TWO CHALLENGE KUCHMA.

Ukraine’s former president, Leonid Kravchuk, and former prime minister Yevhen Marchuk have joined forces with each other and with the United Social-Democrat Party in a potentially strong challenge to President Leonid Kuchma’s camp. At the USDP’s congress over the weekend, Kravchuk and Marchuk accepted two top slots on that party’s slate for the upcoming parliamentary elections. (Ukrainian agencies, October 19) Marchuk had been wooed by the recently dismissed prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, who has embarked on an inflammatory electoral campaign.

Tajikistan: Overdue Release of Political Detainees and Military Prisoners Begins.