By empty (7/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Members of the official Kazakh Commission on Border Delimitation and Demarcation told a press conference in Shymkent on 23 July that Kazakhstan has already installed 270 markers on its common border with Uzbekistan, while the Uzbek side has installed only nine. The process of marking the border has been under way for several months; the course of the Kazakh-Uzbek border was determined through many years of negotiations. Kazakh border officials said that after they had complained to their Uzbek counterparts about the slow pace, Uzbek officials said they lacked both money and equipment to work faster, though they did not respond to a Kazakh offer of concrete posts.

By empty (7/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Two servicemen from a Georgian special-task unit have been killed in a shootout with Abkhaz policemen near the village of Gumrish in the republic\'s Tkvarcheli district, spokesman for the Abkhaz Interior Ministry Kristian Bzhania told Interfax in Friday. \"In a routine mission, Abkhaz policemen spotted a group of seven gunmen dressed in camouflage hiding out in a forested area last night. They opened fire when the policemen tried to detain them.

By empty (7/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgian police detained Vyacheslav Kuznetsov in the South Ossetian conflict zone on 22 July and took him to Tbilisi where a district court subsequently sentenced him to three months\' pretrial detention for entering Georgia without a valid visa. He is suspected of intending to join the South Ossetian armed forces as a mercenary. Kuznetsov, whom Georgian media identified as deputy ataman of the Kuban Cossacks, claimed he entered Georgia on a sightseeing tour.