The "information wars" in Russia are continuing (see the Monitor, July 16, 19), with media belonging to Vladimir Gusinsky's Most Media group reporting that the offices of the group's publishing house, Seven Days, received a visit yesterday from the tax police. According to the reports,... MORE

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, the unicameral parliament dominated for the most part by Red forces, has proved a hindrance to the country's economic and political reforms and a cobble on the ankle of President Leonid Kuchma. The president and the legislative leadership each aspire to change... MORE

On July 14, in her first major decision as president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga returned the recently amended language law to the parliament for revision, in effect vetoing the law. In so doing, she deferred to foreign critics who had described some of the amendments... MORE

President Vaira Vike-Freiberga reached her decision under pressure from the European Union's External Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek, whose office in turn acted as an enforcer of the recommendations made by Max van der Stoel, the high commissioner on national minorities for the Organization... MORE

But other reports tell a different story. Amid the generals' crowing, there was ample evidence suggesting that Russia's military leadership has made little if any progress in rooting out the key sociological ills which in over more than a decade have helped to destroy military... MORE

Recent weeks have seen a more boastful and a more seemingly belligerent military leadership emerge in Russia. Although President Boris Yeltsin's weakening grip on power has probably been one factor in this development, most observers would say that the major catalyst for change was NATO's... MORE

Another component of the weekend's political battles was an exchange of charges and countercharges between NTV television--which is part of the Media Most group, founded by the tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky--and ORT, which Berezovsky is said to control. In an interview broadcast on ORT on July... MORE

The weekend saw an intensification in the war pitting Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the Most Media empire and its television channel NTV on one side, against the Kremlin inner circle--specifically the tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Russian Public Television (ORT), which Berezovsky reportedly controls--on the other.... MORE

The government of Kazakhstan has lifted the general ban it had imposed on Russian space flights from the Baikonur cosmodrome on July 6, when a Proton-K heavy booster rocket carrying a Raduga-1 military intelligence satellite exploded over the Karagandy region, spraying the steppe with toxic... MORE

In Yerevan, backers of Babayan seek political support by publicizing the corruption allegations which tagged Danielyan during his spectacular career in Ukraine. A Karabakh native, Danielyan became first deputy chairman of the Crimean Supreme Soviet and a leader of the Party of Economic Revival (PEV)... MORE