Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko yesterday threatened again to "take measures" and "defend the people" if the Constitutional Court sides with the parliament by ruling that the referendum planned for November 24 contravenes the existing constitution. Escalating the war of nerves, Lukashenko warned the justices against... MORE

On October 29-30 a Russian delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Valery Serov and the naval commander-in-chief, Adm. Feliks Gromov, held talks in Sevastopol and Feodosia with Ukrainian counterparts. The talks focused on the partition of the Black Sea Fleet's coastal assets and on the... MORE

The Canadian company Nelson Gold Corp. is indefinitely suspending, effective today, its participation in the Zeravshan Gold joint venture in Jilau, northwestern Tajikistan. Nelson Gold's affiliate Commonwealth and British Minerals has a 49 percent share (to the Tajik government's 51 percent) in that gold-mining and... MORE

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazerbaev yesterday appointed Mukhtar Altynbaev as defense minister, replacing Col. Gen. Alibek Kasimov. Altynbaev had been chief of the air force. Kasimov was said to have left "for health reasons." The previous day, Nazerbaev appointed Maj. Gen. Beksultan Sarsekov secretary of the... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has reacted with anger to yesterday's threat by Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev to boycott meetings of the new "permanent four" consultative body, which was due to meet today for the first time. Complaining that the row threatens to disrupt plans... MORE

Seleznev's opposition to the Berezovsky appointment was applauded by Gennady Zyuganov on behalf of the Communist faction in the Duma. Other Duma faction leaders also deplored the appointment, including leaders of the Yabloko and "Russia is Our Home" deputy groups. But some non-Communist Duma leaders... MORE

U.S. undersecretary of state Lynn Davis will not be flying to Geneva today as planned to sign a "partial agreement" with her Russian counterpart on how to distinguish missiles capable of shooting down battlefield ballistic missiles from those that can down strategic missiles because the... MORE

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, fresh from visits to Syria and Lebanon, arrived in Egypt yesterday and immediately called upon Israel to adhere to the "land for peace" principle agreed to at the 1991 Madrid peace summit. A failure to observe that principle could provoke... MORE

The Russian government has backed down from its threat to start bankruptcy proceedings against the KamAZ truck plant for alleged non-payment of federal taxes. The government of the Republic of Tatarstan, where KamAZ is based, had responded furiously to the Kremlin's threat, describing it as... MORE

A representative of the Russian General Staff, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Kulakov, said yesterday that the Defense Ministry was proposing the creation of a military police force to serve as the single law-enforcement structure for all of Russia's military and armed forces. He estimated that some... MORE