41.   Asly, whose company also operates in the Middle East and other former Soviet republics, said he will not pay ransom.

42.   Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic located in a disagreeable spot just south of Russia and just north of Iran.

43.   Behind the gridlock is a political battle that highlights the difficult relations between Russia and the other former Soviet republics.

44.   Both candidates have promised to bring prosperity to a former Soviet republic that has seen seven years of post-Communist economic malaise.

45.   Both countries are former republics of the Soviet Union, and Russia still provides for much of their defense.

46.   A beleaguered enclave, populated mostly by Christian Armenians, its territory lies wholly within the former Soviet republic of mostly Muslim Azerbaijan.

47.   A group of Belarus emigres knew that Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Russian-leaning leader of their small former Soviet republic, might hold little natural interest here.

48.   A Bechtel Group executive, in the former Soviet republic for an oil and gas conference, discusses the obstacles in a Bloomberg Forum interview.

49.   A former Soviet republic just north of Iran on the Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan marks the second Sunday in August with a national melon love fest.

50.   A former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan has agreed to relinquish the nuclear arms it inherited with the breakup of the Soviet Union.