The major achievement of thetalks that began in the Kazakhstan capital May 22 between the Tajikgovernment and the Tajik opposition is that the talks took place. Accordingto Kazakhstan radio, the talks were delayed when the oppositionrepresentatives failed to show up. Once the talks opened, the... MORE

Turkmenistan PresidentSaparmurat Niyazov met with Egyptian President Hosni Murbarak in Cairo May22, and the two agreed to establish diplomatic relations, Moscow radioreported. Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto visited Tashkentto promote expanded trade and cultural ties with Uzbekistan. Are Russians Authoritarian? Now We May Find... MORE

Ogonek (no. 19) haspublished a translation of T.W Adorno's classic "F Scale" which identifiesauthoritarian personality types. The weekly includes a scale which will allowRussians--and presumably others in the region--to determine just howauthoritarian they are. Copyright (c) 1995 - The Jamestown Foundation The Monitor is a... MORE

Intense fighting took place throughoutChechnya over the weekend, Itar-Tass reported, with Russian forces bombing andshelling the same villages they had bombed and shelled last week. Chechendefenders blew up two train lines, derailing one train in the process. (Theseexplosions made nonsense of Moscow's claim in Birzhevskie... MORE

On May 19, President Yeltsinvetoed a resolution, passed by the Duma in April, which called on Moscow tobegin "immediate and unconditional peace talks" with the Chechens, Itar-Tasssaid. Yeltsin's aides said he believed that such talks would "only prolong the warand result in new victims." The... MORE

Yeltsin'sentourage now fears that Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and his political bloc mayrepresent an independent threat to the Russian president, Izvestiya reported May19. Consequently, the paper suggested, Yeltsin may try to force a delay in theparliamentary elections by calling on the Duma to revise the electoral... MORE

Another electoral bloc organized itself in time to beatlast week's registration deadline. Calling itself "The People," the new bloc unitesthe Association of Investors, the Afghan War Invalids, and the Russian Unionparty, Moscow radio reported May 18. The Investors are the biggest of the threegroups, claiming... MORE

The "partyof power" was organized to rein in the increasingly independent governors ofRussia's regions, Komsomolskaya pravda said May 18. The governors, who oftenact on their own, now are pressing for elections in their areas in order to escaperesponsibility for the actions of Moscow. If they... MORE

Former actingpremier and Democratic Choice leader Yegor Gaidar told a meeting of his partythat the "capitalist revolution" launched in 1991 had been won, Moscow radioreported May 20. But he said that "the capitalism we have is terrible, criminal andunjust"--although he added that it could not... MORE

The second stage of privatization,announced earlier this year, is proceeding "more slowly" than the first, Moscowradio reported May 18. The station said that low share prices were to blame, andnoted that the latest round of privatization had not yet brought the state the incomegovernment authorities... MORE