The Lithuanian government played Scroogein the last week of December by asking all state employees to work without pay between Christmas and New Year's, a request apparently made on the basis of Lithuania's rapidly deteriorating fiscal position (Financial Times, December 22, 1999)--the 1999 consolidated government... MORE

Yesterday evening Russian agencies reported fierce battles between federal forces and Chechen fighters in the towns of Argun and Shali, which were both taken by Russian forces late last year. According to one report, at least 300 rebels blocked the Russian military headquarters and railway... MORE

According to preliminary results from the run-off election for governor of Moscow Oblast (which is located just outside the Russian capital), Boris Gromov, the former commander of Soviet forces in Afghanistan, has edged out his opponent, former State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev, by just 1.5... MORE

In a visit which reflected both Russia's desire to restore its influence in the Middle East and the odd political status now being accorded to the country's recently resigned leader at home and abroad, former President Boris Yeltsin traveled to the Holy Lands last week... MORE

Law enforcement authorities are swooping down on Islamic activists in southern Kyrgyzstan's Osh Region. In recent days, fourteen Islamists--all described as young--have gone on trial in two separate cases in the Kara Su and Aravan district, and another six activists have been arrested and indicted... MORE

President Eduard Shevardnadze has defined Georgia's policy as one of "knocking at NATO's door" with a view to applying by 2005 for membership. Russia's current political and military pressures on Georgia (see the Monitor, October 5-6, 21, November 8, 12, December 2, 13, 21; Fortnight... MORE

In a case which had much in common with Nikitin's, another Russian naval officer won a similar--if less convincing--legal victory in a trial which concluded in Vladivostok on July 20. Captain Grigory Pasko is a military journalist who was arrested by the FSB in November... MORE

Russian environmentalists and human rights activists celebrated a rare and important legal triumph on December 29 when a Russian court in St. Petersburg acquitted a well-known former naval officer of treason charges. Aleksandr Nikitin's victory appeared to mark a happy end to four years of... MORE

As Vladimir Putin finished his first week as acting president, a number of observers began talking about the next possible round in Russia's endless political power struggle: the new head of state versus the tycoon Boris Berezovsky. According to the conventional wisdom, Putin was not... MORE

Boris Yeltsin's resignation and Vladimir Putin's accession has given Russia's ailing stock market a new lease on life. Yesterday, the value of shares traded reached US$27.94 million, approaching the record high--US$33.25 million--recorded on July 28, 1998, just a few weeks before the crash of the... MORE