Belarusan parliament leaders managed last weekend to publish in an independent newspaper the parliament's draft constitutional amendments and ballot propositions, to be submitted to a national referendum concurrent with the parliamentary byelections scheduled for November 27. The amendments would abolish the institution of the presidency,... MORE

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Uzbekistan, Hennady Udovenko and Abdulaziz Komilov, signed yesterday in Tashkent an agreement on the coordination of the two countries' policies on CIS issues, an area where their positions "fully coincide." Udovenko told the press that Ukraine and Uzbekistan oppose... MORE

A delegation of U.S. State Department and National Security Council officials has completed a week-long tour of the Baltic capitals to present the Baltic Action Plan, drafted under the guidance of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and meant to alleviate the Baltic states' security... MORE

Russian security council secretary Aleksandr Lebed is in Chechnya again today to meet with the commander of federal forces in the region, Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, and with the chief-of-staff of the Chechen opposition, Aslan Maskhadov. Two main items are on his agenda. One is the... MORE

With 16,000 electric power workers on indefinite strike in Primorsky krai, the Kremlin upped the ante yesterday in its battle with the independent-minded governor of the Far Eastern region. President Yeltsin's press secretary announced that the presidential administration is "waiting" for Governor Yevgeni Nazdratenko to... MORE

The commander-in-chief of Russia's Air Force said on September 15 that his troops could be cut by up to 10 percent without compromising national security and that he himself was a "zealous proponent of reductions in the armed forces." But Army Gen. Petr Deinekin also... MORE

Russian defense enterprises from the Urals and Siberia have joined forces in an effort to market their own weapons abroad. Representatives of the defense firms are scheduled to meet this week in Omsk, where they will submit a package of proposals to leaders of two... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin is to remain in the hospital for the rest of this week for tests prior to heart surgery planned at the end of the month, a Kremlin spokesman said today. (BBC World Service, September 17) Lebed to NATO.

Aleksandr Lebed will visit NATO headquarters in Brussels in October to discuss NATO's eastward expansion. A spokesman for the Russian security supremo said Lebed would lay out his belief that the expansion could trigger "a new Cold War" in Europe. (BBC World Service, September 17)... MORE

A gunman who seized a passenger bus at the airport of the Dagestani capital Makhachkala late Monday released his four hostages in Khasavyurt after about 4.5 hours of captivity. One was a Dagestani politician who had offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the... MORE