Some 45 deputies from the forcibly dissolved Belarusan parliament, including a majority of its presidium's members and of its commissions' chairmen, held a session at the Minsk Literary House on December 10-12. The deputies resolved to hold regular meetings at least once a month. They... MORE

Karabakh's Foreign Ministry and National Assembly have warned in almost identical statements that they "question the advisability of Karabakh's further participation in the [OSCE-sponsored] negotiating process" to settle the conflict with Azerbaijan. Deploring the recent OSCE summit's acceptance of Azerbaijan's position, the Karabakh statements rejected... MORE

Russian Duma chairman Gennady Seleznev, in Tbilisi for a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, addressed the Georgian parliament yesterday. Seleznev conditioned Russia's ratification of the Russian-Georgian good-neighborly relations treaty on Tbilisi's own ratification of an agreement on Russian military... MORE

Russian journalists yesterday held a memorial day for colleagues who lost their lives during the course of their work. Secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists Pavel Gutiontov told a news conference that, over the past five years, 135 Russian journalists and eleven foreign reporters... MORE

There are conflicting reports from Russia over the status of the nationwide coalminers' strike that began eleven days ago. According to some reports, miners remain on strike today at mines in scattered regions. Yesterday, however, the leaders of Russia's main coalmining union said they had... MORE

Moscow's Mil Helicopter Plant on December 9 became the fourth partner in an effort to create an aviation-based financial-industrial-group that already includes the aircraft producers Sukhoi and Yak, as well as the Tupolev ANTK complex. The original trio signed an agreement launching the effort on... MORE

It was announced in Seoul yesterday that South Korea will take delivery next year on some $31 million worth of Russian-made BMP-3 armored combat vehicles, spare parts, and ammunition. The deal, signed in Moscow this month, is part of an earlier agreement that calls for... MORE

Russian deputy prime minister Aleksei Bolshakov yesterday signed a memorandum on military-technical cooperation with the Deputy Chairman of China's Central Military Council. The agreement, which envisions cooperation in the conversion of defense enterprises and the modernization of China's armed forces, was said to represent a... MORE

More than 100 representatives of the factories that both build and dismantle Russia's nuclear weapons picketed Government House in Moscow yesterday. They were protesting the fact that they have not been paid for many months. Vladimir Kaskin, a union official, said that the government owed... MORE

A general labor agreement for 1997 was recently signed in Kazakhstan by the government and representatives of workers and employers. Under the terms of the agreement, trade unions will not conduct any protest actions during the year. But a representative of the unions observed that... MORE