By empty (9/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Speaking at an expanded cabinet meeting including the heads of the 89 subjects of the Russian Federation and the heads of practically all federal institutions, President Vladimir Putin announced on 13 September radical changes in the organization of the political system in Russia. First, he proposed that the leaders of federation subjects, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, no longer be elected by direct ballot, but by the regional legislators endorsing candidates recommended by the president.

By empty (9/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Eighty-eight Russian refugees from Chechnya, who were earlier denied entry into Poland, managed to cross the Belarussian-Polish border on Monday, sources in the Brest passenger station\'s border control department (Belarus) told Interfax. All of them were given the status of refugees and sent to Polish centers for displaced persons, they said. Chief of the station\'s border control department, Sergei Dral, told Interfax that 125 refugees from Chechnya attempted to enter Poland on Saturday, but only 24 of them were cleared into that country.

By empty (9/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Moscow has demanded that the Lithuanian authorities take steps to close Chechen separatists\' Kavkaz- Center website which operates in Lithuania. \"Lithuanian Ambassador to Russia Rimantas Sidlauskas was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on September 13, where he was told that Russia insistently demands that the activities of Chechen separatists\' Kavkaz-Center website in Lithuania be stopped,\" says a Russian Foreign Ministry press release issued on Monday. \"Any lack of action in the face of the website\'s continuing functioning on Lithuania\'s server will be viewed by Moscow as an overtly unfriendly step on the part of the Lithuanian authorities, which has a negative influence on the atmosphere of our bilateral relations,\" the release says.