On April 24-26, high-level representatives of intelligence and security services from nine CIS countries conducted a command-and-staff exercise in the city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Code-named "South-Antiterror 2001," and planned as the first in a series of such exercises, South-Antiterror 2001 rehearsed joint responses to possible... MORE

The CIS Antiterrorism Center organized the Osh exercise, and its director--Russia's General Boris Mylnikov--commanded the joint staff in Osh. In an accompanying press interview, Mylnikov used both direct and oblique language in revealing some of the center's woes. Founded at the June 2000 summit of... MORE

Ukraine's parliament (Verkhovna Rada) passed its no-confidence motion yesterday in a sweeping majority vote of 263 (in a 450-seat body), effectively ousting its liberal prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko and his cabinet will continue their duties until their replacements are appointed, but for no longer... MORE

Russian press reports published over the past month have highlighted what they say is a new push by the Kremlin to diversify the country's arms export client base. Current estimates place total Russian arms export revenues for last year at between US$3.68 billion and US$4... MORE

Gubernatorial elections were held on April 22 in Kemerovo Oblast--Russia's largest coal-producing region in southwestern Siberia--and in Tula Oblast, south of Moscow, which has been a center of weapons production since the time of Peter the Great. The Tula race was a run-off, the first... MORE

On April 23, a new Communist-controlled government took charge in Moldova. But most of the ministers are not members of the Communist Party, and a few of them have respectable professional records. Their presence in the government reflects the Communists' electoral pledge to select "technocrats"--that... MORE

According to data recently released by Uzbekistan's government, GDP grew by 4 percent in 2000. This figure suggests that the solid but unspectacular growth which characterized official reporting of Uzbekistan's economy in the second half of the 1990s continued last year. In light of the... MORE

But even if Tashkent's numbers are correct, they still make Uzbekistan out to be the slowest-growing Central Asian economy in 2000. GDP growth was reported up a whopping 18 percent in Turkmenistan last year, and while the quality and quantity of Ashgabat's official data leave... MORE

Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan wound up a five-day official visit to Russia on April 21 which, in its public manifestations at least, appeared oddly subdued. Ramadan is the highest-ranking Iraqi leader to visit Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and his... MORE

In the late evening of April 22, thirty armed men took some 120 hostages in Istanbul's luxury Swissotel. Identifying themselves as Chechens, they then demanded a meeting with Turkish Interior Minister Saadettin Tantan. Several shots were heard during the standoff, but it later turned out... MORE