The secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana, conferred with President Haidar Aliev and other Azerbaijani officials in Baku on September 30-October 1. Aliev condemned the presence of Russian troops and bases in Armenia and Georgia as dangerous to the entire region and a Soviet-era relict, incompatible... MORE

Coupled with proposals for political reform (see the Monitor, October 1), Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev outlined a new social content of economic policy in his televised national address on September 30. Criticizing past governments for their neglect of the real economy, Nazarbaev issued the guarantee... MORE

The Ford-Belarus joint venture announced in Minsk yesterday that it has suspended operations at its plant there. The plant assembles Ford Escort and Ford Transit cars and vans at a rate of some 6,000 annually, mostly for export to Russia. The company cited Russia's financial... MORE

The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleksandr Tkachenko, announced to the parliament on October 1 that the Peasants Party had set up its own faction consisting of fifteen deputies. The faction, along with the Peasants' leader, Serhiy Dovhan, and several prominent members of the Left... MORE

Russian Duma CIS Affairs Committee Chairman Georgy Tikhonov reported yesterday that as many as 320 deputies have joined forces as a cross-party association named Soyuz [Union]. That number amounts to more than two-thirds of the Duma's total membership. The association pursues the "restoration of the... MORE

Russia's ambassador to Latvia, Aleksandr Udaltsev, suggested publicly yesterday that Latvia should sign a pact on the basic principles of bilateral relations with Russia. According to Udaltsev, such a pact could help "prevent collisions and conflict situations that might arise in certain cases." The Russian... MORE

Russia attempted to underline its own "co-sponsor" role as a player in the Middle East peace process yesterday as a Foreign Ministry spokesman hailed next week's scheduled visit to Moscow by PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Vladimir Rakhmanin told reporters that Russia "supports the Palestinian leadership's... MORE

On Tuesday, Akhmal Saitov, deputy representative of the Russian government in Chechnya, was kidnapped. The Interior Ministry believes that he was taken hostage to extract a ransom. Saitov participated in the negotiations for the release of Valentin Vlasov, the Russian president's representative in the republic,... MORE

State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov reported that the lower parliamentary chamber had no money for transportation and communications, and had even run out of paper. Duma Chief Of Staff Nikolai Troshkin said that there wasn't "one kilogram" of paper in the Duma, that the building... MORE

As Japanese boats yesterday began fishing legally in the waters off the Russian-controlled south Kuril Islands, a Foreign Ministry official in Moscow applauded what he said was the beginning of "civilized" cooperation with Tokyo in this area. Aleksandr Losyukov, head of a Foreign Ministry department... MORE