The Belarusan parliament remained in session overnight, fearful that president Aleksandr Lukashenko's security forces -- deployed around the building -- might seize it if the deputies left. The Foreign Ministries of Poland and Lithuania yesterday issued statements expressing concern over the crisis in Belarus and... MORE

The death toll following the November 16 bomb blast in the Caspian Sea coastal town of Kaspiisk has reached 50 as rescue workers continue to search the rubble for survivors and victims. A person suspected of staging the blast has been detained, Itar-Tass reported. The... MORE

Russia had invested $122 million in the failed Mars-'96 space probe while other countries had contributed more than $180 million to the project, a senior Russian space official revealed yesterday. According to Yuri Milov, deputy director of the Russian Space Agency, Ukraine had also spent... MORE

On a "working visit" to Moscow yesterday, Tajik president Imomali Rahmonov was received discreetly by Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and with fanfare by Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Rahmonov and Luzhkov agreed that Tajikistan will increase cotton deliveries to Moscow, while Moscow will assist Tajik... MORE

Doctors at a U.S.-run clinic in Istanbul have completed a checkup--"with a cardiac emphasis" -- of Turkmenistan's president Saparmurad Niazov. The doctors are cited as describing Niazov's condition as "generally satisfactory" and recommending regular checkups twice a year. Niazov was received by Turkish president Suleyman... MORE

Only days after the resolution of a major U.S.-Russian espionage row, American authorities yesterday charged a former CIA station chief with spying for Moscow. Harold J. Nicholson, aged 46 and a 16-year CIA veteran, had allegedly passed "very damaging information" to the Russians, for which... MORE

Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai on Saturday accused Syria of building nerve gas weapons with the help of Russian scientists. He warned that Israel, widely acknowledged to possess nuclear weapons, would "destroy" the regime of President Assad if those chemical weapons were ever used against... MORE

Authorities in the north Caucasus Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria have responded decisively to last weekend's declaration of a sovereign Republic of Balkaria. Criminal proceedings have been launched against the organizers of the Congress of the Balkar People, which proclaimed the new republic on November 17. In... MORE

Russian deputy prime minister Aleksandr Zaveryukha said on November 17 that Russia's food and agricultural producers had strengthened their position in the domestic market. Production of cereals has increased, he said, as has output of a such food products as sugar, children's food, margarine, and... MORE

Ukrainian and Crimean lawmakers, meeting in Kiev on November 16, are reported to have reached agreement on almost all the disputed articles in Crimea's draft constitution. The constitution was adopted by the Crimean parliament in November 1995, but the Ukrainian parliament objected to more than... MORE