Lithuania's army will not be able toparticipate in NATO's Partnership for Peace or continue its role ininternational peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia if the government doesnot fund the army as planned, its commander told BNS May 16. Gen. JonasAndriskevicius said that in the first quarter... MORE

Nezavisimaya gazeta saidMay 16 that Belarusian President Lukashenko's "victory" in the May 14referenda would only worsen conditions in that country. Belarusians willquickly discover that Moscow is not going to come to their aid; moreover,they will be disillusioned with Lukashenko himself. In a post-vote newsconference, Lukashenko... MORE

The European Union will extend anadditional $300 million dollar loan to Kiev as a result of Ukraine's newplans to close the Chernobyl reactors and because President Leonid Kuchma'sgovernment has an excellent record on payments and economic reform, theEuropean Commission said in a press release May... MORE

In the disputes between Kiev andMoscow over Crimea, the original residents of the region have often beenignored. Over the weekend, however, the Crimean Tatars made themselves heard,Izvestiya reported May 16. Some 3,000 of them demonstrated in front of policeheadquarters in Sevastopol to demand that the... MORE

The European Union will send$9.8 million in food aid to refugees in Armenia and Azerbaijan over the nextsix months, a May 16 European Commission press release said. The EU is takingthis step because its experts believe that more than 750,000 people thereface starvation in the... MORE

Representatives from the Caspian littoral states ofKazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan and Iran--Turkmenistan wasinvited but did not send any delegates--met in Alma-Ata May 16 to discuss thestatus of the Caspian Sea, Interfax reported. Moscow wants the Caspian Sea tobe legally reclassified as a lake. If... MORE

Georgia's Eduard Shevardnadze is the lowestpaid leader of the post-Soviet countries, Komsomolskaya pravda reported May16. He receives a salary of approximately ten dollars a month. Copyright (c) 1995 - The Jamestown Foundation The Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. It is researched and... MORE

More than 75% of Belarusian votersbacked President Aleksandr Lukashenko's four referenda: to seek economicunity with Russia, to declare Russian a state language, to restore Soviet-erasymbols, and to grant the Belarusian president the right to dissolveparliament. In the parliamentary voting, only 20 of the 260 seats... MORE

Chechen prosecutor general Usman Imayev told Radio LibertyMay 13 that Chechen fighters had found a disfigured corpse that Imayevbelieves is that of missing American aid worker Fred Cuny. The face of thecorpse had been destroyed by sulfuric acid, Imayev said, but body size andclothing suggest... MORE

Russian tanks, artillery, and airpower attacked throughout Chechnya May 15, Russian media reported.Particularly hard hit were the cities of Serzhen-Yurt, Bamut, and Kurchali.Russian military commanders said that they were moving into the mountainswhere Chechen resistance is expected to be especially severe. One Russianofficer told Interfax,... MORE