The fighting stopped yesterday in central Tajikistan following intercession by government and opposition representatives, UN military observers and diplomats of the Contact Group countries mandated to oversee the implementation of the peace agreements. From a military point of view, the success of opposition detachments was... MORE

Kubanychbek Zhumaliev yesterday replaced Apas Jumagulov as prime minister of Kyrgyzstan. Jumagulov, 64, had held that office since 1993. He resigned on March 24, citing his age. President Askar Akaev nominated Zhumaliev as the new prime minister the same day. The parliament approved the nomination... MORE

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and Georgian Defense Minister Vardiko Nadibaidze signed on March 24 in Washington an agreement on bilateral military cooperation. The document envisages U.S. assistance to Georgia in several areas, including control of national airspace and territorial waters, modernization of radio communications... MORE

The Kremlin's foreign policy coordinator Sergei Yastrzhembsky and Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council Aleksandr Razumkov conferred yesterday in Moscow about organizing another "no-necktie" meeting between Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma. They announced that they have tentatively scheduled and planned the agenda for such... MORE

On a visit to Russia's Murmansk region, Belarusan President Alyaksandr Lukashenka dusted off and enlarged his financial claims on Russia. Lukashenka asserted that Russia has piled up at least $1 billion worth of debts to Belarus each year since the creation of the Russia-Belarus Union... MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov and his Norwegian counterpart Knut Vollebaek announced in Bonn yesterday that their two countries had put the recent spy scandal behind them. (Russian agencies, March 25) On March 12, the Norwegian government declared five Russian diplomats persona non grata for... MORE

The Chechen parliament has decided once again to abandon the Russian name of the capital of the republic, Grozny, and to rename the city "Djohar" in honor of the republic's first president, Djohar Dudaev. Grozny ("terrible" or "threatening") was a Russian city, founded in 1824... MORE

The newspaper Izvestia has launched another round of accusations of anti-Semitism against the governor of Krasnodar Krai, Nikolai Kondratenko. (Izvestia, March 24) Earlier this month, the newspaper published the text of a virulently anti-Semitic speech, which, it said, the governor had delivered to a youth... MORE

U.S. officials late last week accused Russia directly of trying to block an agreement among Contact Group members for tough sanctions against Belgrade. The charge that Russia's opposition to sanctions came despite the fact that Yugoslav authorities had failed to withdraw special police forces from... MORE

Riven by differences among its six members, the international Contact Group -- made up of the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy -- took only minor action yesterday to maintain pressure on Serbian authorities in Belgrade. A meeting of the six countries' foreign... MORE