By empty (3/29/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

At a session in Baku on 29 March, representatives of the nine opposition parties aligned in the Democratic Congress nominated Musavat Party Chairman Isa Gambar as their joint candidate for the presidential elections due in mid-October 2003. Gambar, who served as parliament speaker under the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front government in 1992-93, was one of five leading opposition figures who boycotted the 1998 presidential ballot. (Turan).

By empty (3/28/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Pressured by Chinese officials to resolve quickly the case of a bus fire in which 21 people, most of them Chinese citizens, died, Kyrgyzstan has requested help from Chinese and Central Asian law enforcement agencies. An official from the Kyrgyz Prosecutor-General\'s Office said that the Kyrgyz authorities do not see a political motive for the crime. The dead passengers, at least some of whom were reported to have been shot, were earlier identified as Uighur traders from Xinjiang who were possibly returning home with large sums of cash.

By empty (3/28/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Iran and Turkmenistan have agreed to start work on charting their common border in the resource-rich Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan\'s leading state-run newspaper reported on Friday. The border demarcation \"will allow both states to start active realisation of oil and gas exploration projects in the sea border area\", the Neutralny Turkmenistan daily said. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, efforts to exploit potentially vast oil and gas reserves beneath the Caspian have been hampered by disputes over the sea borders between Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.