On November 12 at a press conference in Almaty, the International Federation of the Red Cross reported that approximately 73 percent of Kazakhs live below the government-defined poverty line of $50 per person per month. (Reuter, November 12) The Red Cross reached this conclusion on... MORE

Shevardnadze told the country on radio that his November 14 meeting with South Ossetian leader Lyudvig Chibirov may have heralded "the time of Georgian-South Ossetian reconciliation in the framework of a single Georgian state." Shevardnadze commented that the actions which triggered the exodus of ethnic... MORE

In an address on national radio, Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze accused Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of "breaking all rules" and "providing aid and comfort to the separatists" through his recent order, which authorized direct deliveries of Abkhaz fruit and other produce to Russia and... MORE

In late October, the Russian government adopted a resolution calling for the harmonization of Russian and Belarusan law in a number of economic areas. Special emphasis was placed on privatization, price regulation, investment policy, agricultural reform, and the regulation of foreign economic activity. While most... MORE

Lithuania's Central Electoral Commission yesterday kicked off the presidential election campaign. The voting is scheduled for December 21, with a runoff to be held on January 4 if necessary. Seven candidates managed to gather the 20,000 signatures needed for entering the race. According to opinion... MORE

Boris Yeltsin's and Leonid Kuchma's November 16-17 "no-necktie summit" near Moscow showed, above all, an intention to improve the political atmosphere between Russia and Ukraine. In spite of an official agenda that focused on economic relations, the meeting between the two presidents seemed to produce... MORE

FBI director Louis Freeh, launching a four-day official visit to Russia, held separate meetings in Moscow yesterday with Nikolai Kovalev, the chief of Russia's Federal Security Service, and with Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin. Freeh's visit is to be devoted to Russian-U.S. cooperation in... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin's foreign policy coordinator and chief spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, announced yesterday that CIS Cooperation Minister Anatoly Adamishin has been assigned to oversee and "coordinate" Russia's policy on the Transdniester conflict. (Russian agencies, November 18) Yeltsin and Moldovan president Petru Lucinschi had discussed... MORE

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov announced yesterday that Moscow had drafted a plan aimed at bringing to an end the crisis between Iraq and the UN. The announcement followed an unscheduled visit to Moscow by Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz and meetings between the... MORE

The presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma, met on November 16-17 at Zavidovo, outside Moscow, for the first "no-necktie summit" in CIS history. Yeltsin and Kuchma agreed in principle to eliminate value-added taxes, which are considered primarily responsible for the sizable... MORE