An explosive device went off yesterday in an apartment block in the prestigious Krylatskoye region on the west side of Moscow where President Boris Yeltsin and other leading officials live. No one was injured. Police said hooligans, not terrorists, probably staged the explosion. (Interfax, Reuters,... MORE

A top Russian Trade Ministry official said yesterday that North Korea's large debt to Russia has become a significant impediment to the resuscitation of strong trade links between the two countries. Despite owing Moscow some $4.5 billion, the official said, Pyongyang has been in no... MORE

The Japanese government announced yesterday that Takehiro Togo would succeed Koji Watanabe as Japan's ambassador to Russia. The change, to take effect on August 1, comes amid reports that Russia's ambassador to Japan, Ludvic Chizhov, is himself soon to be replaced by Aleksandr Panov, currently... MORE

Foreign and security ministers from the Group of Seven (G-7) countries and Russia, meeting yesterday in Paris, approved a package of 25 measures aimed at combating international terrorism. The measures include plans for an international convention on terrorist acts, pledges to reinforce police cooperation and... MORE

At a policy meeting yesterday, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov termed the situation in Tajikistan "alarming" and necessitating Russian troops to stop "waves of Islamic extremism." (Itar-Tass, July 29) This assessment, responsible in part for generating Russia's military intervention in Tajikistan, does not seem to... MORE

In Dushanbe yesterday, the pro-regime chairman of the Tajik academy of sciences and of the society for relations with Tajiks abroad, Muhammad Osimov, was assassinated by unidentified gunmen. The assassination recalls that of the rector of the medical university and another prominent doctor last May.... MORE

Tajik Defense Ministry officers said yesterday on background that their troops alone have lost at least 200 killed in the last two months of fighting. Tajikistan's first deputy minister of internal affairs, the Russian Maj. General Gennady Blinov, declined to estimate the losses of internal... MORE

The chairman of the Constitutional Court, Vladimir Tumanov, has squelched Yeltsin's plan to speed up the appointment of the new government. Yeltsin had already reached tentative agreement with Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev that he would submit his choice of prime minister (Viktor Chernomyrdin) to the... MORE

Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko told the country on television last night that he intends to stay in office for two more terms after the expiration of his first. He announced that he is about to ban rallies and demonstrations for the rest of the summer... MORE

Behind the scenes in Moscow, maneuvering continues over the formation of the new government. Nothing is reaching the public other than rumors and unconfirmed speculation. After a meeting yesterday between Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and presidential Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Chubais, tight-lipped government sources said only that... MORE