Latest Monitor Articles

SPECULATION OVER DATE OF KAZAKHSTANI PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Independent analysts in Kazakhstan say there are strong incentives for President Nursultan Nazarbaev to call a presidential election before the scheduled date of December 2000. This argument is put, for example, in the bilingual Russian and English newspaper All Over the Globe by its editor... MORE

RUSSIAN DUMA PONDERS RESCUE PACKAGE…

On June 15, the State Duma grilled Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov over the conditions which the IMF set as part of the US$22 billion rescue package put together over the weekend. Zadornov explained that the interest rate on IMF and World Bank funds will be... MORE

…AS TERMS BECOME CLEARER.

President Yeltsin's chief economic adviser, Aleksandr Livshits, explained in an interview that the rescue package has three elements. (Ekho Moskvy, July 14) First, the government henceforth will not float any treasury bills (GKOs) of less than one year's duration. Until the present crisis, the government... MORE

MOSCOW MOVES AGAINST ILLEGAL EXPORTERS OF MILITARY TECHNOLOGY.

In a move quickly applauded by Washington, a Russian government commission announced yesterday that it was investigating nine Russian organizations suspected of having violated laws governing the export of dual-use technologies. The government commission on export control, which is chaired by Economics Minister Yakov Urinson,... MORE

MORE ON RUSSIAN-CHINESE TALKS.

In addition to consultations on military-technical cooperation and on a Russian-Chinese summit scheduled for September (see yesterday's Monitor), talks between the Russian and Chinese Prime Ministers in Beijing on July 14 focused on boosting trade in other areas. In particular, Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko... MORE

COMMUNISTS REFUSE TO DROP IMPEACHMENT.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov says the Communist faction in the Russian State Duma has no intention of heeding President Yeltsin's appeal for it to call off its efforts to impeach him. Zyuganov was responding to promises at Tuesday's Kremlin meeting by the leaders of... MORE

FRESH VIOLENCE IN CHECHNYA.

Six people were killed and fifteen others wounded in fighting yesterday in the Chechen town of Gudermes. Details are sparse. Gudermes is, however, the base of maverick field commander Salman Raduev. Former acting Prime Minister Shamil Basaev said the clashes began on Tuesday evening between... MORE

TATARSTAN SET TO ADOPT RUSSIA’S FIRST LAW ON ALTERNATIVE SERVICE.

Tatarstan plans to adopt Russia's first law allowing young men eligible for military service to perform an alternative civilian service instead. The Monitor's correspondent in the Volga region reports that, at its session on July 10, Tatarstan's parliament adopted in the first reading a bill... MORE

CRIMEAN SPEAKER BLASTS TATAR LEADERS’ DRIVE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT.

The Communist speaker of the Crimean parliament, Leonid Grach, has denounced the campaign by the Crimean Tatars for official recognition of the Tatar People's Majlis (the Tatars' self-styled parliament) as their own local government. Grach said Crimean Tatar leaders "do not understand to what their... MORE

IS TKACHENKO THE NEW MOROZ?

Relations between Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and the leftist bloc led by the new chairman of parliament, Oleksandr Tkachenko, seem about to revert to the familiar model of 1995-97. That involved a constant tug of war over both policy and personnel appointments, often including elements... MORE