Belarusan authorities on June 19 began making the life of foreign diplomatic missions in the Drazdy compound impossible. They announced a cutoff of electricity, water, gas and telephone services; introduced aggressive identity checks for the diplomats; and dug up the access road to the compound,... MORE

In a June 19 statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry took firm exception to Armenia's warning that it could unilaterally recognize Karabakh's independence and declare unification with it in two to four years' time, unless Azerbaijan drops its claim to sovereignty over that region. Foreign Minister Vardan... MORE

In talks with the UN General Secretary's special envoy for Tajikistan, Jan Kubis, over the weekend, Tajik president Imomali Rahmonov appeared to justify both his government's and parliament's repudiation of political provisions of the 1997 peace agreement. Rahmonov argued that the military provisions of the... MORE

Kazakhstan's media are relatively free of censorship--at least, by comparison with those of Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Recent measures, however, may threaten the media's modus vivendi with the authorities. On April 30, Prosecutor General Yuri Khitrin announced that he was launching... MORE

The Russian Foreign Ministry intends to dispatch two of its top diplomats on parallel missions this weekend--one to Yugoslavia and the other to Albania and Macedonia--in order to aid efforts aimed at settling the Kosovo conflict. According to a ministry spokesman, Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolai... MORE

The central Russian region of Ulyanovsk has expelled some eighty foreigners over the past eighteen months for alleged espionage activities, the Russian Federal Security Service's (FSB) Ulyanovsk chief said on June 17. The FSB official explained that the industrialized region attracts foreign spies because of... MORE

Perhaps wishing to divert attention from the State Duma's continuing inaction regarding the START II treaty, an unidentified Russian military official recently charged that the United States was not complying fully with START I. His examples were rather specious. He suggested that in testing British... MORE

Russian markets fell again yesterday, following a surprise decision by the IMF board to postpone disbursement of the latest US$670 million tranche of its US$9.2 billion extended loan to Russia. The board said the Russian government must first demonstrate that it has implemented measures earlier... MORE

Russia yesterday launched a new US$2.5 billion 30-year bond. This is Russia's largest and longest-dated bond to date, and marks the country's second entry into international capital markets in less than a month. It follows a US$1.25 billion bond issue which sold out immediately when... MORE

The Communist opposition has angrily denounced the return to power of their bete noire, Anatoly Chubais. President Boris Yeltsin tried to parry the criticism yesterday, saying Chubais' new appointment was both only temporary and in Russia's best interests. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov retorted that... MORE