The 1997-1998 financial crises in Russia and East Asia generated numerous calls for reform of the international financial system. Among other things, critics lambasted bailouts by the IMF and World Bank which allowed developing crisis-stricken governments to continue to repay debts to private bondholders while... MORE

On May 4-5 on an official visit to Russia, Uzbek President Islam Karimov engaged in one of his periodic fence-mending exercises with the Kremlin. This seems, however, more far-reaching than his earlier efforts and may be fraught with longer-term consequences. Inasmuch as Uzbekistan is the... MORE

Documents on military and security issues, which Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbek President Islam Karimov signed on May 4, seem to reflect official Tashkent's growing sense of insecurity, and by the same token to reward Moscow's pressure tactics. The sides agreed that Russia would... MORE

Leading international organizations, human rights groups and some Western governments have in the last few years undertaken earnest efforts to identify a democratic alternative President Askar Akaev's regime in Kyrgyzstan. Those efforts have focused on leaders of opposition parties which recently joined in an umbrella... MORE

John Tobin, the twenty-four-year-old American Fulbright scholar arrested in Russia this past January on drug possession charges (see the Monitor, February 28), has received a thirty-seven month prison term following a trial in the city of Voronezh which concluded on April 27. Although sources in... MORE

Pavel Borodin, the Russia-Belarus union state secretary and former Kremlin property manager, has been asked to appear in Switzerland on May 17 for questioning concerning charges of money laundering in connection with the so-called Mabetex case. Borodin, who was arrested on January 17 of this... MORE

The city administration in Djohar [Grozny], the Chechen capital, has demanded that the Russian servicemen responsible for looting and destroying a city market on May 1 be severely punished. According to a statement issued by the city mayor's office, the market was looted, nearby apartment... MORE

Several of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's sturdiest crewmen seem poised to jump off his leaky ship. One of them, Ivan Pashkevich, held top posts concerned with domestic politics and ideology in the presidential administration from 1995 to 2000. In that capacity he was a notorious scourge... MORE

Russia joined with a host of other governments around the world in giving a cautious welcome yesterday to U.S. President George W. Bush's Tuesday speech laying out U.S. missile defense plans. The caution in Moscow was reflected, as was the case in many other foreign... MORE

Since 1992, UNESCO has designated May 3 as World Press Freedom Day. To mark the occasion, two international press freedom advocacy groups have each drawn a list of enemies of press freedom. President Vladimir Putin is on both lists. The New York-based Committee to Protect... MORE