News Digest
OIL CONSORTIUM BOOSTS PRODUCTION IN AZERBAIJAN
By empty (8/30/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Azerbaijani Government has given the formal go-ahead to the next stage of a major oil production agreement with an international oil consortium led by the British oil company, BP. The head of Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar signed the agreement, allowing the consortium to increase production at the three offshore oil fields - Chirag, Azeri and Guneshli - it operates. The consortium says within four years it aims to produce three times the amount of oil it does now, from 100,000 barrels to 350,000 barrels a day.MOSCOW SEEKS TO CALM NORTH OSSETIA-INGUSH TENSIONS
By empty (8/30/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Interior Ministry Major General Yakov Stakhov, the special Russian presidential representative on the regulation of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, told that he and his colleagues are working to prevent any further exacerbation of tensions between the two ethnic communities. Meanwhile, officials in North Ossetia said that they are taking special measures to prevent any terrorist actions there, even as the Ingush government released a statement in Moscow accusing North Ossetia of "crude violation of human rights" against Ingush nationals. (RFE/RL) ALIEV TO GO TO TEHRAN AT LAST 29 August President Heidar Aliev will make an official visit to Iran on 17 September, Iranian officials said in Baku on 29 August.GEORGIA SAID THREATENED BY DEMOGRAPHIC CATASTROPHE
By empty (8/29/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Toma Gugushvili, a Georgian expert on migration, told Interfax that Georgia has entered into a new phase of demographic catastrophe. Over the last decade, he said, the population of his country had declined by 20 percent. Most of the decline reflects the departure of working-age people, Gugushvili said.SHEVARDNADZE TO MEET U.S. PRESIDENT BUSH IN OCTOBER
By empty (8/29/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The White House announced on 29 August that President George W. Bush will meet with visiting Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze on 5 October. (Caucasus Press).Visit also
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Joint Center Publications
Analysis Niklas Swanström and Leah Oppenheimer, "Invisible Ink: Looking for the Lost Trade between China, Russia, and Central Asia", ISDP Policy Brief, 13 March 2013. 
New Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start the Afghan Economy, December 2012.
Conference Report Cheryl Benard, Eli Sugarman, and Holly Rehm, Cultural Heritage vs. Mining on the New Silk Road? Finding Technical Solutions for Mes Aynak and Beyond (in cooperation with the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage) December 2012.
Article Svante E. Cornell, "The 'Afghanization of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict", in Stephen Blank, ed., Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012.