Latest Monitor Articles
AKAEV REELECTED OVER LEFTIST CHALLENGERS.
As could be expected, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev has easily won reelection to a five-year term, his third since 1991. Akaev was credited with 74 percent of the votes cast in the October 29 balloting. He defeated three leftist or left-leaning challengers. Socialist Ata-Meken [Fatherland]... MORE
KAZAKH BUDGET WELL AHEAD OF TARGETS…
Kazakhstan's budgets are awash in cash due to the high prices and increasing volume of commodity exports and their effect on enterprises' bottom lines. In the first eight months of 2000, consolidated budget revenues (including central and local budgets) were 377.3 billion tenge (US$2.66 billion),... MORE
…WHILE KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS TO FURTHER IMPROVE FISCAL POLICY.
While budget revenues have grown dramatically, the Kazakh government is still dismayed by the amount of revenue it believes it is losing through transfer pricing and other nontransparent accounting practices. With transfer pricing a commodity exporter in Kazakhstan sells the commodity to a subsidiary in... MORE
HEALTH CONCERNS MOUNT OVER ACCUSED AMERICAN SPY.
The espionage trial of accused American spy Edmond Pope took an ominous turn yesterday when the former naval intelligence officer suffered a severe attack of joint and back pain. The attack was serious enough that the Moscow court hearing the case agreed to recess the... MORE
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT WILL HEAR RUTSKOI’S COMPLAINT TOMORROW.
Russia's Constitutional Court will tomorrow consider the complaint filed by Kursk Governor Aleksandr Rutskoi, who was disqualified from competing in the oblast's October 22 gubernatorial election. Rutskoi is demanding that that the results of the voting be nullified on the grounds that the decision to... MORE
INVESTIGATOR DECLARES YELTSIN BANK ACCOUNT STORY A FORGERY.
Ruslan Tamaev, the chief investigator from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office in the so-called Mabetex case, said yesterday that alleged copies of bank documents showing that former President Boris Yeltsin and Kremlin property manager Pavel Borodin had accounts in Switzerland's Banco del Gottardo were forgeries.... MORE
RUSSIAN MONITORS MORE PRO-LUKASHENKA THAN BELARUSAN VOTERS.
The second round of the parliamentary elections in Belarus has compounded the first-round embarrassment to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. He had embarked on this exercise as, in effect, a popular referendum on his rule. With officially approved candidates competing against each other in fifty-six districts on... MORE
LARGEST-EVER ANTITERRORISM TRIAL OPENS IN TASHKENT.
On October 30, the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan opened public proceedings in the criminal trial against twelve opposition leaders and militants. Three defendants are in the dock while the other nine are abroad. The nine being tried in absentia include Tahir Yuldash, Juma Namangani and... MORE
RUSSIA SEEN FRUSTRATED IN ARMS DEALS WITH SEOUL AND ANKARA.
Hard-pressed Russian arms makers, anxious to penetrate into new markets, appear to have suffered two setbacks this month. One involves a long-standing Russian effort to sell Kilo class diesel submarines to South Korea. The other centers on Russian hopes of winning a competition for a... MORE
MEDIA IGNORE KREMLIN DEFEAT IN SIBERIAN REGION.
Voters in Chita Oblast--an impoverished but strategically vital region in Russia's Far East--went to the polls on October 29 to elect a new governor, a new regional duma and the heads of local government bodies. Five candidates ran for governor, including the incumbent, Ravil Geniatulin.... MORE