DOUBLE ASSASSINATION IN ODESSA.

The chairman of the Odessa Oblast Arbitration Court, Borys Vykhrov, and the director of the local television company AMT, Ihor Bondar, were assassinated by as yet unidentified gunmen during the night of May 16-17 near the city of Odessa as they drove in Vykhrov’s car. The murder occurred three days after Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Mykhaylo Potebenko made a “working visit” to Odessa. Local sources believe a possible motive for the double murder is a battle for power within the Arbitration Court itself (Eastern Economist Daily (Kyiv), May 18). The city had been shaken by a series of assassinations in 1997-98, but was quiet for the past year until now.–VS

POLAND, UKRAINE, AZERBAIJAN DISCUSS EXPORT ROUTE FOR CASPIAN OIL.