By empty (6/26/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the ambassadors of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova (the GUUAM group) at the State Department June 24 to discuss multilateral projects on regional security and economic development, and the 3-4 July GUUAM Summit of Heads of State in Yalta, Ukraine. The Deputy Secretary underscored US interest in and enthusiastically endorsed the progress made on joint US-GUUAM projects in trade and transport facilitation and law enforcement cooperation. Deputy Secretary Armitage emphasised that the United States has high expectations that agreements on these programmes will be approved at the GUUAM Summit of Heads of State in Yalta, Ukraine on 3-4 July 2003.

By empty (6/26/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Telecom Development Company of Afghanistan (TDCA) officially launched Roshan - which means \"light\" in Pashto - on Thursday. The new GSM network will now undergo tests for the next four to six weeks before its commercial launch. The firm says it will roll out its service in Kabul and the main cities of Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kunduz by the end of the year, at a cost of about $55m (£33m).

By empty (6/26/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Social Democratic Party chairman Rahmatullo Zoirov said on 26 June that he has submitted his resignation as an aide to President Imomali Rakhmonov to protest the conduct of the 22 June referendum in which an overwhelming majority of voters reportedly endorsed sweeping constitutional amendmendments. The Tajik leadership ignored the Social Democratic Party\'s public criticism of those amendments. Zoirov said it would be politically unethical for him to continue to hold both positions.