German officials were close-mouthed yesterday about both the circumstances that underlay Chancellor Helmut Kohl's upcoming visit to Russia and the topics that he and Russian president Boris Yeltsin plan to discuss. The officials suggested that the hastily-arranged visit would be an informal one "without much... MORE

The latest wrangle between Japan and Russia over fishing rights near the disputed Kuril Islands heated up yesterday. On August 28 Russian patrol boats fired on two Japanese ships fishing in waters off northeastern Japan near the southern Kuril Islands, wounding two of the Japanese... MORE

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service yesterday denied media reports that one of its field agents had cleared the way for the August 16 escape from Afghanistan of Russian hostages by surreptitiously passing some $3 million to the Taliban rebels holding them. A spokesman said that the... MORE

German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel met in Leipzig with the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian foreign ministers and assured them of Germany's support for Baltic accession to the European Union and NATO. Kinkel came out against any "gray zone" of lesser security in the Baltic region... MORE

Russia's chief security official, Aleksandr Lebed, flew this morning to Dagestan and arrived in the town of Kasavyurt on the Chechnya border for talks with Chechen leaders Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and Aslan Maskhadov. Lebed is carrying a draft outline of a plan for a political settlement... MORE

Russia's newly-named Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gennady Tarasov, said yesterday that Russia and Egypt are united in their support for the reelection of UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The announcement followed talks in Cairo on August 26 between foreign ministry officials from the two countries. The... MORE

Tajik presidential and military officials said yesterday that government troops had that day regained the town of Childara along with a section of the country's sole East-West highway. Belatedly acknowledging that the opposition forces had captured the area August 23, the officials said that the... MORE

U.S. Enrichment Corp., the government-owned corporation charged in 1993 with buying and reselling as civilian nuclear reactor fuel much of Russia's military stockpile of uranium, may be putting its own financial interests ahead of U.S. national security. According to a report in yesterday's New York... MORE

On a two-day visit to Tehran, Azerbaijani foreign minister Hassan Hassanov conferred with Iran's president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, parliament chairman Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and oil minister Gholam Reza Aqazadeh. The agenda included Iran's participation with a 10 percent stake in... MORE

The full extent of the Russian military debacle this month is slowly becoming apparent. The Russian command yesterday upped its "interim" casualty toll for August 6 through 22 in Grozny alone to 510 killed and at least 1,400 wounded. The command said that the Chechens... MORE