By empty (6/24/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The upper house of the Kazakh parliament ratified a series of border agreements with its Central Asian neighbors Thursday, putting to rest one of the contentious issues left unresolved by the Soviet collapse. Also Thursday, lawmakers ratified an agreement with Azerbaijan over division of the Caspian Sea, debates over which have prevented tapping the vast oil resources lying beneath its waters. Kazakhstan\'s agreements with southern neighbors Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were first signed between the governments over the last decade.

By empty (6/23/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The United States expressed dissatisfaction Monday with a weekend referendum in Tajikistan on a constitutional change that could allow President Emomali Rakhmonov to stay in power until 2020. \"We have repeatedly stated that a constitutional referendum in that country should meet international standards for transparency,\" State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said.

By empty (6/23/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Tajikistan\'s Emomali Rakhmonov took out a 17-year lease on his country\'s presidency after Tajiks voted massively for constitutional changes that allow him to stand for two more seven-year terms of office after his current mandate expires in 2006. Announcing figures reminiscent of Soviet era elections, a spokesman for the central electoral commission said that according to provisional results, 93.13 percent of voters had approved the amendments in a poll in which 96.