A recent report, prepared by the Turkish government on Russia's policies in Central Asia, reaches the obvious conclusion that Moscow seeks "to regain its dominant position by using the terrorism threat as a tool" (Turkish Daily News, June 16). Lacking the means to control the... MORE

Tajikistan's government is marking the fourth anniversary of the peace agreement with the opposition (June 27, 1997) by staging the largest military operation against internal opponents since the end of the civil war. On June 22, government troops with artillery, armored vehicles and helicopter gunship... MORE

A respected Russian scientist, arrested and imprisoned earlier this year on what appear to be bogus espionage charges, has seen his health deteriorate and last week found himself in a hospital suffering chest pains. Valentin Danilov, head of the Thermal Physics Center of Krasnoyarsk's Technical... MORE

At the initiative of Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, Russia held its first "democratic conference" last week, on June 19, bringing together representatives of some twenty disparate democratic organizations and parties. These included Yabloko, the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) and the Russian United Social-Democratic Party,... MORE

Valeria Novodvorskaya's and Sergei Yushenkov's comments at last week's democratic conference highlight the ambivalent position that both the the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) and Yabloko have vis-a-vis the Kremlin. The SPS has openly said that it will support Kremlin policies with which it agrees--mainly... MORE

With relatively little public fanfare, the Russian government is moving to implement a set of far-reaching economic reform measures. If implemented as planned, these measures could move Russia much closer to the institutional framework possessed by the leading transition economies in Central Europe and the... MORE

But while higher tariffs may improve these companies' cash flow, there is no guarantee that Russia's corruption-plagued financial system will put these rubles to good use. Two other reform measures now being prepared by the government and Central Bank of Russia (CBR) underscore the pitfalls... MORE

The Russian government is also moving forward with measures to liberalize markets for labor and land. Here, the government's desire to improve the investment environment by making it easier for businesses to buy land and fire workers runs up against both Soviet-era legislation and strong... MORE

The seemingly happy conclusion of this past weekend's Russian-U.S. summit, at which the presidents of the two countries agreed to resume high-level defense and security contacts, has apparently not stopped either Washington or Moscow from following through on the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats that followed... MORE

Russia has again been included on a list of noncomplying countries in the fight against money laundering that is compiled each year by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental body set up by the G-7 countries in 1989 to combat money laundering. The... MORE