Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin announced on August 21 that the government has approved the draft budget for 2002 (Interfax, August 21). The ministry will now proceed to present the budget to the Duma. It anticipates no difficulty in obtaining the Duma's... MORE

Meeting in Tihany, Hungary on August 25, Prime Ministers Milos Zeman of the Czech Republic, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Jerzy Buzek of Poland and Mikulas Dzurinda of Slovakia called for a two-pronged enlargement of NATO next year. While reaffirming their support for the admission of... MORE

The Russian military aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi found itself the unlikely potential beneficiary last week of a diplomatic tug-of-war that has developed between the governments of Indonesia and the United States over the past several months. The issue involves arms sales, and in particular an arms... MORE

The deputy mayor of Novosibirsk, Igor Belyakov, was murdered this week. Head of the city government's department for the consumer market and land relations, Belyakov was killed around 8:00 AM on August 7, after a gunman dressed in camouflage and wearing a black mask opened... MORE

The murder of Novosibirsk Deputy Mayor Igor Belyakov was just one of the more high-profile apparent contract killings in Russia recently. Indeed, despite the widely held view--particularly abroad--that Vladimir Putin's accession as head of state has been accompanied by an overall increase in stability and... MORE

Slower than anticipated growth and deteriorating performance of the industrial sector is having on impact on Belarus' fiscal situation. GDP increased just 3.0 percent in the first six months of the year, compared with 6.0 percent growth in full year 2000. Industrial output in the... MORE

In the run-up to September's presidential election, the threat to Belarus' fiscal integrity represented by intervention in the economy was demonstrated on June 6, when President Alyaksandr Lukashenka ordered Finance Minister Mikalay Korbut to reduce the tax burden on industrial enterprises by 3 percent. Korbut... MORE

Ever since, in the mid 1990s, Ukraine promised the international community to close its ill-starred Chornobyl nuclear power plant, its governing elite has been unanimous on one issue: The West should compensate for the closure by financing two new ones. But the new minister for... MORE

With most of their political scandals with luck behind them, Ukraine's economic policymakers have approached negotiations with international financial institutions with renewed vigor over the last few weeks. Following the approval of a reduction in export tariffs on sunflower seeds to 17 percent, the government... MORE

Among the important questions left unanswered in the wake of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's recently concluded visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg (Kim is currently making his way by train back to his home country) is whether the two countries moved any closer to... MORE