On July 20 the Federation Council debated the "Nadezhdin amendment," or "re-election bill," which aims to reduce the number of regional governors having the right to run for third terms from sixty-nine to ten. The result was predictable. The regional governors and their representatives in... MORE

Belarus is headed for a simulated presidential election on September 9, which should give President Alyaksandr Lukashenka a third term of office. Lukashenka, however, does not consider it necessary to simulate an electoral campaign. He announced from the outset that he would neither campaign, nor... MORE

Russian authorities announced last week that they had arrested a group of servicemen in connection with excesses committed against civilians during zachistki (or "cleansing" operations) conducted by Russian forces in Chechnya earlier this month in the western Chechen villages of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya. Following those... MORE

Chechen rebel commanders reportedly met in a remote mountainous part of the breakaway republic over the weekend to reaffirm their allegiance to President Aslan Maskhadov. A rebel spokesman told AFP yesterday that the field commanders had held a "war council" in Nozhai-Yurt region, during which... MORE

Former President Algirdas Brazauskas, who took office on July 12 as Lithuania's prime minister, may be in for an informal probationary period on the basis of his pre-1991 career. European Union officials, for example, will be watching--according to EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen--to see "whether... MORE

Kazakhstan is in the midst of an economic boom. In 2000, GDP growth ran 9.6 percent, benefiting from a 14.6 percent increase in industrial output. Rapid growth is continuing this year. In the first quarter, GDP surged 11.0 percent as industrial output jumped 11.1 percent... MORE

After dropping sharply in 2000, inflation in Kazakhstan has held steady in 2001. Inflation jumped from 1.9 percent in December of 1998 to 18.1 percent in December of 1999 after the tenge was devalued. It then tumbled to 10.0 percent in December of last year.... MORE

Roughly two weeks of intense diplomatic maneuvering by both Moscow and Washington are set to culminate this weekend when leaders from the Group of Seven countries and Russia gather in Genoa, Italy, for summit talks that are likely to focus the spotlight once again on... MORE

But the Russian-Chinese arms sale notwithstanding, Moscow seems in general to have adopted measured tones in the runup to the Genoa summit. That posture was notable in remarks Vladimir Putin made to journalists on July 18, when teh Russian president said publicly that Moscow would... MORE

Lithuania has a new, left-of-center government, headed by former President Algirdas Brazauskas, and resting on a majority of eighty-four in the 141-seat parliament. The government is a coalition of Social-Democrat Party (SDP) and the New Union/Social Liberals (NU/SL), which are headed respectively by Brazauskas and... MORE