By Elena Dikun On June 6 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov happily announced that Vladimir Putin had agreed to postpone the "adjustments" to the structure of the government for another couple of weeks. Kasyanov made his request during his visit to Poland; furthermore, in a... MORE

By Galina Chermenskaya On the night of April 13-14, Good Friday to Easter Saturday, a momentous event took place in Russia, the true significance of which remains to be understood. Representatives of NTV's principle shareholder Gazprom-Media arrived at the NTV offices and, proffering their warrants,... MORE

By A.I. Kolganov The development of democratic processes in Russia, including freedom of speech and of the press, has had a checkered history. Media rights and freedoms and the place of the media in Russia's political system are as yet unfixed values. The results of... MORE

By Elena Dikun From snippets of information and hints dropped recently in private discussions by major players in Russia's political process, one gains the impression that something serious is going on in the upper echelons. Our interlocutors wink conspiratorially and talk in riddles, implying that... MORE

By Elena Chinyaeva On April 27, Russia celebrated the 95th anniversary of its parliament. There was also something to celebrate, given that a fairly coherent political system is emerging out of the country's amorphous politics. Still, the fact that the new centrist coalition in the... MORE

By Volodymyr Zviglianich Ukraine has once again caught the world by surprise. She first made the headlines when the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station blew up, seriously threatening Europe with radioactive contamination, threatening Ukraine--which had built itself a nuclear monster on the... MORE

By Zaal Anjaparidze In his May 12 address to the parliament and the nation, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze warned that Georgia's status as an independent state would be threatened if it failed to crack down on rampant corruption. The scale of this corruption is a... MORE

By Sadji The problem of the utilization of natural resources in Central Asia has recently become increasingly acute. This issue is engendering disagreements between the independent states that may eventually lead to political conflict if they are not resolved quickly. Current developments in relations between... MORE

By Aleksandr Buzgalin Throughout last year the pages of Russia's newspapers and magazines were filled with innumerable articles on the subject of educational reform, and a great deal of attention has been paid to this issue in the first few months of this year as... MORE

By Nabi Abdullaev The restoration of civilian and business institutions in Chechnya, which Russian officialdom is trying to present as already having been pacified, is inevitably colliding with the absence of qualified personnel around the country as a whole. The problem is not just a... MORE