The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday approved a US$70 million loan for rehabilitation of the Chengeldy-Tashkent-Samarkand railway. The 320-kilometer stretch represents Uzbekistan's most important transport artery, carrying almost 40 percent of the country's total transport tonnage. The route is in serious disrepair, forcing trains... MORE

Timur Zhantikin, director of Kazakhstan's Atomic Energy Agency, stated on September 11 that the planned construction of the country's new nuclear power station will more than likely go ahead (Reuters, September 11). The station will be built on the banks of Lake Balkhash, about 400... MORE

Lithuanian Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis yesterday warned against potential consequences of "Western countries' ambivalence" over NATO's enlargement. NATO countries on the one hand assure the Baltic states that they are eligible for membership, but on the other hand "express doubts because Russia is opposed.... They... MORE

The World Bank yesterday approved two loans totaling US$600 million to support two reform programs in Ukraine. One program helps to finance privatization of state enterprises, bankruptcy proceedings, deregulation of business and formation of capital markets. The other program aims to support reform of the... MORE

Conditions for continuing lending by the IMF--and implicitly by the World Bank as well--include cancellation of state subsidies which support unrealistically low costs of rent, utilities and public transport. In keeping with that reform requirement, President Leonid Kuchma recently vetoed the Verkhovna Rada's July 23... MORE

Russia's Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov yesterday asked his counterparts to postpone the meeting of CIS countries' prime ministers, which was scheduled to be held on September 24-25. Primakov did not name a substitute date. He admitted that the new Russian government "needs time to develop... MORE

Chechen field commander Salman Raduev has announced a temporary moratorium on the terrorist acts which he had threatened to carry out on Russian territory unless Dagestani leader Magomed Khachilaev was released from detention by September 13 (see the Monitor, September 11). Raduev said he was... MORE

President Yeltsin has appointed Dmitri Yakushkin as his press secretary. Yakushkin, 41, is both a practicing journalist and, probably more important, a close friend of Yeltsin's chief-of-staff, Valentin Yumashev. His father was a general in the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB. He worked for... MORE

The Indian government yesterday joined other governments around the world in welcoming the appointment of former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov as Russian prime minister. India's congratulations, however, may have been more sincere than those of some other countries. Primakov was the architect of a foreign... MORE

Primakov continues to put his new cabinet together and says it will be complete by the end of this week. He met yesterday with President Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin for the first time since the Duma approved his appointment as premier last week. Yeltsin... MORE