The government of Kazakhstan has made the first steps toward portfolio case-by-case privatization: It has invited a number of national and international investment companies to manage the sale of part of the state's remaining assets in four of the country's thirty-two "blue chip" companies on... MORE

According to the director of Russia's CIS Affairs Institute, Konstantin Zatulin, a demographic investigation has established that the population of Kazakhstan consists at present of 40 percent Russians and 39 percent Kazakhs as the predominant ethnic elements. In a public statement yesterday, based on these... MORE

The Belarusan Association of Detainees of the Lukashenka Regime held its founding convention on April 26 in Minsk. The Association's steering committee includes Popular Front leaders Yurii Khadyka and Vyacheslau Sivchyk, journalists Pavel Sharamet and Dzmitry Zavadski, poets Slavamir Adamovich and Alyaksey Melnikau, and other... MORE

Georgia's Defense Minister, Lieutenant-General Vardiko Nadibaidze, resigned yesterday at the request of President Eduard Shevardnadze. An emergency meeting of the National Security Council--chaired by Shevardnadze--held Nadibaidze responsible for two recent security lapses which potentially endangered the president. On April 26, when Shevardnadze with a sixty-strong... MORE

Although Ukraine's political and economic situation does not differ dramatically from Russia's, the IMF is showing no interest in throwing money at Kyiv. Instead, a two-week Fund mission to Ukraine concluded on April 21 with the understanding that any resumption of funding must await a... MORE

United Nations Security Council members agreed yesterday to maintain sanctions on Iraq. The decision came despite an appeal by Iraq's foreign minister to ease the sanctions regime and an earlier warning from Baghdad that any other decision might lead Iraq to reconsider its recent cooperation... MORE

Martin Gilman, the International Monetary Fund's resident representative in Moscow, told the Russian press last week that "the only thing that matters to the Fund is the realization of the agreement [between the IMF and the government], and whether the government's program is being implemented.... MORE

Senior Clinton administration officials have told The New York Times that Russia is aiding India in a program to develop a sea-launched cruise missile that would be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead deep into Pakistan. The administration officials say that they first conveyed their... MORE

Yesterday's Times' story follows yet another in a long series of talks between Russian and U.S. officials on the leakage of Russian missile technology to Iran. Last week, a high-powered U.S. delegation--which included U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Undersecretary of State John Holum,... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's representative to the State Duma, Aleksandr Kotenkov, surprised everyone when he told a Moscow press conference yesterday that the president dismissed the government of Viktor Chernomyrdin last month in order to forestall a plan by the parliament to hold a no-confidence... MORE