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Turkmenistan has pulled out of the CIS at the summit in Kazan timed to the city’s millennium. Unlike his neighbors, Saparmurat Niyazov was not afraid to break off relations with Moscow. And yet, the most notorious dictator of the former USSR does not risk isolation, a military invasion or another Color Revolution.Leaders of CIS countries-members were rarely so disciplined in arrive at the organization’s summits as they did in Kazan. Even “color” presidents of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova were there. Vladimir Voronin interrupted his vacation in Karlovy Vary to come the meeting, while Mikhail Saakashvili took his pregnant wife Roelofs...

From correspondents in Kazan August 27, 2005 LEADERS of 12 former republics of the Soviet Union ended a meeting in Kazan in central Russia overnight with doubts as to the future of their bloc unresolved. The meeting was supposed to give some indication as to the way ahead for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which is in the throes of its most serious crisis since it was founded out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991. At its end Russian President Vladimir Putin said modernising the group would be an uphill task. "The questions linked to modernisation...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Report shows how terrorists exploited immigration lawsBy Jerry SeperTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished August 31, 2005 Of the 94 known foreign-born terrorists who operated in the United States between 1993 and 2004, two-thirds of them committed immigration fraud prior to or as part of their terrorist activities, a report said yesterday.     At least 21 became naturalized U.S. citizens before being charged or convicted as terrorists, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) said in a 46-page report.     CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian said the report "highlights the danger of our lax immigration system, not just in terms of who...

Another sign indicating that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is disintegrating emerged in the Commonwealth summit held at Kazan. Turkmenistan is preparing to leave the 15 year old CIS by changing its status. Georgian President Mihail Saakashvili revealed that in the last hours of the summit, Turkmenistan government communicated its request for a change in its CIS permanent membership status. In the case that Turkmenistan breaks away from the CIS, it will be the first time since the three Baltic republics that a Central Asian Soviet will have obtained full independence....

AUG. 19 2:10 P.M. ET Ukraine's economy minister said Friday that his country intended to pull out of an economic pact with three other ex-Soviet republics led by Russia following talks with the Russian trade minister, the Interfax news agency reported. "The main result of our meeting is that Ukraine and Russia have decided what to do with the CES project," Serhiy Teriokhin was quoted as saying by Interfax. "We are switching to a bilateral format of cooperation with Russia." He said that a committee would be established to discuss bilateral relations with Russia. "Evidently, after this committee is established,...

Instability in Afghanistan and growing activity by terrorist organizations complicate the situation in Central Asia, the chief of the CIS anti-terrorist center, Colonel-General Boris Mylnikov has said. He was speaking at the opening of an anti-terrorist command staff exercise in the Caspian. “The Afghan society is on the brink of another civil war and this may have adverse effects on the situation in the whole region of Central Asia,” Mylnikov said. He recalled that secret services back in 2002 warned that the leaders of Al-Qaeda and Taliban had regrouped their forces with the aim to destabilize situations in Central Asian...

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Saturday that Ukraine wants to develop and deepen economic relations with Russia. "We have traditional relations of friendship with Russia where Ukraine used to sell 38% of its produce and is now selling just 18%. We want to develop our interests in this market. But what we need is a different policy and other mechanisms. That is why we talk about the CIS and those Common Economic Space initiatives, which are vitally important for us," Yushchenko, who is currently visiting Georgia, told a briefing in the mountain resort town of Borzhomi, Itar-Tass reported. "I...

Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein Overshadowed in the Western press by the G8 summit of leading industrialized nations and the complications to it caused by the London transit bombings, another summit -- the July 5 meetings in Astana, Kazakhstan of the heads of government of the six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.) -- promised to have greater geostrategic significance than the more widely reported events. Created with its present membership of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in 2001, the origins of the S.C.O. date back to 1996 when Beijing initiated the Shanghai Five, which included...

Immigrant mothers gave birth to 41 percent of the babies born in Denver in 2002, says a report by a group that favors limiting immigration. The Center for Immigration Studies said nationally 23 percent of babies were born to foreign-born mothers. The 2002 figures are the latest available. Immigrant mothers accounted for only 15 percent of the births in Denver and nationally in 1990. The share of births to immigrant mothers has at least doubled since 1990 in the populous Front Range counties. The center's study said Colorado was fifth in percentage of births to illegal immigrants. Dr. Richard Jones,...

DUSHANBE, June 24 (RIA Novosti) - The first phase of CIS combined military exercises began at the Telemba firing range in the Chita region in southwestern Russia Friday. The exercise will last until July 10, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a press conference in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, following a meeting of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers. The Russian Air Force, the Baltic Fleet's anti-aircraft defense units and Belarus' anti-aircraft defense troops are taking part in the exercises. "The second phase will take place on Kazakhstan territory in Saryshagan, from August 5-12," Ivanov said. The second phase involves Kazakhstan's air...

Alaxandr Lukashenka is methodically preparing for the presidential election planned for 2006 as he tackles all potential threats that might stand in the way of his successive ballot victory. The aim of the measures taken recently by the government is to completely eliminate opposition political parties, independent social organisations and independent media. A way to deal with the oppositionOn 6th June, the Belarusian Ministry of Justice announced its intent to complete the process of shutting down the offices of parties and organisations located in residential buildings. The order to move offices from residential to office buildings was issued in November...

Going 'Bananas' in Belarus By Peter Savodnik President Bush's visit to the former Soviet republic of Georgia last week served as a reminder that the United States is working to foment peaceful (and not so peaceful) democratic uprisings throughout the region. U.S. tax dollars helped further the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan this year. Now U.S. aid is helping train democratic leaders for 2006 presidential elections in Belarus, with the hope someone can topple President Alexander G. Lukashenko, a tough, Soviet-style leader with close ties to...

Ukraine says "no hope" for further development of CIS KYIV. April 9 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Economics Minister Serhiy Teryokhyn said on Saturday that the Commonwealth of Independent States "is a system that has finished attaining all the objectives set to it" and that "there is no hope for its development." Teryokhyn told a news conference that the Ukrainian government would soon consider stopping its financial contributions to CIS bodies. The news conference was called to comment on the results of a meeting this week of the high-level group for forming what is called the Common Economic Space, a union to...

Ex-republic's embrace of the West could raise fears in Russia WASHINGTON - President Bush pledged Monday to help Ukraine join NATO and the World Trade Organization and said the two countries would work together to foster reform in other former Soviet republics. Some Russia experts warned that Bush's tight embrace of Ukraine and advocacy of change elsewhere on Russia's borders could trigger Russian fears of encirclement and worsen already strained relations between Washington and Moscow. President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, hinted at some of this Monday when he said in an interview in Moscow that Infighting...

SHOULD GEORGIA AND UKRAINE BE FORCED TO REMAIN WITHIN THE CIS? MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti commentator Pyotr Goncharov). Moscow views the initiative from Kiev, Tbilisi and Chisinau to resurrect the GUUAM as an anti-Russian demarche and a stab in the back of the CIS. Some people believe that if Azerbaijan joins the triumvirate of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, a political and economic bloc will emerge, which might be the "coup de grace" for the CIS. Moreover, the bloc might become the main competitor for, if not the gravedigger of, the CES (Common Economic Space), which includes Ukraine along with Russia, Belarus...

TBILISI, Feb 4 (AFP) - An aide to Georgian prime minister Zurab Zhvania, who died apparently after breathing toxic fumes leaked by a faulty heater, committed suicide late Friday, an interior ministry spokesman said. The aide, 32-year-old Georgi Khelashvili, shot himself with a gun in his Tbilisi apartment, the spokesman said. Khelashvili was a member of Zhavania`s staff, working with the pardons commission, the Mze television channel reported. It was not yet clear whether Khelashvili`s suicide was linked to Zhvania`s death. Zhvania, Georgia`s widely respected prime minister seen as the driving force behind market-oriented economic reform in the restive...

DERNIERE MINUTE: 07h01 - the Prime Minister géorgien was found died in an apartment in Tbilissi Zourab Jvania discovered was died, apparently poisoned with gas, in the apartment of a friend in whom it was, announced the Minister of Interior Department géorgien, Nano Merabihvili.(AFP)

The son of Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, lobbied for business contacts at gatherings of UN officials on behalf of a company in the same year as it won an oil-for-food programme deal, it has emerged. The second disclosure in a week about Kojo Annan's role with the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection Services, which secured the $4.8 million (£2.46 million) UN contract to monitor goods entering and leaving Iraq in 1998, has raised embarrassing questions for his father. The details were revealed in Cotecna company documents handed over under subpoena to US congressional scrutineers who are investigating the oil-for-food...

As European leaders hailed the apparent victory of Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko as a triumph for democracy worldwide, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Russia might refuse to recognize Mr. Yushchenko as the new president of his country. A statement issued by Moscow Wednesday said that electoral observers from the West were "not objective" when they said the election process was free of tampering. Meanwhile, the Herald reports an observer mission from the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) alleged that it had "found" huge electoral fraud that favored Yushchenko. Among the possible violations, reports Ukrainska Pravda, was "election...

CIS Anxious About 'Orange Revolution' Several members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are anxious following the successes of the 'rose revolution' in Georgia last year and then the 'orange revolution' in Ukraine. Ukraine has recommended the 'orange revolution' to other CIS countries, especially to Russia. Most are curious about what Ukraine's strategy will be going forward. Experts tell Zaman that the movement in Ukraine that originally stemmed from internal dynamics, despite its external affects, might lead to concern that it may set an example for all CIS members. The Deputy Head of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace's Moscow...