Ruslan Aushev has been reelected to a second term as president of Ingushetia. Voter turnout was over 90 percent. According to preliminary figures, Aushev garnered 66.5 percent of the vote. Issa Kostoev -- who heads the International Law Department of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin yesterday appointed Ivan Rybkin to the post of deputy prime minister responsible for CIS affairs. Rybkin replaces Valery Serov, whom Yeltsin had released last week "in connection with his transfer to other work," as yet unspecified. (See Monitor, March 2) Serov... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin yesterday transferred the long-serving head of the Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM), Viktor Mikhailov, to an unnamed research position. Sources in the ministry said that Mikhailov -- who will soon be sixty-four years old -- initiated the move. (Russian media, March 2)... MORE

The frustrated efforts of UN inspectors to ferret out all of Iraq's biological agents and weapons has also put the spotlight on Russia's biological weapons (BW) program. Although Moscow (as the Soviet Union) signed and ratified the 1972 BW ban, Washington has repeatedly charged that... MORE

Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliev's official visit to Japan, from February 24 through 28, resulted in a contract with the Mitsui company on its participation in developing Azerbaijan's Kurdashi offshore oilfield. Situated some 120 kilometers south of Baku, the field is estimated to contain 100 million... MORE

United Tajik Opposition First Vice Chairman Akbar Turanjozoda, considered the UTO's main political strategist, returned to Dushanbe on February 27 after five years of political exile in Iran and Afghanistan. Addressing a mass welcome rally and a news conference, Turajonzoda outlined, in no special order,... MORE

Casting about for a counterweight to the UTO, Tajik President Imomali Rahmonov addressed a rally in Hujand, the center of Leninabad region, urging support to his policies of secularism. Rahmonov ruled out a constitutional revision that would remove the term "secular state". (Radio Dushanbe, February... MORE

President Leonid Kuchma paid a state visit to Russia from February 26 through March 1, the first such visit in more than six years of Ukrainian independence. Accompanied by a numerous governmental delegation, Kuchma held talks with President Boris Yeltsin and other Russian officials at... MORE

Belarus reported a trade deficit of $1.497 billion in 1997, which constituted a 16.3 percent increase over the 1996 deficit. Combined with rapid increases in Belarus' national debt in 1997 and plans for more of the same in 1998, this growth constitutes another signal that... MORE

Dagestani authorities say their investigation into last December's raid on a Russian army post in Buinaksk has revealed that Kuwait is coordinating a Wahhabi center in Dagestan and financing it through front organizations in Azerbaijan. Until now, the Dagestani authorities had said the Buinaksk raid... MORE