The Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a radio station in the border city of Mashhad, broadcasting in Farsi and Turkic languages to Central Asia, has recently broadcast a lengthy statement by a group calling itself the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Led by... MORE

Radio Kyiv reports today that Vyacheslav Chornovil--former head of Ukraine's Rukh party--has in a traffic accident late last night (Radio Kyiv, March 26). Chornovil was a standard bearer of the Ukrainian movement for national independence during the last decades of Soviet rule. Born in 1937... MORE

Estonia's new government, a coalition of three conservative and unambiguously pro-Western parties, was sworn in yesterday. The Pro Patria Union, the Reform Party, and the Moderates won eighteen seats, eighteen seats and seventeen seats, respectively, for a total of 53 out of 101 parliamentary seats... MORE

Attendance at the CIS Defense Ministers' Council (DMC) keeps thinning out, as became obvious earlier this year (see the Monitor, February 22) and was dramatized by yesterday's meeting in Moscow. Only four member countries sent their ministers to Moscow; four other countries stayed away; three... MORE

Despite the positive Russian reports of the Sergeev visit, it was unclear whether the two sides had in fact managed to resolve a number of problems that have arisen with regard to Russian arms deliveries to India. Indeed, on the eve of Sergeev's arrival in... MORE

Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev wound up a high-profile four-day visit to India earlier this week that was aimed at boosting military ties between the two countries. During the course of his visit, Sergeev held talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Defense... MORE

The newspaper "Kommersant daily," which led its March 24 edition with an article headlined, "Russia Has Lost US$15 Billion Thanks to Primakov"--which criticized the prime minister for aborting his flight to Washington for talks--continued its attack today. In a statement published on the front page,... MORE

A rowdy demonstration was held outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow yesterday, with protesters--mostly young people, many of them fans of Russia's Spartak and TsSKA football [NOTE: soccer] teams--throwing eggs, beer bottles and containers filled with ink at the building. Demonstrators shouted slogans or carried... MORE

Moscow continued its fierce rhetorical assault on NATO military actions in the Balkans yesterday, but Russian government officials showed no immediate inclination to back up their tough talk with action. Some officials in Moscow had intimated on March 24 that Russia might be prepared to... MORE

Kazakhstan yesterday took responsibility for the Russian-owned transport plane, its contraband cargo of six MIG-21 fighter aircraft, and the approximately thirty accompanying Russian military personnel, currently immobilized in Baku. The Azerbaijani authorities impounded the transport and fighter planes and detained the accompanying personnel on March... MORE