Georgian "Forest Brothers" guerrillas and Abkhaz security troops clashed during the night of May 10-11 near the village of Khumushkuri, situated in the Abkhaz-controlled Gali district. The Georgian guerrillas had seized Khumushkuri from Abkhaz forces last week (see the Monitor, May 4) and were now... MORE

Kyrgyz State Security Minister Missir Ashirkulov yesterday indicated that the Russian-Uzbek-Tajik anti-Islamic "troika" envisages, inter alia, joint actions by the three countries' Security Ministries. Ashirkulov publicly offered the participation of Kyrgyzstan's Security Ministry in the troika's activities. He claimed that "Wahhabis" and other "religious extremists"... MORE

State Security Minister Missir Ashirkulov announced yesterday that an underground Islamic "extremist" organization has been uncovered in Kyrgyzstan. He described the organization as run by foreign citizens busy recruiting Kyrgyz youths for training as "religious fighters" in camps situated in "neighboring countries." According to the... MORE

According to Uzbek authorities, four "religious extremists" have pleaded guilty during a closed-door trial in Namangan. They are charged with conspiring to overthrow the government, propagating ideas of an "Islamic state," and undergoing guerrilla training in a camp in a "neighboring country." The court will... MORE

Moscow was a dissenter once again as the leading Western democracies imposed a new investment ban on Serbia and froze its assets abroad. The move came during a meeting in London of foreign and finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, and... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin will make his Internet debut tomorrow (May 12) when he will answer questions put by Internet users. The forty-minute session is due to begin at 0930 GMT (05:30 ET). It is being organized to mark the G7/G8 summit by the company... MORE

Russia marked the fifty-third anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe on May 9 with a military parade across Red Square and a big alternative rally by the left-wing opposition outside the Lubyanka, headquarters of the secret police. According to police, some... MORE

Russian ambivalence in the area of relations with NATO has apparently resurfaced in the wake of the U.S. Senate's April 30 vote in favor of NATO membership for Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. After a week of virtual silence from Russian leaders on the... MORE

In a talk at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies on Wednesday, May 6, Anne Nivat, a fellow at the center, summarized her recent research on the mass media in Russia. Media and politics are so tightly intertwined that "the list of media owners... MORE

Not only do the media moguls differ in their aims, they also diverge in the degree to which they try to impose a unified structure and style on their media holdings. The media outlets controlled by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, or those owned by Gazprom... MORE