The new Uzbek-South Korean joint venture Uz-Daewoo has doubled its car sales in Russia to 5,500 during the first six months of 1998, cutting into the market share of Russia's Avtovaz. Uz-Daewoo achieved the sales growth by cutting the price of its passenger cars by... MORE

Officials in Russia's military-industrial sector were quoted yesterday as saying that the delivery of Russian S-300 air defense missile complexes to Cyprus may be postponed until the fall. The sources, who were not identified, attributed the delay to fears in Cyprus that delivery of the... MORE

Thousands of civilian workers from defense enterprises, and even some uniformed military personnel, joined in the labor protests that took place on July 8 in cities across much of Russia. The efforts of defense workers were centered in Moscow, where more than 1,000 demonstrators chosen... MORE

Galina Brezhneva, daughter of Soviet President and Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev, has died at the age of seventy. (Izvestia, July 2) Brezhneva played a small but prominent role in the Kremlin intrigues of the early 1980s that saw power pass from the Brezhnev gerontocracy... MORE

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has formally accepted the resignation of acting Prime Minister Shamil Basaev and effectively taken over the running of the government himself. (Russian agencies, July 8) The reason for Basaev's resignation is not yet clear, though many see it as a sign... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin's appointees joined the leftist-nationalist opposition in a unanimous call by Russia's Federation Council for "severe measures, up to a trade embargo" against Latvia. The call is contained in a special resolution and an accompanying proposal to Yeltsin, passed yesterday at the initiative... MORE

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott visited Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from July 7 to July 9. On the same tour, Talbott led the U.S. delegation to the inaugural session of the quadripartite U.S.-Baltic Partnership Commission, held on July 8 in Riga (see below). Asked... MORE

The quadripartite U.S.-Baltic Partnership Commission held its first session in Riga on July 8. The forum reviewed progress in cooperation programs, with a focus on economics. U.S. private sector representatives attended the session and made specific recommendations on incentives to investment and trade. The session... MORE

The Foreign Ministry of Belarus announced yesterday that it has withdrawn its ultimatum to all foreign missions to remove their equipment from Minsk's Drazdy compound immediately (see the Monitor, July 8). Instead, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has authorized the Ministry to negotiate with each mission individually... MORE

The Minsk Humanities Lyceum is the only school in Belarus to offer a full curriculum in the Belarusan language. Teachers, students and parents staged protest actions from July 7-9 in downtown Minsk against the planned liquidation of the school. The authorities have ordered its merger... MORE