The National Economic Development Party (NEDP) is a late entrant on Ukraine's political stage. Set up by senior bankers and managers of state enterprises, its twin goals are to represent Ukrainian industrial-financial interests and to support the presidential camp in these elections. NEDP's slate of... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma stated on election eve (Ukrainian agencies, March 27) that he personally considers forming a post-election coalition government comprising two or three centrist parties, including the Agrarian Party of Ukraine. Founded in December 1996, and claiming a large membership but only modestly represented... MORE

Amid the tumult surrounding Russia's recent government reshuffle, Acting First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov gave assurances on March 27 that Russian President Boris Yeltsin will travel to Japan as planned for an informal summit meeting on April 11-13. Nemtsov co-chairs a joint Russian-Japanese economic... MORE

The joint exercise Spring Wind 98 culminated on March 27 with a simulated operation in which units of the three Baltic states had to entrap a large invading column. A Lithuanian unit engaged the aggressor force in a hold-off action, whereupon Estonian and Latvian units... MORE

Ukraine held parliamentary elections yesterday for the second time as an independent country. The turnout exceeded all expectations. Thirty parties and blocs contested 225 parliamentary seats, which are to be divided proportionately among the slates that obtain at least 4 percent of the votes cast... MORE

Interviewed on Russian TV over the weekend, Viktor Chernomyrdin stated for the first time that he definitely intends to run for president in 2000. (ORT, March 28) Chernomyrdin, sacked as prime minister one week ago, refused to be drawn as to whether he was Yeltsin's... MORE

According to Speaker Gennady Seleznev, the lower house of the Russian parliament is likely to consider President Boris Yeltsin's nomination of Sergei Kirienko as prime minister on April 3. After that, Kirienko will give Yeltsin his recommendations for a new cabinet. Many members of the... MORE

The shake-up of Russia's defense and security establishment continued over the weekend, as Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on March 28 streamlining and reorganizing the country's powerful Security Council. According to a Council source, Yeltsin has ordered that Council staff be cut to... MORE

President Nursultan Nazarbaev has praised the Kazakh intelligentsia for its contribution to interethnic peace in the republic but deplored their tendency to display animosity toward "power of whatever kind." Addressing the government's commission on public accord and national history, he exhorted Kazakh intellectuals to adopt... MORE

Presidents Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan and Imomali Rahmonov of Tajikistan met yesterday in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent in the framework of the Central Asian Union (CAU). The meeting marked the accession of Tajikistan as a full-fledged party to... MORE