DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS EMERGE IN KAZAKHSTAN. The urban population of Kazakhstan fell by 8.4 percent and the rural population by 6.8 percent during the 10 years that have elapsed since the 1989 census, Interfax reported on 13 May, citing the results of this year's census released by the State Statistics Agency. Of the country's current 14.95 million inhabitants, 8.3 million (55.9 percent) live in cities and the remainder in villages. The decrease of more than 1 million in the total population, from 16.2 million in 1989, is largely the result of outmigration of Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans. Ethnic Kazakhs now account for 53.4 percent of the population, compared with 36 percent at the time of the 1979 census. LF

KUCHMA SAYS HE WILL SEEK SECOND TERM. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said at Lviv University on 13 May that he will seek a second term in the 31 October presidential elections. "I simply do not have the moral right to leave in the middle of the road everything that has been done in the last five years in Ukraine. A change of political leader in Ukraine is a change of political course and I do not have the right to allow that," Reuters quoted him as saying. Kuchma told the agency that Ukraine has to keep on with reforms. "To convince people of that is my task today, the task of my team and of all those willing to support me," he added. According to the presidential election schedule, the official registration of candidates in Ukraine begins on 14 May. JM