The Ukrainian parliament yesterday practically suspended the industrial privatization program by freezing sales and purchases of state property, pending a presidential appointment and parliamentary confirmation of a State Property Fund chairman. The move aims to oust the SPF's acting chairman, the reformist Volodymyr Lanoviy, nominated... MORE

The head of the Tupolev organization was apparently trying to drum up some business last week when he reported that the Russian Air Force planned to buy six new Tu-160 supersonic bombers. (See Monitor, October 29) Air Force officials told a Russian newspaper that the... MORE

Renat Akchurin, the surgeon who carried out a coronary by-pass heart operation on Russian President Boris Yeltsin one year ago today, told journalists in Moscow yesterday that an electrocardiogram check, carried out on the president that day, showed that Yeltsin is in good physical condition... MORE

The U.S. government has accepted the findings of an expert panel, which has concluded that an August 16 seismic disturbance in the Kara Sea near the Russian nuclear test site of Novaya Zemlya was not a secret nuclear test. An earlier CIA report had said... MORE

Recent days have seen several developments that illustrate the difficulties still besetting the peace process in Tajikistan as well as the increasingly important role that Uzbekistan is playing in it. First, Tajik prime minister Yakhyo Azimov, United Tajik Opposition (UTO) leader Saidabdullo Nuri, and other... MORE

In an article titled "War or Peace: Time for Reflection," just published in the official newspaper Hayastani Hanrapetutiun/Respublika Armeniia, President Levon Ter-Petrosian warns that Armenia and Karabakh will "set the entire international community against themselves" unless they strive for a compromise solution to the Karabakh... MORE

Recent official data suggest that Ukraine's long economic decline may finally be ending. Although Ukraine is out of compliance with its IMF memorandum of understanding, Kyiv seems to be increasingly able to secure external financing for its budget and trade deficits without the Fund's assistance.... MORE

In wide-ranging remarks to Ukrainian and foreign journalists last weekend, President Leonid Kuchma warned against the possibility of a leftist victory in the upcoming parliamentary elections. He also accused the parliamentary majority of blocking reforms -- "the only road to national salvation, as confirmed by... MORE

Aleksei Yablokov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and former chief of the Security Council's environmental commission, said on October 31 that he personally knew the people who helped build the controversial "nuclear suitcase" weapons. Military and government officials have gone to great... MORE

The program to integrate Russia's Military Space Forces and the missile defense units of the Air Defense Troops into the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) has been completed, the SRF press center announced yesterday. The space troops had been an independent branch of the armed forces.... MORE