By empty (9/9/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Nurtai Dutbaev, who is chairman of Kazakhstan\'s National Security Committee (KNB), said on 9 September that the KNB has no information that any ethnic Kazakhs were involved in the bloody school siege in Beslan, in Russia\'s republic of North Ossetia. Noting that the KNB has been in contact with Russian security services from the outset, Dutbaev stressed that \"the situation has not yet been fully clarified.\" He said initial reports spoke of a Ukrainian-born ethnic Kazakh with Russian citizenship who went over to the side of Chechen militants after fighting in Chechnya for the Russian Army in 1994.

By empty (9/9/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The moderate opposition party Ak Zhol has sent an appeal to President Nazarbaev charging that state-run television is favoring specific candidates in the run-up to the 19 September parliamentary elections, Kazakh television reported on 8 September. Meanwhile, the election bloc of Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan and the Communist Party of Kazakhstan held a small unauthorized rally in Almaty on 8 September to protest violations of campaign-spending limits by the pro-presidential Asar party. Two bloc candidates and 40 supporters charged that Asar has spent $700,000 more on political advertising than is allowed.

By empty (9/8/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgian Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze announced on 8 September that Georgia will significantly expand the deployment of Georgian peacekeepers in Iraq. In a statement to the media following his return from a fact-finding visit to Iraq, Baramidze added that the number of Georgian troops in Iraq will be increased from 159 to 300 in the next rotation, set for October. The planned increase is actually less than expected, as previous Defense Ministry plans called for an expansion of the Georgian contingent to 550 personnel.