By empty (7/6/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Four Russians soldiers were killed and at least 11 injured in a helicopter crash in separatist Chechnya, Interfax reported. \"The helicopter suffered a catastrophe a few seconds after liftoff,\" the news agency quoted air force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying. Drobyshevsky said officials were not yet sure what caused the crash outside the breakaway republic\'s second largest city Gudermes, but did not rule out that it was shot down by a rebel missile.

By empty (7/4/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Three influential Kazakh parliamentarians -- Communist Party leader Serikbolsyn Abdildin, Vladislav Kosarev, and Tolen Tokhtasynov --have written a letter to President Nazarbaev, calling on him to reveal the names of the high-level Kazakh functionaries allegedly involved in the bribery scandal known as \"Kazakhgate,\" because the affair is damaging the image of the country at home and abroad. Tokhtasynov read the letter to the joint session of parliament held that day. Its authors point out that no official Kazakh media outlet has explained the affair, although the independent media are publishing a great deal about it and the entire country is aware of the affair.

By empty (7/1/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Speaking on 27 June in the east Anatolian city of Kars, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara will not open its border with Armenia until that country formally abandons its international campaign for recognition that the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 constituted genocide, RFE/RL\'s Yerevan bureau reported. But Erdogan did not insist, as Turkish politicians have hitherto done, that establishing diplomatic relations with Armenia is contingent on a solution to the Karabakh conflict that leaves the enclave a part of Azerbaijan. A senior Armenian official told RFE/RL that Turkey is under pressure from the United States to open its border with Armenia and might do so prior to establishing diplomatic relations.