Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's visit to Washington last week appears to have raised as many questions as it has answered about the future of relations between Russia and the United States. The most obvious positive accomplishment of Ivanov's two days in Washington--during which he... MORE

Last week's U.S.-Russia talks and the possible onset of warmer relations between Moscow and Washington appears to have had little immediate impact on differences between the two countries in one important area: the reformulation of UN policy toward Iraq. That fact was made plain on... MORE

President Vladimir Putin has given partial support to a bill now being considered in the State Duma that would restrict foreign ownership in Russia's media. After meeting yesterday with Duma faction leaders, Irina Khakamada, one of the leaders of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS)... MORE

Press Minister Mikhail Lesin and Oleg Dobrodeyev, head of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation (VGTRK), traveled to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk earlier this week to move forward a project to set up a new television channel. The channel will service the... MORE

Official statistical data about Turkmenistan's agricultural sector in 2000 point to strong growth in agriculture last year. But they also indicate that Ashagabat has fudged the official numbers, and underscore the poor credibility of Ashgabat's official economic data in general. This suggests that there may... MORE

Notwithstanding these large quantities of fudge, the official data do suggest that some structural changes are occurring in Turkmenistan's agricultural sector. For one thing, production growth in the private sector continues to exceed what is reported for the state sector. Private agricultural producers accounted for... MORE

The Russian government and Central Bank (CBR) posted a detailed description of the official economic program for 2001 on the CBR web site on May 18. The program sets out Russia's basic framework for macroeconomic policy and lists key market reform priorities, both during this... MORE

Although the Kremlin-Central Bank program pledges to hold Russia's liberal course on the economy, it contains some macroeconomic policy contradictions that are not easily reconciled with its liberal rhetoric. This is most apparent in the sections on inflation and monetary and exchange-rates policies. The program... MORE

Russia's newest economic program has set some clear targets for market-reform initiatives. The new labor code is to be passed by the end of 2001, in order to increase labor mobility and to make it easier for workers to be fired. The same goes for... MORE

An unprecedented campaign of "kompromat" against Rem Vyakhirev, CEO of Gazprom, suggests that a change of the guard is imminent at the 38-percent state-controlled natural gas monopoly. An article published this week by the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau--based on a five-week investigation and 500 pages... MORE