Gorbachev released from hospital after operation

    Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has been discharged from a medical clinic in Munich, Germany, where the 75-year-old political reformer underwent a cartoid artery operation.
     "Mikhail Gorbachev was released from the hospital. He feels well and will return to Moscow next week,"- his assistant Vladimir Polyakov said.
     The cartoid artery is the main artery supplying blood to the brain.
     Gorbachev will be at the Moscow launch on December 7 of a new book he edited entitled "The USSR Could Have Been Saved,"- Polyakov said.
     December 8 will be the 15th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union, which was dissolved when the then-leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed an accord replacing the Soviet Union with the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Agence France Presse, 29.11.2006