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© St. Petersburg Times, published August 25, 2002
MOSCOW -- Russia demanded Saturday that Georgia take decisive military action against Chechen rebels it claims are based there and strongly urged it to accept Moscow's help, raising the stakes in its dispute with its neighbor.
Russia says Chechen rebels and foreigners who fight alongside them have been launching crossborder attacks in Chechnya from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, and has repeatedly urged the tiny former Soviet republic to rein them in.
The Russian statement came a day after Georgia claimed Russian aircraft bombed its territory, killing at least one person and wounding five others. Russian military officials denied the accusation.
Russia's Federal Border Service said the bodies of eight border guards were found Saturday near the Georgian frontier and that two other servicemen who had been with them were missing, a development that was likely to raise tensions further.
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Azerbaijanis voted Saturday in a referendum on constitutional reforms that critics say would be a blow to democracy in the former Soviet republic.
A preliminary count indicated more than 88 percent of Azerbajian's 4.4-million voters cast ballots in the referendum, election commission chairman Mazahir Panahov said.
No results were released, but the executive secretary of the ruling Eni Azerbajian party, Ali Akhmedov, told a news conference the high turnout "shows that the people of Azerbaijan supported President Geidar Aliev and his policies."
Opposition groups boycotted the vote, saying the proposed changes appear designed to enable Aliev, a former Communist Party boss, to transfer power to his son Ilhan, who is first vice president of the oil-rich former Soviet republic's state oil company.
BERLIN -- German police said Saturday they have detained two men suspected of links to five Iraqis who occupied their country's embassy in Berlin and took its two top diplomats there hostage.
Hamburg police said they took both men into custody in the city Friday, but refused to give details.