By empty (6/20/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday ruled out the creation of a \"gas OPEC,\" an idea implicitly floated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Interfax reported. \"There are no plans to create a gas OPEC; I haven\'t heard such calls,\" the news agency quoted Lavrov as saying. Lavrov did not expand, but his remarks appeared to be the first Russian reaction to a proposal made by Ahmadinejad during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin last week.

By empty (6/19/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, who succeeded Aslan Maskhadov early last year as president of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) and leader of the Chechen resistance, was killed early on June 17 in a two-hour exchange of fire in his home town of Argun, east of Grozny, Russian and Chechen media reported. The resistance website chechenpress.org quoted an unnamed eyewitness as saying that some 300 Russian and 50 pro-Moscow Chechen troops backed by armor took part in the attack on Sadulayev, in which numerous Russians were also killed.

By empty (6/17/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Leaders from some 17 countries met in Almaty on June 17 to attend a one-day summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. Host and Kazakh President Nazarbaev called on the assembled leaders to deepen cooperation on a wide range of pressing regional issues, including environmental degradation and poverty. The summit closed with an announcement pledging greater cooperation in the areas of regional security, energy, trade, and counterterrorism.