other prospective candidates have announced their own presidential bids: Said-Khamzat Gairbekov, retired officer Zaindi Mavlatov, Moscow-based businessman Malik Saidullaev, and Grozny university professor Avkhad Khachukaev.

By empty (7/28/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko said that experts are expected to finish drafting all documents on the establishment of a common economic space in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine by the CIS summit in September. \"There are still a lot of different opinions, approaches and disagreement. But everyone today has a similar vision of the structure of this single economic space,\" Khristenko said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

By empty (7/29/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The fifth congress of Kyrgyzstan\'s Uighurs was held on 28 July, RFE/RL\'s Kyrgyz Service reported the same day. A total of 350 delegates from around the country gathered in Bishkek to hear a report by the chairman of the Uighur Society, Ittipak Rozmukhambet Abdulbakiev, who was re-elected at the congress. Abdulbakiev noted that recent assertions in the Kyrgyz media that Uighurs have been involved in criminal activities connected with separatists who want to set up an independent Uighur state in China\'s Xinjiang Province have harmed the Uighur community in Kyrgyzstan.