Latest Monitor Articles
MOSCOW MAYOR CRACKS DOWN ON VAGRANTS, HOMELESS.
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov yesterday announced new measures to clear homeless people and beggars from the streets of the capital. Luzhkov said he was concerned about rising crime rates in Moscow, for which he blamed the city's large homeless population. The mayor runs for reelection... MORE
REGIONS ENGAGE IN HARD BARGAINING WITH CENTER.
Boris Nemtsov, reelected governor of Nizhny Novgorod oblast on 17 December with 58 percent of the vote, was sworn in for a new term in office on 28 December. He announced that oblast authorities were negotiating a treaty on the division of powers between the... MORE
KOVALEV TO LOSE HIS JOB?
Yeltsin's chief of staff Sergei Filatov told journalists last week that Sergei Kovalev's activities had "slowed down" recently and that the question of reorganizing the Human Rights Commission was therefore on the agenda. (6) A Russian presidential decree of December 30 then subordinated the commission,... MORE
FAR EAST TO IMPORT GRAIN DIRECTLY.
Contracts arranged and managed by local commercial organizations in the Far East will import between 300,000 and 400,000 tons of grain in early 1996, Deputy Economics Minister Ivan Starikov said last week. (4) Russia produced only 65 million tons of grain in 1995, compared with... MORE
U.S., RUSSIAN COMPANIES FAIL TO CREATE SAKHALIN OIL CONSORTIUM.
Formation of an oil development consortium between the American companies Exxon, Mobil Oil, Texaco, and Russia's Sakhalinmorneftegaz remains up in the air following a recent round of negotiations, according to a Russian delegation member. The consortium is intended to develop oil fields on Sakhalin's shelf... MORE
YELTSIN AND LUKASHENKO DISCUSS DEBT RELIEF.
According to an official Belarusian account, Boris Yeltsin agreed to forgive Belarus' outstanding debts to Russia during an exchange of New Year's greetings with Belarusan president Aleksandr Lukashenko. The action would facilitate the two countries' economic integration, said Lukashenko. (1) The Minsk story has not... MORE
SOSKOVETS UPBEAT ON CIS ECONOMIC UNION.
Russia's first deputy prime minister Oleg Soskovets predicted yesterday that the first stage of a CIS economic union would be completed by the end of 1996. The low competitiveness of many goods produced in CIS countries, plus the latters' reliance on Russian energy and raw... MORE
DEFENSE SECTOR TO INCREASE CIVILIAN PRODUCTION IN 1996.
Experts at the Russian Ministry of Economics project that converted Russian defense enterprises will increase their output of civilian goods in 1996. Civilian defense production fell by 38.5 percent in 1994 and 22 percent in 1995, largely due to low budget financing and buyer insolvency,... MORE
UZBEK PRESIDENT SEEKS EUROPEAN COUNTERBALANCE TO RUSSIA.
Addressing a gathering of foreign diplomats and journalists accredited to Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov urged western European countries to pay greater attention to Uzbekistan and Central Asia in general. Karimov described Germany, "the country on the rise," as the key to Uzbekistan's efforts to establish... MORE