Millions of unpaid workers across Russia are by now used to receiving part of their salary in kind. Nuclear physicists have been paid in loaves of bread; some factory directors have struck their own, surrogate coinage. But female workers in a Volgograd factory making ladies'... MORE

Unknown assailants last night killed four Russian residents in the Chechen capital, Grozny. (Interfax, December 19) This was the latest in a series of tragic events that includes the murder of six Red Cross workers on December 17 and the shooting of six elderly people... MORE

Leaders of three Russian nationalist parties--the Congress of Russian Communities, the Democratic Party of Russia (led by Sergei Glazyev) and the Russian National Union (led by Sergei Baburin) - -are reported to have agreed to form a new movement to be called "Third Force." The... MORE

Anti-government demonstrators in Belgrade protested at the Russian embassy on December 18. The protesters, some of whom reportedly carried American flags, were angry over Moscow's continued support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and for its warnings to the West that the month-long demonstrations throughout the... MORE

Late-arriving reports from Georgia's Ajarian Autonomous republic indicate that Russian troops, including tanks and armored vehicles, are participating along with Ajarian internal affairs and security personnel in "exercises" that began on December 17. The actions include the erection of cordons around key public buildings in... MORE

United Tajik Opposition chairman Saidabdullo Nuri's late arrival yesterday in Moscow, together with enduring political differences, prevented the scheduled opening of the Russian-arbitrated Tajik summit. Instead, the delegations headed by Nuri and President Imomali Rahmonov held only "unofficial consultations" with the Russian and UN special... MORE

The mayor of Vladivostok, Viktor Cherepkov, seems to have failed in his bid to cancel next Sunday's elections to the city Duma. Cherepkov says they are illegal and will be overruled, but the city legislature insists they will go ahead as planned. The row is... MORE

Kumtor Gold, a joint venture in Kyrgyzstan of the Cameco Corporation of Saskatchewan, Canada, commissioned its ore-enrichment and processing plant at the Kumtor gold field yesterday. Addressing the opening ceremony at the site, Kyrgyz president Askar Akaev expressed the hope that the revenue from this... MORE

Tajikistan's president, Imomali Rahmonov, and United Opposition chairman Saidabdullo Nuri are scheduled to meet today under Russian mediation in Moscow, in order to extend the ceasefire signed December 11 and to sign a political agreement on the principles of settling the conflict in Tajikistan. Amid... MORE

The office of Ajarian Supreme Soviet chairman Aslan Abashidze issued a special communiqué yesterday. It stated that the autonomous republic's internal affairs and "other law enforcement organs" (presumably meaning its KGB) have taken under their control the length of Ajaria's administrative border with the rest... MORE