The impoverished former Soviet republic of Moldova will sell a 51 percent stake in its state-owned telecommunications monopoly by August, the government said.

Most have left Chechnya to the west, overwhelming the impoverished republic of Ingushetia, which had only 300,000 residents before the crisis.

He made the remarks while traveling to Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet republic and one of the main smuggling routes for heroin coming from Afghanistan.

Lawmakers voted 58-42 to oust Prime Minister Ion Sturza, 43, a businessman who has led the impoverished former Soviet republic for eight months.

Kyrgyzstan, a impoverished former Soviet republic with five million people, is one of several Central Asian countries that have abruptly become important strategic allies of the United States.

For this small and impoverished republic, Middle School No.1 was ground zero.

Mr. Ciubuc had promised to speed changes in the impoverished former Soviet republic, but little changed as Moldova was seriously affected by Russia's economic turmoil.

Russia continues to subsidize the impoverished republics with both cheap resources and ruble credits to buy Russian industrial goods.

President Dzhokkar Dudayev, himself married to a Russian, tried to suppress ethnic tensions, which he viewed as a destabilizing element to an already impoverished and internationally isolated republic.

Immigrants who move through these countries, including large numbers from the impoverished former Soviet republics of Central Asia, then travel by sea to Scandinavia.