Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus was received yesterday by Pope John Paul II in the Vatican library for an official audience which was followed by a tete-a-tete meeting. Adamkus' visit coincided with the celebration of the Pope's seventy-eighth birthday. The Pope and the president discussed Lithuanian... MORE

Interviewed in Minsk by representatives of Russian regional newspapers, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka ruled out a political unification of Belarus with Russia into a single state. "Sovereignty is the ultimate value, and Belarus is a sovereign state," Lukashenka declared. He went on to urge that the... MORE

As many as thirteen Abkhaz troopers were reported killed yesterday when Georgian Forest Brothers guerrillas attacked an Abkhaz Internal Affairs Ministry post in the village of Repi, Gali district. According to this interim report, the guerrillas blew up the post and then exchanged fire with... MORE

The co-chairmen of the OSCE's mediating group--Lynn Pascoe of the United States, Yuri Yukalov of Russia, and Georges Vaugier of France--paid a five-day visit to the region to ascertain the situation in the wake of Armenia's presidential election. The leaders of Armenia and Karabakh outlined... MORE

According to Uzbek official media, the Namangan trial in which four Muslim activists were sentenced to prison (see the Monitor, May 12 and 13) was followed by three more trials with a similar outcome. In one case, the Namangan regional court sentenced three members of... MORE

An ethnic Russian deputy to the Uzbek parliament has made public the full provisions of the law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations," adopted on May 1 and known only incompletely until now (see the Monitor, May 5). Replacing a perestroika-era law, the new... MORE

Russia's former security chief Aleksandr Lebed has returned from the political wilderness to win a resounding victory in yesterday's election for the governorship in Krasnoyarsk Krai in central Siberia. Election officials said Lebed won 57 percent of the votes--well ahead of the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Valery... MORE

India's recent nuclear tests and growing unrest in Indonesia dominated discussion at this weekend's annual summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Birmingham, England. For Russia, the event marked the first time that it participated as a full-fledged member of what had formerly... MORE

Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko has condemned last week's vote by the State Duma to restrict to 25 percent the amount of shares in the Russian electricity giant, United Energy Systems (UES), that may be held by foreign investors. Foreign shareholders currently own at least... MORE

The U.S. side appeared to emerge satisfied from a forty-five minute meeting yesterday between the Russian and U.S. presidents. Reports described the talks between Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton as extremely friendly. They also said that Clinton had received assurances on two issues of great... MORE