Latvian prime minister Maris Gailis said that his governmentwould seek to pay back depositors at the failed Baltija Bank bycollecting from those who owe that bank money rather than by usinggeneral state revenues, BNS reported June 29. That assurance thatRiga will meet its "political" obligations... MORE

In a move that willcause many Belarusians to rethink their views on closer ties withRussia, Moscow gas officials have cut daily gas deliveries toBelarus from 20 million cubic meters to only 8.5 million, Finansovyeizvestiya reported June 29. Gas supplies were reduced becauseBelarus had failed to... MORE

Belarusianpresident Aleksandr Lukashenko has called for government staffsto be cut by 30 percent this year and to end the current systemof transfer payments, according to Segodnya on June 28and Moscow's Echo radio on June 29. The president will use thefunds saved to provide aid to... MORE

Ukrainemust have domestic stability and control of its territorial integrityif it is to be able to join the European Union sometime in thefuture. That is the message EU officials delivered to Kiev June28, Interfax reported June 29. The EU officials also told thenews service that... MORE

Former Ukrainian presidentLeonid Kravchuk told Narodnaya armiya June 22 that Russianpresident Yeltsin had told him at one of their meetings that "WhileCrimea is able to exist without Russia, Russia cannot exist withoutCrimea." Kravchuk suggested that Russia would continue topress its demands for the region regardless... MORE

Chineseoil companies will provide $1.5 billion dollars to build a pipelinefrom Azerbaijan to Turkey, according to a June 29 press releaseby the US Oil Capital Company which is also involved in the project.No route was specified for the pipeline, but the press releaseimplied that it... MORE

To presstheir demands that Georgia dispatch troops to Abkhazia in orderto allow ethnic Georgian refugees to return to their homes there,a group of Georgians from the breakaway region staged a sit-inat government offices in Tbilisi, Russian radio a reported June28.

Azerbaijan will be preparedto discuss the future status of Karabakh once Armenia withdrawsfrom the Lachin corridor--the area between Armenia and the disputedenclave--and agrees to joint peace-keeping operations in Stepanakertand Shushi, Azerbaijani officials told Radio Liberty June 28.While Yerevan is unlikely to agree to all of... MORE

Criminals now earn almost 4 percent of the country's GDP,the state has lost control of the country's economy, and almostno one works, Kyrgyzstan president Askar Akayev said recently,Russian television reported June 29. The Kyrgyz president saidthat "everyone is involved in politics now. And no one... MORE

The Tajikgovernment, which controls very little of the territory of itscountry, has announced that it will lift all restrictions on exportsexcept those on cotton and aluminum, its two largest export categories,Rossiiskaya gazeta reported June 29. Existing regulations,while generally ignored, had been another source of irritationto... MORE