At a ceremony in Berlin, Georgia returned to Germany approximately 100,000 books looted by the Red Army from libraries in Berlin, Luebeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipzig, and other German cities after World War II. German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel described the restitution as voluntary and unconditional.... MORE

According to Chechen information minister Movladi Udugov, the Chechen government learned of financier Boris Berezovsky's appointment to the Security Council "with satisfaction." Deputy Premier Ruslan Kutaev said Berezovsky's appointment could presage Russian investment in the Chechen economy. (NTV, October 31) However, ousted Security Council secretary... MORE

Russian interior minister Anatoly Kulikov conferred in Moscow earlier this week with his Chechen counterpart, Kazbek Makhashev. The meeting took place in secret and journalists learned of it only after Makhashev had returned home. Kulikov said Makhashev had come to Moscow at his invitation in... MORE

The Conciliatory Commission on the Russian 1997 federal budget, made up of representatives from the legislative and executive branches, has yet to reach a consensus. After its first meeting on October 30, Russian finance minister Aleksandr Livshits told reporters that the government is ready to... MORE

Reacting to the Council of Europe's recently expressed concern that Belarus might not rid itself of the remaining ex-Soviet strategic nuclear missiles on its territory by the end of 1996, as it had promised, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov told a Minsk news conference yesterday... MORE

Lt. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian General Staff's International Military Cooperation Directorate, told a Moscow briefing yesterday that Russia plans to resume "military-technical cooperation" with Georgia. Moscow had suspended cooperation because of the Georgian parliament's refusal to ratify the agreement on Russian bases... MORE

According to Lt. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian General Staff's International Military Cooperation Directorate, participants of the October 29 meeting in Dushanbe of CIS countries' defense ministers had concluded that "the actions of the USA and other countries are having an extremely negative... MORE

Russian Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev and International Affairs Committee chairman Vladimir Lukin have appealed to President Boris Yeltsin to declare a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia. (NTV, October 29) When Russia joined the Council of Europe in February, it undertook to abolish the... MORE

Criminal charges against Chechen opposition leaders Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Aslan Maskhadov, and Movladi Udugov may soon be canceled. According to Duma Deputy Speaker Mikhail Gutsiriyev, the Duma at its next session on November 10 will debate an amnesty for participants in armed conflicts in Chechnya. The... MORE

NATO secretary-general Javier Solana yesterday denied that the Western alliance seeks to sign a cooperation agreement with Moscow by the end of this year. A Russian news agency had quoted Solana to that affect a day earlier. (See Monitor, October 30) In remarks made during... MORE