On July 14 cultural ministers from 12 Turkic countries gathered at the Okan Intercontinental hotel in Astana for the 21st session of Turksoy, the international organization of Turkic-language nations set up in April 1992 to promote Turkic culture and spiritual values. In his opening speech,... MORE

On July 19, President Vladimir Putin fired Anatoly Kvashnin, Chief of the General Staff, as part of sweeping changes to the top brass in the Russian military. The announcement followed growing speculation in the Russian media and military press about Kvashnin's future. The conjecture was... MORE

On July 5 the Ukrainian government reversed a February 4, 2004, decision on which countries would supply oil to the Odessa-Brody pipeline. In February the decision had been made to transport Azerbaijani (and perhaps Kazakhstani) oil in a south-north direction from Odessa to Brody. The... MORE

Trans-Dniester's Russian-installed authorities -- chosen partners of the U.S. State Department and OSCE in the project to "federalize" Moldova -- seem bent on enforcing a complete prohibition on Latin script in the territory under their control. Moldovans form a plurality of the total population and... MORE

"All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," wrote Leo Tolstoy at the beginning of Anna Karenina. The same holds true for multinational states, yet among ethnically diverse states there are very few "happy families." Somehow I am at... MORE

The United States has slashed foreign aid to Uzbekistan by $18 million, according to a July 13 announcement by the State Department. The move was a calculated rebuttal to the Karimov regime over its lack of progress in human rights and democratic reforms. However, Tashkent's... MORE

Two leading Ukrainian political parties convened national congresses in early July to select which candidate to support in Ukraine's October 31 presidential elections. Surprisingly, both parties swung away from President Leonid Kuchma's designed successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and put forward rival candidates. Should Yanukovych... MORE

On July 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his second plenary address to the Russian diplomatic corps. Putin declared that Russia should be at the vanguard of the countries "shaping the new world order." In this respect, Russia's ambassadors were told to do more to... MORE

While there are apparently no leads thus far in the Russian authorities' investigation of the July 9 murder of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian-language version of Forbes magazine, various Western media have made much of the comments by Valery Straletsky, head of Detektiv Press,... MORE

The presidential decree restructuring the Federal Security Service (FSB), which was signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 11 and made public by the Kremlin on July 14, has not amounted to the worst-case scenario that some human rights activists had feared, namely the restoration... MORE