Russia's former Security Council Secretary Aleksandr Lebed was in the lead last night after the first round of the election for the governorship of Krasnoyarsk Krai in central Siberia. With 88 percent of the votes counted, Lebed was leading with 44 percent of the votes,... MORE

The biggest loser from last week's battle of wills between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the opposition-dominated State Duma was the Communist Party. Yeltsin's nominee for prime minister, Sergei Kirienko, was easily elected on April 24, with 251 of the 450 deputies voting for and... MORE

The Clinton administration, on April 24, welcomed the appointment of Sergei Kirienko as Russian prime minister. Speaking of the event later that day to reporters, U.S. President Bill Clinton described it as a "good news day for Russia and for the United States" and noted... MORE

Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev on April 15 signed agreements in Almaty dealing with mutual investment protection and avoidance of dual taxation. Belgium announced that it would shortly become the thirteenth member-country of the European Union (EU) to sign the... MORE

The situation of the "Russian-speaking population" in Kyrgyzstan has "changed for the better," said Slavic Culture Foundation President Valery Vishnevsky yesterday at the opening of Slavic Culture Days, an event sponsored by Russia and Belarus in Bishkek. But the situation would be "even better" if... MORE

The international Contact Group, which oversees conflict settlement in Tajikistan, handed over to the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition yesterday a timetable for accelerated implementation of the peace agreements. The timetable requires the UTO by May 31 to move all of its armed... MORE

In a statement made public yesterday, Armenia's Foreign Ministry yesterday accepted with satisfaction the Council of Europe's assessment of the recent presidential elections in Armenia. The CE monitors report, submitted at this week's session of the CE Parliamentary Assembly, assesses the election on the whole... MORE

The anti-corruption campaign announced earlier this year by President Eduard Shevardnadze seems to have made its mark on Georgia's troubled energy sector. Shevardnadze on April 13 accepted the resignation of Fuel and Energy Minister Davit Zubitashvili, following a "firm resolution" issued by the Georgian Parliament's... MORE

The Moldovan Parliament yesterday elected Dumitru Diacov as its Chairman. Diacov was born in 1952 in Siberia where his family had been deported from Moldova. Educated later as a journalist, Diacov worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya pravda in Moscow during the perestroika years. He... MORE

Armenia's new foreign minister, Vardan Oskanian, stated yesterday that OSCE proposals for settling the Karabakh conflict are "absolutely unacceptable to Armenia and to Karabakh." Oskanian specifically rejected the proposed status of autonomy for Karabakh; and he called outright for "eliminating the [OSCE's] Lisbon principles" from... MORE