The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan yesterday sentenced 11 participants in the 1995 OPON rebellion to prison terms ranging from 5 to 13 years. Several defendants belonged to the personal entourage of the rebellion's fugitive co-leader, Mahir Javadov. Mahir's brother, Rovshan Javadov, led and was killed... MORE

Bill Clinton departed last night for Helsinki, where he and Russian president Boris Yeltsin are to attend a dinner tonight hosted by Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. The Russian and American leaders will conduct two rounds of meetings tomorrow, and follow those talks with a joint... MORE

In Kiev yesterday, presidential administration head Yevgeny Kushnarev reinforced President Leonid Kuchma's signal that Ukraine may seek NATO protection from Russia. (See Monitor, March 17) While Kuchma's remarks "don't imply that a decision to join NATO has already been taken... Russian pressures are indeed pushing... MORE

The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan yesterday sentenced seven activists of the irredentist Lezgin organization Sadval to terms of imprisonment -- ranging mostly from 13 to 15 years -- on charges of treason, banditry, and assassination. One of the accused is the Russian citizen Asul Kasumov,... MORE

Kazkommertsbank, Kazakstan's largest and best-known commercial bank, is moving to acquire equity stakes in oil-related firms undergoing privatization. (Interfax, March 16) The bank intends to reduce the number of firms for which it is serving as the government's official privatization consultant, so that it may... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma has ordered the heads of law enforcement agencies to assume personal responsibility for investigating the death of Petro Shevchenko, the Kievskie vidomosti newspaper's correspondent in Luhansk. Shevchenko's body was found last week on the outskirts of Kiev in circumstances which seemed... MORE

The long-advertised "Day of Social Protest," scheduled for March 18 by leftist and some ethnic Russian organizations in Ukraine, drew a significant level of support, though clearly short of expectations. The organizers claimed that 340,000 people participated in various forms of protest across the country.... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a decree last week subordinating the airborne forces to the ground forces, a Defense Ministry source revealed on March 17. The airborne forces will remain "an independent armed service" like army aviation and army missile troops, the source added. Although... MORE

Members of the Belarusan Helsinki Committee told The Monitor yesterday that the authorities continue to hold dozens of participants arrested during and after the March 10, March 14, and March 15 democracy and national independence demonstrations in Minsk. (See Monitor, March 11, 17) Many of... MORE

Fifty passengers and crew died yesterday when a Stavropol Airlines plane crashed 37 minutes after taking off from Stavropol in southern Russia on a flight to Turkey. (NTV, March 18) The cause of the crash is not yet known, but experts are discounting the possibility... MORE