Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze has told the new commander of Russian "peacekeeping" troops, Maj. Gen. Sergei Korobko, that the troops have failed to contribute to a resolution of the conflict in Abkhazia. This failure, Shevardnadze said, "makes a renewal of their mandate very problematic." Korobko... MORE

The fight against drugs trafficking in Central Asia was the topic of two major meetings at the close of last week in Kazakhstan. Pino Arlacchi, director of the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), met with President Nursultan Nazarbaev on January 14. (Panorama, January 16)... MORE

The head of the Security Council of Belarus, Gen. Viktar Sheiman, charged on January 18 that opposition leaders are lobbying the U.S. Congress to adopt a resolution on "restoring democracy in Belarus. In remarks broadcast on national television, Sheiman said that the opposition has also... MORE

Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma agreed yesterday by telephone to hold an "unofficial" summit on January 30-31 near Moscow in order to prepare for their "official" summit scheduled for next month. According to the Kremlin's foreign policy coordinator, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, it was Kuchma who... MORE

Although the government is far from eliminating current wage and allowance arrears to Russian servicemen, political leaders have begun to talk of raising pay for members of the armed forces. Without mentioning any specific figures, President Boris Yeltsin yesterday said that military salaries would be... MORE

First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais on January 10 presented to the government's Commission on Economic Reform the cabinet's 1998-2000 program to reform the country's gargantuan rail system. Although this reform program is based on principles that have been applied successfully in other countries, the... MORE

The Russian stock market has reacted with predictable gloom to last week's decision by Moody's, the U.S. credit-rating agency, to downgrade to "negative" the outlook for Russia's sovereign credit rating. This reevaluation is a warning that the rating itself (which is already below investment grade)... MORE

The U.S. credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has given a BB- credit rating to Samara Oblast. (Western agencies, January 16) This means Samara can join a handful of other Russian regions in borrowing in the form of international bond issues -- admittedly, at a... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin returned to the Kremlin yesterday after a month's absence and publicly scolded the government he had appointed for its failure to resolve the country's economic woes. "A lot of work has piled up. Plenty of questions and problems have been created,"... MORE

Aleksandr Dzasokhov, a one-time member of the CPSU Politburo, won a convincing victory in Sunday's election for president of North Ossetia. Dzasokhov won 75 percent of the vote in besting incumbent president Akhsarbek Galazov, who received only 15 percent (some reports put it even lower).... MORE