MOSCOW — Picture the situation. An important economic bill drafted by presidential aides meets with strong opposition in the parliament. Efforts to find a compromise fail, and the bill is rejected by the lawmakers.
Then
-
-
MOSCOW — "There is a general feeling — at least among those inclined to be bullish on the subject — that a post-reform Russian economy has dawned, and we are now moving out across the gently rising pastures on the further
-
MOSCOW — Whoever was destined to head the polls in the second round of the Ukrainian presidential elections on July 10, the real winner was never in doubt. That was to be the "party of power" — the layer of high-placed
-
MOSCOW — Responding to pleas from terrified business people and urgent demands from Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Russian President Boris Yeltsin on June 14 issued a decree permitting tough action against Russia's vast and
-
If a presidential election were held in Russia in the near future, the winner would very likely be a populist candidate pledging strong action against corruption and crime; opposing privatisation and promising a
-
MOSCOW — Not so long ago, many Russians still believed that if they embraced capitalism, foreign investment would pour in to help modernise and expand their country's decrepit factories. That's a suggestion the new
-
MOSCOW — In the last weeks of May, the nerve of Russia's chief economic strategists seemed to crack. Ending months of confident statements by government leaders, President Boris Yeltsin admitted to a meeting of industrial
-
MOSCOW — Every spring since the Chernobyl catastrophe in April 1986, the Russian press has returned to history's worst nuclear disaster. In the first years, the articles focused on the heroism of the
-
MOSCOW — Imagine that in your country, every sixth vote supposedly cast in recent national elections was shown to have been fraudulent. Imagine, further, that the same expert study showed the constitution to have been
-
MOSCOW — On the afternoon of April 28, several hundred representatives of Russian state structures, political parties, trade unions and religious and social organisations gathered in the Kremlin to sign President Boris
-
MOSCOW — Within the administration of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, confusion and arbitrariness are the norm. Kremlin decrees of major significance are liable to be drawn up without the knowledge, let alone consent, of the
-
MOSCOW — If you talk to a young person serving in one of the commercial kiosks that line the main streets of Russian cities, the chances are rather high that he or she will turn out to be a student in a local university or