By empty (7/6/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Azerbaijan said on Wednesday it had jailed a group of Afghan, British, Jordanian and Russian citizens for plotting terrorist acts. A court sitting in closed session last month convicted the nine men of planning terrorism, of illegal arms possession, crossing borders illegally and of forging documents, the National Security Ministry said in a statement. Sentences handed out to the group, which also included three Azeris, ranged from 15 years in jail to three-year suspended sentences, the ministry said.

By empty (7/6/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Russian and Kazakh state oil firms, Rosneft and KazMunaiGas, signed a deal on Wednesday to invest $23 billion in a 55-year production sharing agreement for the Kurmangazy oilfield in the Caspian Sea.Kazakh first deputy energy minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov told reporters recoverable oil reserves at Kurmangazy were estimated at 980 million tons (more than 7 billion barrels). If confirmed Kurmangazy would prove to be one of the world\'s largest deposits and help Kazakhstan join the league of top oil producers as the country wants to triple production to over 3 million barrels per day by 2015.

By empty (7/6/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The so-called color revolutions in former Soviet republics have brought troubles to the peoples where they occurred, ex-Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev said in a Wednesday interview with Interfax. \"I believe that on the whole, the color revolutions that have happened in the post-Soviet territory have not done anything good. On the contrary, they have turned out to be troubles for the peoples of the countries where they have taken place,\" Akayev said.