Latest Monitor Articles

GAZPROM TAKING OVER ARMENIA’S PIPELINES.

Armenia's Energy Ministry and Russia's Gazprom have agreed to transfer the entire gas transportation system of Armenia to a Russian-controlled joint venture. The decision was signed at a session just held in Yerevan by the board of that joint company, ArmRosGazprom. The Armenian side holds... MORE

U.S. GIANTS TEAM UP FOR TURKMEN GAS PIPELINE PROJECT.

The U.S. companies Amoco, General Electric, and Bechtel have announced the formation of a consortium to lay a trans-Caspian pipeline for Turkmen gas. The plan envisages laying the pipeline on the Caspian sea floor from a point near Turkmenbashi to a point near Baku, continuing... MORE

CONTACT GROUP MEETS IN BONN.

In Bonn yesterday, Russia and the five other members of the Contact Group--the United States, Germany, France, Britain and Italy--agreed on a set of principles formulated to bring peace to the war-torn Serbian province of Kosovo. Details of the plan were not made public, however.... MORE

MOSCOW PROTESTS RETALIATORY EXPULSION BY SOUTH KOREA.

Russia reacted angrily yesterday to an announcement by South Korea that it was expelling a Russian diplomat from the country. The South Korean action, announced by the Foreign Ministry, came four days after Russia had declared Cho Sung Woo--a South Korean diplomat and Seoul's official... MORE

NEMTSOV SAYS NO TERRITORIAL CONCESSIONS TO JAPAN.

In the midst of a visit to Russia's Far Eastern Sakhalin Oblast, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov yesterday assured local leaders that relinquishing the disputed South Kuril Islands would be "inadmissible and unconstitutional." Nemtsov also complained of what he intimated was a penchant by... MORE

DUMA OFFICIAL PREDICTS SPRING ELECTIONS.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, first deputy speaker of Russia's State Duma, told a press conference yesterday that parliamentary elections might well be called in March or April of 1999. Drawing attention to how acute the country's social and economic problems are, Ryzhkov said that, come the fall,... MORE

YELTSIN AXES RAIL PROJECT.

President Yeltsin has ordered an end to the ambitious project to build a new high-speed rail link between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The High-Speed Rail company (VSM) was launched in 1991 and became a notorious source of political pork barrel, running up debts that are... MORE

STRATEGIC SUBMARINE LAUNCHES GERMAN SATELLITE.

On July 7, a Delta-IV strategic submarine of the Northern Fleet launched a German research satellite from the Barents Sea aboard a missile designed to carry four nuclear warheads more than 8,000 kilometers. The Makeyev design bureau--Russia's premier designer of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)--modified one... MORE

TATARSTAN TO GET NEW PRIME MINISTER.

Tatarstani President Mintimer Shaimiev has nominated Finance Minister Rustam Minnikhanov as the republic's new Prime Minister. The nomination will be submitted for approval to the republic's parliament, the State Council, tomorrow. The Monitor's correspondent in the Volga region reports that Shaimiev is believed to have... MORE

GOVERNMENT PROFFERS OLIVE BRANCH ON NATIONALITY ISSUE.

Russia's Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov says that the government has approved a proposal by his ministry to amend the Law on the Status of Citizens. The amendment would allow Russian citizens to include retroactively their nationality (that is, their ethnic identity) in their birth certificates.... MORE