By empty (6/28/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

A Tbilisi court remanded three residents of the Republic of North Ossetia, which is part of the Russian Federation, to three months\' pre-trial detention on 26 June on charges of illegally crossing the border between North Ossetia and South Ossetia, which is part of Georgia, two days earlier. The three men were reportedly armed and wearing military uniforms, and according to the Georgian Ministry of State Security, are suspected of espionage. On 25 June, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the Georgian accusation of espionage leveled against the three detainees, who are Russian citizens, as an attempt to fuel anti-Russian feeling.

By empty (6/28/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

No cases of relations between Ingush law enforcement agencies and gunmen have been found, Sergey Fridinsky, the Deputy General Prosecutor in the Southern Federal District, told journalists after a closed meeting of the State Duma Security Committee, which took place today. As such, he has refuted information about treasons in law enforcement agencies that appeared in several mass media sources. In his turn, Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin pointed out that all personnel had acted with heroism and nobody had deserted their posts.

By empty (6/28/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Four Central Asian countries and several international organizations signed an agreement on Monday to jointly fight the growing threat of AIDS epidemic in the region. The agreement lays grounds for a joint anti-AIDS project between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the World Bank, the United Nation\'s AIDS agency and the British government\'s Department for International Development. According to the World Bank, the number of registered HIV cases in formerly Soviet Central Asia has been growing at the rate of the epidemic — from about 500 new cases in 2000 to more than 8,000 this year.