The Milli Majlis on June 13 ratified the contract on exploration and development of the Talysh-Deniz and Lenkoran-Deniz offshore oilfields in the southern part of Azerbaijan's continental shelf. Signed earlier this year by a consortium of French, German, Belgian, and Iranian companies and the State... MORE

On June 13 Russia's Central Bank cut its refinancing rate from 36 to 24 percent, hoping to stimulate business borrowing and thus revive the economy. Annual inflation is currently running at 14.6 percent. (Kommersant-daily, June 14) Gazprom

On June 13 the Russian Duma adopted on first reading a draft budget code that tightens up procedures for the disbursement of budget funds. The government succeeded in watering down the initial draft, proposed by Oksana Dmitrieva of Yabloko, which called for a separation of... MORE

A series of incidents this week underscored the fragility of the cease-fire in Tajikistan and cast fresh doubt on the viability of the draft political agreement due to be signed on June 27 in Moscow. The deputy commander in chief of Tajik opposition forces in... MORE

Russia's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Aleksandr Blokhin, has stated at a Baku news conference that Moscow does not support the Lezgin organization Sadval (Unity), which aspires to unite the Lezgin-inhabited territories in northern Azerbaijan and in the Russian Federation's republic of Dagestan. Unleashing the Lezgin problem... MORE

Russia will have three military services rather than the present five when the second stage of military reform is completed in 2005, Defense Minister Igor Sergeev announced yesterday in Sevastopol, Ukraine. The current thinking seems to envision dividing the armed forces along functional lines. The... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament on June 11 ratified -- but with crippling conditions -- the 1996 agreement, signed by 11 CIS countries, on the transit of oil and oil products through pipelines on their territories. The Ukrainian parliament's decision, in the form of a law, eliminates... MORE

Russia's Democratic Choice, the party led by former prime minister Yegor Gaidar which includes First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais among its members, was in a jubilant mood yesterday. The party assembled to review the first hundred days of the "new" Russian government -- that... MORE

Recent weeks have seen the conclusion of a months-long struggle for control of Russia's securities market between the Russian Central Bank (RCB) and Dmitry Vasiliev's Federal Securities Commission (FKTsB). Vasiliev, a protege of Anatoly Chubais, argued that regulation of the securities market should be in... MORE

Yesterday was a public holiday in Russia, the seventh anniversary of the country's declaration of state sovereignty. President Boris Yeltsin marked the occasion with a public radio address. In the seven years that have passed since 1990, Yeltsin said, Russians have chosen freedom and democracy... MORE