At a press conference on January 8, the People's Democratic Party (NDP) deputy head, Volodymyr Filenko, admitted that the party is close to a split over differences concerning support of President Leonid Kuchma in the elections scheduled for October 1999. Filenko said that the public... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's plenipotentiary representative to CIS countries, Ivan Rybkin, has all but nominated Yeltsin for the post of president of the Russia-Belarus Union. "Yeltsin's candidacy to that post is a real prospect. We simply cannot find a substitute for the experience of a... MORE

A top Russian government official announced over the weekend that Moscow intends to step up its work at the controversial Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov told reporters on January 10 that Russia would send additional personnel to Iran this... MORE

In the wake of fresh allegations late last week that the United States had secretly obtained intelligence information from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) disarming Iraq, Moscow has underscored anew its determination both to oust Australian diplomat Richard Butler from the post of UNSCOM chairman... MORE

Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov yesterday gave his strongest hint to date that Sergei Dubinin, chairman of Russia's Central Bank until shortly after the collapse of the ruble and Russia's treasury bill market last August 17, may face prosecution for alleged wrongdoing in connection with those... MORE

Continued financial bad tidings, which threaten to undermine the draft budget's credibility, accompany the document's political problems. While the budget's parameters assume a ruble-dollar exchange rate of 21.5-to-1, the exchange rate had yesterday already reached 22.4-to-1. In fact, the ruble lost 8 percent of its... MORE

The Russian budget for 1999, which was drafted by Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's cabinet late in 1998 and received initial approval by the State Duma, now appears to be in trouble. Over the weekend, opposition legislators, who last month approved the draft in its first... MORE

Two Abkhaz "coastal guard" boats yesterday seized a Turkish fishing vessel and escorted it to the Abkhaz military base at Ochamchira. According to Abkhazia's announcement, its "border forces" acted when the Turkish vessel had crossed the "Georgian-Abkhaz maritime border" (Russian agencies, January 7). The Abkhaz... MORE

Kazakhstan is holding a presidential election on January 10. The only question in this election is the margin of incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbaev's victory. He faces the risk that overzealous local officials may needlessly magnify his victory margin, as was the case in last October's... MORE

Ukraine's Justice Ministry has renewed the license of the Kyiv newspaper "Pravda Ukrainy," after its revamped staff formed an independent corporation and jettisoned the former editor-in-chief, Oleksandr Horobets. Publication of the mass-circulation newspaper had been suspended almost one year ago. It was controlled by Pavlo... MORE